We live in an age of scientific explanation where every effect has a discoverable cause. Yet we worship an almighty, all-knowing, and all-good God who does miracles on nearly every page of the Bible. How can we worship God with our minds, including rigorous scientific thinking, while believing that God supernaturally intervenes?
We live in an age of scientific explanation where every effect has a discoverable cause. Yet we worship an almighty, all-knowing, and all-good God who does miracles on nearly every page of the Bible. How can we worship God with our minds, including rigorous scientific thinking, while believing that God supernaturally intervenes?
To develop discernment and hope as we trust God's goodness for both his ordinary and supernatural provision for our lives.
In his two-volume set called Miracles, Craig Keener documents hundreds of miracles from around the world. As he analyzes the data, he claims that "Hundreds of millions of people worldwide claim to have experienced or witnessed what they believe are miracles."
Are you skeptical of all miracle claims? Then how do you account for the hundreds of millions of testimonies to the contrary?
Or do you believe God does miracles today? Then why hasn't God healed so many who needed his intervention?
As I write this, I'm wearing glasses to see the screen. If I couldn't afford them, I suppose I'd be praying to God to improve my sight. But I can afford them, so I don't ask God to miraculously restore my eyesight. Do we only turn to miracles when money and medicine can't solve our problems?
What does it mean to live by faith if so much of our lives are indistinguishable from how anyone else would manage their day-to-day concerns?
When I served as a campus minister at Harvard, I was invited to an event with a mix of professors and graduate students. As I talked with an atheist professor in the sciences, he told me he'd never seen any evidence of God in his laboratory.
As I walked home, I felt defeated. Don't you sometimes feel weird to tell someone that your life has been reordered by a dead man who came back to life?
In a scientific age, it's uncomfortable to believe that God does miracles.
According to Our World In Data, about 50,000 people a day die from heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular diseases. So why does God only heal a couple of them?
Experiencing a miracle can bring someone to Jesus. But the absence of miracles can leave us questioning God's goodness, or even his existence.
The tension we feel between the scientific and the supernatural is real. Perhaps the foremost problem comes from our default starting point. When our frame of reference is, "What has God done for me lately?" then the absence of miracles seems terribly problematic. But God is not a genie in a bottle. He is the Sovereign Creator, The Lord of Lords, and The Holy One.
The greatest miracle of all time, besides Creation itself, is the resurrection of Jesus. This clues us into a crucial point. In the Scriptures, a miracle is a sign. The purpose of a miracle isn't to make us healthy and wealthy but to persuade us that Jesus is the King of all Creation.
God does not approve of buying and selling his power. But televangelists rake in tens of millions of dollars a year. There's a reputational and financial incentive to lie about miracles. So, we have good reason to be suspicious of these claims.
What about the conflict between science and miracles? The Christian starting point is that God made everything, loves his Creation, and wants to help us. If God can become Incarnate, there's no logical problem with him restoring sight to a blind person.
How can we identify the redemptive work of God? In contrast to the self-promotional materialism of religious hucksters, we remember that God is one. We will never see his power and glory displayed in a manner that is inconsistent with his goodness and humility.
Theologians call this the already-not-yet tension. Yes, God is already at work, but no, he has not yet done all he has promised. This paradox cultivates dependence and humility before God, care and service between brothers and sisters in Christ, and a stronger yearning for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
The Japanese art of kintsugi is a tradition of mending broken pottery with colored lacquer. It communicates that cracked pottery is not to be discarded, but lovingly mended and celebrated.
What images have you seen that remind you of both the brokenness and restoration of God's Creation?
A man named Simon had previously practiced sorcery in that city and amazed the Samaritan people, while claiming to be somebody great... When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, "Give me this power also so that anyone I lay hands on may receive the Holy Spirit." But Peter told him, "May your silver be destroyed with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this matter, because your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours."
Compare and contrast Simon with Peter and John.
How does Peter distinguish between authentic spiritual power and its counterfeit?
Think of some well-known Christian leaders. How do you discern whether their hearts are right before God?
What does this passage teach about the relationship between money and miracles?
Triune God of love, I know you work all things together for our good. That's what makes it so hard to understand why you don't intervene, even for your most committed disciples, when they need you the most. Why do you allow us to suffer so much, for so long, for no apparent reason? You died on the cross for our sins; is it too much to ask that you do much smaller miracles?
For all you have done, I give you thanks. Give me discernment, hope, and faith as I trust you. Protect me from both gullibility and cynicism. Help me to live with confidence that one day you will defeat death, and make all things right.
On a scale of 1-10, what's your default posture toward miracles? (1=Totally skeptical, 10=God does miracles all the time).
What, if anything, makes it hard for you to believe in miracles?
Has the absence of a miracle ever challenged your belief in God's existence or goodness?
Have you ever experienced a miracle? What did God do?
How will you develop discernment in evaluating miraculous claims?
How will you develop trust in evaluating miracle claims?
What's one miracle you want to ask God for?
What's one way you could be an answer to someone else's prayers?
If God did the miracle you've been hoping for, what would change about how you served God? Why not serve God like that, whether or not he does what you've been asking?
Get a daily, five-minute Bible study to discuss with a friend.