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Miracles today

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Cy:
Hi all,

Let's talk about miracles.
First, I think we can all agree that life itself, and all that means is a miracle, that's a given, so let's talk more specifically.

When Jesus and his "first gen" disciples performed miracles, no one argued that he performed them, not even his enemies, they just tried to steal his glory. I've never traveled outside of N. America to a third world nation so my perspective is limited, but it seems to me that in America we call a lot of things miracles, that can easily be reconciled. That's not to say God isn't in all creation, and therefore in all situations, but a cold that gets healed 2 weeks after someone says a prayer can hardly be the kind of miracle, even the Pharasies recognized as undeniable. Jesus never worked with the doctors of the day, he waited until the patient was dead....

I personally have never seen someone, confirmed dead for 4 days, raised, or an amputated leg restored, etc. and I'd like to know if those kinds of undeniable miracles still follow the preaching of the gospel, or if they were only supposed to follow those that were instrumental in establishing the early church and all the scriptures.

I recently listened to a terrible story where a wife had massive instestinal failure, was supposed to die, and underwent extensive surgery, two days later the surgeon looked at her and said, "those aren't the intestines I operated on, God must have given her new ones", then a day later those "new" intestines collapsed and her pastor husband spent months nursing her back to health, via introvenous feeding and slow inflation of the intestines. She is alive and well today. Now that's a horrible situation no doubt, but I'm not sure if calling it a miracle is appropriate. See what I mean? I just can't picture Jesus or Paul healing that way.

There's so much "Christian Physic readings" via "personal prophesy and other seriously diluted gifts of the Spirit like miracles, that it's hard to believe much of anyone.

What are these greater things that were to follow Christ's Ascension?

Does anyone have any solid scripture or personal experience on this?

-Cy

mcmiller:
Hello Cy,
As an engineer and scientist I rely on the law of cause and effect to do my work.  Cause and effect is another way of stating the biblical principle of sowing and reaping.  That said, to me, any physical effect that can be tied to a physical cause is not a miracle, it's just the way things work.  A miracle, to my reckoning, is when God steps in and violates the law of cause and effect.  A good case in point is when Jesus changed plain water into fine wine.  There is no known natural series of events that would cause such a thing to happen.  If it did, we would be up to our armpits in wine every time we went swimming in a lake.  The same thing is true with healings and raising from the dead.  Recovery from illness is something that God put in us, and in most cases we recover naturally.  In the cases of things like blindness or leprosy, which Jesus healed, these were miracles because these illness are not naturally healed by the body.  Jesus intervened outside of the law of cause and effect to bring about healing that was unmistakably miraculous.

Hope this helps.

Mark

shibboleth:
I am not an engineer or a scientist, but I am a skeptic. If you read teh accounts of Jesus performing miracles in the Bible, you will find some traits common to them all.
1. Jesus NEVER rented a building for a public show of miracles. His miracles were spontaneous sick people came to him with every conceivalble illness. ( Faith {fake} healers hand pick who comes on stage. Many people in wheelchairs can waslk, and people who are "deaf" can hear.
2. Anyone healed by Jesus, was healed. I don't see anywhere in the scriptures that a healed person got his disease again because he "lost his faith."  ( Faith healers never verify that the people they "heal" are healed. Many people who were healed by Oral Roberts, Benny Hinn, Leroy Jenkins, Kathryn Kuhlman, etc. died later. Or, many of them went back to their Drs. for treatment.
3. There are a few ministries who have offered much money for proof of one miracles. They still have their money.
4. If someone takes medicine or has an operation, that is not a miracles. So many of these "healed" people have had operations and take medicine. I think, if someone would sue Benny Hinn for false advertising, he just might be shut down. I wonder if he pays people hush money?
5. As terrible as it is to watch a loved one suffer from an illness, it is far worse to watch them suffer at the hands of a fake healer who won't have anything to do with people who are paralyed. Let them heal a truly paralyzed person and I might believe they aren't total phony hypocrites.

Cy:
See where I struggle isn't so much with the Big TV phonies, They are the WWF of Christian TV, and there will always be feeble minded people that have an unquenchable need to believe in them and in the National Enquirer.

I have watched far greater numbers of local churches genuinely believe will all their hearts, that signs and wonders would follow their testimony as it did the disciples, and they'll credit any deemed positive occurance, a miracle, because they want it so badly. They say the bible commands them to lay hands on and pray for the sick, and even the dead, but I just haven't seen the "poof" miracles that are supposed to accompany such actions.

I'd love to KNOW that God is still performing REAL miracles today, that would be great, but I just personally haven't seen it, and all my christian friends get offended that I would even question the "miraculously healed cancer" that was healed by the end of their chemo/radiation treatments.

There is no doubt that everyone Jesus healed and raised from the dead, has since died (although personally I doubt from the same thing they were originally healed from). So being granted a miracle isn't a grant of immortality, it was just to demonstrate the merit of the message of Christ, and maybe to destroy the works of the enemy. Christ was being manifest.

Does anyone see that Jesus was saying that the greater things that would be done, extend to today, or were just during that "first gen" of believers, to validate the scriptures? When signs and wonders followed the message of the gospel as a witness, was that a witness of that message or is it supposed to continue as a witness for the evangelists of today?

alucard:
i deleted my post becuase i'd prefer not to talk about this anymore

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