No Bad Questions Q&A: Miracles?

Hey. This is Pastor Jeff Bradford from Christ the King Presbyterian Church. Every week on social media, I'm engaging a question sent in by somebody from our congregation about issues related to faith and unbelief.

This week, we're going to look at the question of how can otherwise thinking Christians believe in miracles? Things like Jesus walking on water or Jonah being swallowed by a whale or the sun standing still in the sky. It's a great question.

I want to point out that the word "miracle" is not actually in the Bible. The word that we translate as miracle comes from the Latin, which just means something that evokes wonder. There are four words used in the Bible that are kind of rendered in a lot of translations as miracle: works, wonders, power, and signs. Those are helpful for us to think about because miracles as such in the Bible are not meant to be magic tricks. They are not meant to just be raw displays of power that Jesus does or that God does to kind of flex or show off or make people shocked. They have a purpose.

The Purpose of Miracles

The gospel writer John most famously calls a lot of the things that Jesus performs signs—messianic signs. Like a road sign, they are meant to tell a story or testify to something. A lot of Jesus's signs are meant to show us how the world was intended to be. So it's not so much a disruption of the natural order as it's a restoration of the natural order.

When Jesus heals the blind or drives out demons or deals with those who are sick and cures leprosy, those messianic signs are meant to testify to the reality of both who he is and that his message is from God. But also, this is what he came to do. Jesus came to put things right.

Other signs appear throughout the Bible, but they're not spread evenly over the course of the Bible. What we think of as miracles appear at several moments in what we call redemptive history. They appear at times when particularly the people of God and the message of God were being threatened, and they attest to the reality of God and the reality of God's word in those moments.

For example, there are a number of miracles associated with Elijah and Elisha during a really dark time period in Israel's history, where people's appreciation for and pursuit of God, listening to the prophets of God, seeking out God's word—all that was waning. The king and queen of Israel at the time were driving the nation away from Yahweh toward other gods. And so Elijah's miracles are attesting to the reality: this is the God that you should listen to. The famous standoff between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel and the fire that comes down from heaven—yes, we actually believe that.

These were given at different points in redemptive history. They're not constant. We don't expect them all the time. But they're given to highlight that God is real and that his word is true. They don't appear in other places and times during redemptive history, and we don't expect miracles to continue all the time today.

God does answer our prayers and does sometimes heal people, for example. God does sometimes give—particularly I find this in countries where they're closed to Christianity—visions and dreams given to people that attest to the reality of who God is. But it's not a constant. Christians aren't looking for miracles under every rock and behind every bush.

Miracles are always meant as signs to point us to God. And so that's what our attention is really supposed to be focused on: Who is God? How do we know him? That's the main point.

So I hope that's helpful. If you have other questions, please continue to submit these at questions@ctkrally.org. Thanks for tuning in.