Are miracles meant to be everyday occurrences?

We have no reason to think that God will not, still less cannot, grant miracles in our own day. But before we conclude that they ought to be everyday occurrences, we might pause to consider that:-
- in the Bible, ‘miracles clustered round the principal organs of revelation at fresh epochs of revelation, particularly Moses the lawgiver, the new prophetic witness spearheaded by Elijah and Elisha, the Messianic ministry of Jesus, and the apostles, so that Paul referred to his miracles as “the things that mark an apostle”.’ (Stott)
- specifically, we should see the miracles that followed the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit as having unique frequency and intensity. How many cases of tongues-speaking, since the Day of Pentecost, for example, have involved the miraculous acquisition of foreign languages (Acts 2:4,8ff).
- miracles are of various types and degrees. Some, for example, may be regarded as ‘miracles of timing’, in which an event occurs that is explainable by ordinary causes, but the timing is of particular significance. Others could be seen as intensifications of processes otherwise best regarded as ‘natural’. Still others (supremely the resurrection of Jesus) admit of no natural explanation, but are clearly supernatural.
- it would be wrong to attempt to draw too definite a line between ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ events; between between God’s providential ordering of all things and his more direct actions. We should not suppose that some events are attributable to God, while assuming that he has nothing to with others. This very passage insists that God is Lord of all.
- miracles may be thought of as anticipations of God’s renewal of creation, of which the first act was Christ’s resurrection. Thus, miracles share in the ‘already/not yet’ of the present age.
- historically, miracles are quite well attested, particularly during times of spiritual renewal.
- many contemporary claims to miracles – for example, by healing evangelists – are exaggerated (or misguided, or fraudulent). There may well be a core of validity in the claims made by, or on behalf of, such practitioners, but, sadly, these claims are too often tarnished by impurity of doctrine or of life. Indeed, Scripture itself prompts us to expect counterfeit miracles.
- In his landmark study of miracles, Craig Keener has estimated that around 200,000,000 people in the world today claim to have experienced or witnessed a miracle. Only a totally irrational scepticism finds it possible to dismiss all of these as mistaken or fraudulent claims.
- Could it be that for many reasons and in many different ways, we do not live close enough to God to experience many (or any) miracles)?
- a world in which miracles took place ‘for the asking’ would be a very different world than that one that we inhabit. In would be one in which scientific enquiry was impossible, where risks could be heedlessly taken (because their effects could always be reversed). The mechanics of such a world would reflect on its Creator, who in his wisdom has determined that things will generally work in a orderly and predictable manner.
- there may be special situations in which miracles are particularly appropriate today, ‘for example, on the frontiers of mission and in an atmosphere of pervasive unbelief which calls for a power encounter between Christ and Antichrist. But Scripture itself suggests that these will be special cases, rather than “a part of daily life”.’ (Stott)
- there does appear to be evidence from the life of Jesus himself that an atmosphere of unbelief reduced the likelihood of miracles being granted (Mt 13:58; Mk 6:5).
- we have seen too many instances in which a loved one becomes terminally ill, and those praying for that person become convinced that the individual will be healed, only for that person to die. The dangers are manifold: inhibit an appropriate acceptance of and preparation for death (which we must all experience, until Christ returns); treat death as something to be avoided at all costs; often involve a misunderstanding of God’s guidance (including a misappropriation of some Bible verse or other); bring the Christian witness to the gospel and to the power of prayer into disrepute); lead to ‘spiritual disappointment’ in those who had thought that God would grant a miracle, only to discover that he has not; question their own faith (“If only we’d believed more strongly…”).
- If we are to recover belief in and exercise of, ‘gifts of healings’, then perhaps we should pray with equal fervency for gifts of knowledge and prophecy. Such gifts, exercised alongside that of miracle-working, should help us to see that God not only can intervene supernaturally; but that he will in this instance.