Category Archives: Miracles

Genesis 22 – “Abraham, kill your son”

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The account (in Genesis 22) of how God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, is one of the most problematic in the whole of scripture.  It seems to teach that blind, irrational faith is a ‘good thing’, even the result is that you are willing to slaughter a member of your own family because you think that God has told you to do it.  Of, course, God prevented Abraham from killing Isaac in the end (Gen 22:12), but that does not seem to get us off the hook: we presume that Abraham would have gone through with the terrible deed if God had not intervened.…

Tom Wright doesn’t believe in miracles…

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…and I (sort of) agree with him!

In the course of a wide-ranging interview with Justin Brierley on Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable show, Tom Wright explained why he’s uncomfortable with the word ‘miracle’, as popularly understood.  ‘Let’s give up the word “miracle”,’ he said,

The word comes from an Epicurean or deistic worldview which envisages a God who is outside the process and occasionally reaches in, does something funny, and then pushes off again.  That’s not what the New Testament is talking about.  

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Hume and the question of miracles

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For many of today’s sceptics, David Hume clinched it: miracles don’t happen.  Miracles (if they occurred) would be violations of the laws of nature, and we know from experience that the laws of natures are not violated.

There are a number of problems with this argument, popular though it is.  For one thing, Hume was himself inconsistent regarding the ‘laws of nature’.  He argues elsewhere that even though we have observed the sun to rise every morning for thousands of years, we cannot infer that it will rise again tomorrow morning.…

One language, two religions

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It was J. Gresham Machen, in Christianity and Liberalism, who commented that thorough-going theological liberalism is actually a different religion from orthodox Christianity.  It is, in fact, a different kind of religion.

This observation was borne out in a recent discussion on Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable? show between Ben Witherington III and Stephen Thornton.  Ben is an evangelical biblical scholar, Stephen a retired URC minister of liberal persuasion.

The topic under consideration was the narratives of Jesus’ birth as recorded in Matthew and Luke. …

Miracles yesterday and today

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Many Christians must have wondered: If so many miracles are recorded in the pages of the New Testament, why are few (if any) witnessed today?  For sceptics, the answer is that the New Testament accounts of miracles cannot be believed.  For some believers, the answer is that although the New Testament accounts can be believed, the gift of miracles ceased when the canon of Scripture was completed.

New Testament scholar Craig Keener has recently published a work that bids fair to blow both the sceptical and the ultra-conservative views right out of the water. …

The Gospel miracles

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For many people, the miracle-stories of the Gospels present the chief difficulty in the way of accepting those writings as historically reliable.

Since these miracle-stories are related by authors who can be shown on other grounds to be trustworthy, then they are worthy at least of serious attention by historians.

The Gospels do not ask us to belief in ridiculous miracles; they are precisely the kinds of work that might be expected from such a person as Jesus is represented to be.…

Poor Joseph?

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St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, New Zealand, has put up a billboard depicting a dejected-looking Joseph beside Mary in bed, beneath the caption, ‘Poor Joseph.  God was a hard act to follow.’

The aim, according to the church’s vicar, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, is to provoke debate, to ‘challenge stereotypes’ about the birth of Jesus, to lampoon the literal interpretation of the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth.

What we’re trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about. 
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Sickness and healing

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Donald Bridge has some helpful things to say on this subject:-

1. Sickness is related to sin and to the fall. That does not mean that in individual illness is related to an individual sin. But it does mean that in broad terms, sickness is an enemy and a work of the Enemy. The idea of ‘wholeness’, on the other hand, is closely related to biblical concepts of holiness and of salvation.

2. Holy living is likely to lead to healthy living.…

The exceptionality of miraculous healing

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Reflection of the subject of miraculous healing has led me to the conclusion that such healing should be considered really possible, yet exceptional.  The rationale for such an approach is well put by Craig Blomberg in the article ‘Healing’ in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels.  He writes as follows:-

Though some would argue that there is healing in the atonement (Mt 8:17), clearly no one receives full physical healing until the life to come, since all die.

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Is healing in the atonement?

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Physical sickness came as a result of the fall and the subsequent curse, and leads eventually to physical death.  By his atoning death, Christ lifted that curse, Isa 53:4f, and there is consequently both spiritual healing (1 Pet 2:24), and physical healing (Mt 8:16-17) in the atonement.  Christ purchased for us complete freedom not only from sin, but also from bodily infirmity; however, the full possession of these benefits will not be ours until he returns, 1 Cor 15:23.…