Sunday, April 26, 2020

The Miracle And The Mind: Spiritual Specialness

However, if God exists, He created the natural laws, so it should be not a problem for Him to maneuver beyond or outside these laws, nor can He be restrained by these laws. Jesus used miracles as signs to his credentials because the Son of God. Without miracles it could be exceptionally difficult to believe His claims. As John wrote in John 20:30-31:"Jesus'disciples saw Him do additional other miraculous signs besides the   a course in miracles    ones recorded in this book. But they are written so that you may think that Jesus could be the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in Him you may have life."Observe that the miracles of Jesus not just showed His power over nature, but also revealed His method of ministry: helping others, talking to authority, and connecting with people. The keyword is compassion.Virtually all His miracles were driven by compassion. He healed individuals who sought His help. He raised the dead to comfort grieving families. He quieted storms to calm the fears of His friends. He fed multitudes to avert their hunger. Don't don't notice that Jesus never performed magic for Their own benefit or gain. The miracles aided others, not Him. On five occasions Jesus performed a miracle as an indication solely for the disciples: walking on water; cursing of the fig tree; both miraculous catches of fish by the disciples; and the coin for the temple tax. Other miracles sprang from compassion for the people around Him. The New Testament gospels record thirty-five miracles. Just one miracle (the feeding of the five thousand) is described in every gospel. About half the miracles are recorded in two or more of the gospels. Needlessly to say, many, eleven in reality, are shared between all the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), but only seven are recorded in mere two of the three synoptic accounts. Two miracles in John also come in one or more of the synoptic gospels. Matthew has three unique miracles, Mark has two, while Luke and John each record six.

This distribution yet again demonstrates Matthew, Mark, and Luke are personal testimonies. Even Mark, the gospel "copied" by Matthew and Luke, has two miracles not mentioned in the other two. Why are they omitted if Matthew and Luke leaned on Mark as their primary source because the synoptic theory claims?

The healing miracles are easy targets for critics. Many simply insist that the healed person was not ill, the individual may be "self-healed" (the "power of positive thinking") or there may even have been a kind of hypnosis and other "magic." Obviously our ancestors did not need our understanding of science, but they were not stupid either! Even an initial century uneducated Jew could distinguish between a magician's trick and a genuine miracle. They'd have identified a phony healing. The healed individuals were not selected from the audience willingly participating in a performance. They certainly were locals, known by town due to their handicaps, perhaps long-term blindness or injury. Resurrecting someone moments after his death would suggest he hadn't actually died. Lazarus, however, was in the grave four days (John 11:39: "'But, Lord,' said Martha, the sister of the dead man,'by this time there's a poor odor, for he has been there four days.' "), so it's possible to hardly argue that "he wasn't really dead." Still, from an evidence perspective, probably the most awesome confirmations of Jesus'deity are the character miracles. There is just no explanation for walking on water, calming a storm, feeding huge crowds from an individual lunch box, or turning water into wine. Such events are real miracles and they show Jesus'divine power. Keep in mind that such miracles haven't been claimed by other professed miracle workers. Only Jesus has displayed such power. Look closely at the nature miracles and probe them for the characteristics for a real miracle. We learn:

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