Do you believe in miracles?

[Grafted In]

Why should you be reluctant? God has not changed. Only men and the doctrines of men have changed.

Please elaborate.
That, you believe, has limited God's ability to be God?

 

[Postvieww]

Please elaborate.
That, you believe, has limited God's ability to be God?

You should clarify your question. I in no way believe God is limited.

 

[Grafted In]

You should clarify your question. I in no way believe God is limited.

Excellent

 

[The Liturgist]

I'm reluctant to respond to this as I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but there has been no lack of miracles even to this day throughout the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

As an aside I once saw a post somewhere suggesting that rather than posting with specific scriptural references, we ought to make references to the liturgy for specific days in order to encourage people to read the propers for that day including the Scripture, because even in the Western church such as Anglicanism or Lutheranism there is a great deal of Apostolic doctrinal content from before the Great Schism embedded in the Collects, and in Orthodoxy we have the added advantage of the hymns from Orthros, Vespers or the All Night Vigils that many Slavonic churches celebrate, which I strongly prefer (i am upset about the fact that some OCA parishes have been cutting back on All Night Vigils in favor of just doing Vespers on Saturday and moving Matins to Sunday morning, since this will reduce attendance of the Office, and since the Old Testament prophecies are read at Vespers, fewer people will hear them, and it will drastically decrease awareness of the content of Compline and Prime, and it might also put pressure on the Third and Sixth Hours which provide a useful time for the priest to hear confessions from those unable to attend Vigils, and furthermore it is the way things were traditionally done in the Slavonic parishes of the Metropolia. ROCOR can always be relied upon to protect the more traditional forms of the Orthodox liturgy in terms of Slavic practices, although unfortunately for traditional Greek liturgies one really has to go to Jerusalem or Mount Athos (or the monasteries of Elder Ephrem, although these are still on the Revised Julian Calendar which I dislike due to problems such as the Apostles Fast disappearing in some years and the Kyriopascha being an impossibility).

 

[The Liturgist]

Name one time someone came to Jesus or the Apostles, asked for healing and were told wait, no or it is not God’s will

I don’t think our friend Prodromos said that, and if he did I would object to it, since the idea of God refusing to heal the illness or rather deliver from suffering through healing or other means of deliverance is unthinkable to me (of course, in some cases, the means by which he delivers us from evil might not be the precise means of deliverance we asked for). Our God is of infinite love and mercy, and has assured us that even we, being evil, would respond to the requests of our children for food, and He, being infinitely good, will answer our pleas with infinitely more love.

Rather, what I believe (and correct me @prodromos if I am in error on any of this) was written was that disease and hardship were permitted to exist (I would have said not prevented from existing), for example, in the case of St. Paul, as a means of sanctification, but also that God is pleased to pour out His abundant grace in healing people, which He did in His incarnation, and the powers of healing which were granted to the Apostles and the Church as a whole, and indeed we are instructed in the Epistle of St. James to anoint the sick with oil which in the Orthodox Church we do, and I have seen firsthand miraculous healings resulting from this (the Roman Catholics for some reason decided only to anoint those in extremis, that is to say, those at risk of death, who usually die, but the Orthodox will anoint anyone who is sick, and also, in accordance with the instructions of Christ our True God in Matthew 6:7 we anoint the entire congregation at the end of Great Lent or on Holy Wednesday before the most severe fast of Great and Holy Friday happens, and also at other times of year, for example, if the presbyter or bishop discerns the people require the benefits of Holy Unction.

We also bless Holy Water, particularly on Theophany which was last Sunday for churches on the Julian Calendar, which is used for healing, and of course the Eucharist, whose healing attributes, like those of Holy Unction, I can also attest to.*

*I only discuss specifics privately as these involve myself, and relatives, and medical histories and I don’t want to plaster the exact anatomical details of what was wrong and what happened all over the Internet particularly in the case of my relatives. But the miraclous deliverance of those who are sick is real and I can attest to it.

I would assume you yourself as a Pentecostal have seen such healings delivered through prayer or the laying on of hands or perhaps other means - I don’t know if Pentecostals make use of the anointing of the sick with oil. And while there are some things in the Charismatic movement or Pentecostal movement which we might possibly disagree about just as there are aspects of my church we disagree about, I do believe that if someone is praying in the name of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ for deliverance from evil whether illness or of another form, God responds, and in many cases He responds in a manner that is obviously miraculous, and it should be celebrated.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I don’t think our friend Prodromos said that, and if he did I would object to it, since the idea of God refusing to heal the illness or rather deliver from suffering through healing or other means of deliverance is unthinkable to me (of course, in some cases, the means by which he delivers us from evil might not be the precise means of deliverance we asked for). Our God is of infinite love and mercy, and has assured us that even we, being evil, would respond to the requests of our children for food, and He, being infinitely good, will answer our pleas with infinitely more love.

Rather, what I believe (and correct me @prodromos if I am in error on any of this) was written was that disease and hardship were permitted to exist (I would have said not prevented from existing), for example, in the case of St. Paul, as a means of sanctification, but also that God is pleased to pour out His abundant grace in healing people, which He did in His incarnation, and the powers of healing which were granted to the Apostles and the Church as a whole, and indeed we are instructed in the Epistle of St. James to anoint the sick with oil which in the Orthodox Church we do, and I have seen firsthand miraculous healings resulting from this (the Roman Catholics for some reason decided only to anoint those in extremis, that is to say, those at risk of death, who usually die, but the Orthodox will anoint anyone who is sick, and also, in accordance with the instructions of Christ our True God in Matthew 6:7 we anoint the entire congregation at the end of Great Lent or on Holy Wednesday before the most severe fast of Great and Holy Friday happens, and also at other times of year, for example, if the presbyter or bishop discerns the people require the benefits of Holy Unction.

We also bless Holy Water, particularly on Theophany which was last Sunday for churches on the Julian Calendar, which is used for healing, and of course the Eucharist, whose healing attributes, like those of Holy Unction, I can also attest to.*

*I only discuss specifics privately as these involve myself, and relatives, and medical histories and I don’t want to plaster the exact anatomical details of what was wrong and what happened all over the Internet particularly in the case of my relatives. But the miraclous deliverance of those who are sick is real and I can attest to it.

I would assume you yourself as a Pentecostal have seen such healings delivered through prayer or the laying on of hands or perhaps other means - I don’t know if Pentecostals make use of the anointing of the sick with oil. And while there are some things in the Charismatic movement or Pentecostal movement which we might possibly disagree about just as there are aspects of my church we disagree about, I do believe that if someone is praying in the name of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ for deliverance from evil whether illness or of another form, God responds, and in many cases He responds in a manner that is obviously miraculous, and it should be celebrated.

Some reject the idea of "modern miracles" because they reject the ideas promoted by Pentecostalism. Such people may accept bible miracles while rejecting anything miraculous today.

 

[The Liturgist]

Some reject the idea of "modern miracles" because they reject the ideas promoted by Pentecostalism. Such people may accept bible miracles while rejecting anything miraculous today.

Indeed, this is not uncommon and is an unfortunate over-reaction to the excesses of the Charismatic movement as discussed by Fr. Seraphim Rose in his 1976 book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future.

However if someone prays for deliverance from suffering to our Lord and is delivered, this is cause for celebration, unless the deliverance was couched in such a way, as is commonly seen with heretical movements which are not part of the mainstream of Pentecostalism or even among the problematic fringe of Appalachian Snake-Handlers, who needlessly endanger themselves based on a misinterpretation of a part of the Gospel of Mark (that is furthermore missing from the oldest manuscripts and may not be authentic), but at least they don’t conduct faith-healing revivals which are done with shills, and which delude anyone who does believe they were healed in such a way so as to make the person believe that our Lord was specifically manifest in, for instance, a faith healing movement, and that continuing medical treatment was therefore unnecessary, and also such a deliverance would be impossible outside of the group.

The New Thought Movement in general, and Christian Science in particular, also do this (and it is possible the Azusa Street Revival was related to the New Thought Movement in some way, in that it was popular in Southern California in 1906, however, it was mainly popular among the upper middle class, roughly the same sort of people that also tended around that time to go in for Spiritism, the descendants of whom, literally and spiritually, can be found in places like Sedona in great quantities.

 

[Guojing]

Please give chapter and verse from the Gospels or Epistles of this.

Thanks

Romans 8:18-25
2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Of course, you can simply choose to interpret those as "any sufferings other than physical sicknesses" to preserve your doctrine about God always wanting to heal.

 

[The Liturgist]

Romans 8:18-25
2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Of course, you can simply choose to interpret those as "any sufferings other than physical sicknesses" to preserve your doctrine about God always wanting to heal.

Just to be clear, you appear to be providing chapter and verse for a point I’m pretty sure was not actually made in the post our friend @Always in His Presence but rather is very likely a misunderstanding.

Rather to be more precise, you’re providing the verses where St. Paul is discussing how the physical suffering he experienced helped him spiritually, but ignoring the other verses in the thread which indicate that Christ our True God will deliver us from suffering should we ask (and also to be remembered is “to whom much is given, much will be required,” in the context of what our Lord in his beatitudes in St. Luke indicates that those who suffer particularly in this life are blessed, where those who enjoy much, while not accursed, face some degree of woe; so in other words, if we request blessings from God in this life, we must not neglect our faith in Jesus Christ, or engage in gross hypocrisy by professing an ostensible faith without actually loving our neighbor, which St. James warns about in his epistle, and which was addressed by most Protestants who declare that good works result from a living faith (and this issue is bypassed by the Orthodox who believe in salvation by faith but not salvation by faith alone, but also refrain from the idea of the Treasury of Merit and performing good works to reduce one’s time in Purgatory (which we also do not believe in, as such).

The people greatly in error here are those who are anomial, who believe that faith in Christ, since He forgives sin, grants a license to sin. I recall a lady who was a contestant on some reality TV show who lied, and admitted on camera to lying, but declared “I’m a Christian, so I know I will be forgiven,” which is the kind of dead faith St. James warns us about in his epistle; it is also worth setting aside the cliched idea that St. James and St. Paul were rivals, for at Jerusalem, St. James supported St. Paul’s belief that gentiles should be received without circumcision and were not obliged to follow the Torah or eat food prepared according to the Kosher dietary laws, but rather should simply refrain from partaking of food sacrificed to idols, blood (not meaning blood transplants, and also, since it is impossible to avoid the consumption of meat without some blood likely being included, this more likely refers to the perverse practices of drinking blood or eating animals that are still alive “in the blood of their soul”) and the flesh of things strangled, which is basically the Noachide Law from Genesis.

 

[Guojing]

Just to be clear, you appear to be providing chapter and verse for a point I’m pretty sure was not actually made in the post our friend @Always in His Presence but rather is very likely a misunderstanding.

Rather to be more precise, you’re providing the verses where St. Paul is discussing how the physical suffering he experienced helped him spiritually, but ignoring the other verses in the thread which indicate that Christ our True God will deliver us from suffering should we ask (and also to be remembered is “to whom much is given, much will be required,” in the context of what our Lord in his beatitudes in St. Luke indicates that those who suffer particularly in this life are blessed, where those who enjoy much, while not accursed, face some degree of woe; so in other words, if we request blessings from God in this life, we must not neglect our faith in Jesus Christ, or engage in gross hypocrisy by professing an ostensible faith without actually loving our neighbor, which St. James warns about in his epistle, and which was addressed by most Protestants who declare that good works result from a living faith (and this issue is bypassed by the Orthodox who believe in salvation by faith but not salvation by faith alone, but also refrain from the idea of the Treasury of Merit and performing good works to reduce one’s time in Purgatory (which we also do not believe in, as such).

The people greatly in error here are those who are anomial, who believe that faith in Christ, since He forgives sin, grants a license to sin. I recall a lady who was a contestant on some reality TV show who lied, and admitted on camera to lying, but declared “I’m a Christian, so I know I will be forgiven,” which is the kind of dead faith St. James warns us about in his epistle; it is also worth setting aside the cliched idea that St. James and St. Paul were rivals, for at Jerusalem, St. James supported St. Paul’s belief that gentiles should be received without circumcision and were not obliged to follow the Torah or eat food prepared according to the Kosher dietary laws, but rather should simply refrain from partaking of food sacrificed to idols, blood (not meaning blood transplants, and also, since it is impossible to avoid the consumption of meat without some blood likely being included, this more likely refers to the perverse practices of drinking blood or eating animals that are still alive “in the blood of their soul”) and the flesh of things strangled, which is basically the Noachide Law from Genesis.

well he requested for epistles that teaches "God will often permit disease or hardship as a means of perfecting His Saints through their patient endurance.

that was why I provided those 2

 

[ARBITER01]

The New Thought Movement in general, and Christian Science in particular, also do this (and it is possible the Azusa Street Revival was related to the New Thought Movement in some way, in that it was popular in Southern California in 1906, ...

No.

Azusa Street was an Acts 2 outpouring.

The reason it happened was because there were continual services happening everyday of the week, roughly 3 or 4 times a day or more, and even services at night. They seemed to never stop. It was a continual pursuit of GOD in prayer and praise that brought about an outpouring of The Holy Spirit in a massive way that spread across America.

I guarantee you, all that prayer and praise flushed out any fleshly ideas and brought about holiness.

 

[prodromos]

Azusa Street was an Acts 2 outpouring

How so? There were no tongues of fire, no one was speaking foreign languages of people who were present. The Apostles weren't falling on the ground in trances like at Asuza St. The only vague claim of commonality is the speaking of tongues, but what happened at Asuza St was completely unlike what occurred with the Apostles on Pentecost.

 

[ARBITER01]

How so? There were no tongues of fire, no one was speaking foreign languages of people who were present. The Apostles weren't falling on the ground in trances like at Asuza St. The only vague claim of commonality is the speaking of tongues, but what happened at Asuza St was completely unlike what occurred with the Apostles on Pentecost.

Obviously you need to read up more on Azusa Street. It was pretty much exactly like Acts 2, which in turn sparked at least 1, if not 2 denominations that continue to spread across the world.

If you just want to argue, I'm not here for that.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

No.

Azusa Street was an Acts 2 outpouring.

The reason it happened was because there were continual services happening everyday of the week, roughly 3 or 4 times a day or more, and even services at night. They seemed to never stop. It was a continual pursuit of GOD in prayer and praise that brought about an outpouring of The Holy Spirit in a massive way that spread across America.

I guarantee you, all that prayer and praise flushed out any fleshly ideas and brought about holiness.

Azusa St, was not an Acts 2 outpouring.

 

[ARBITER01]

Azusa St, was not an Acts 2 outpouring.

It absolutely was, thank you!

All the aspects of Acts 2 were apparent there. Do some reading on it from different sources, it might help you understand things better as to why our denomination is flourishing across the world so much.

 

[The Liturgist]

well he requested for epistles that teaches "God will often permit disease or hardship as a means of perfecting His Saints through their patient endurance.

that was why I provided those 2

Fair enough, I am glad you did, as that was good of you; I myself thought to quote those verses in my post, but it was late, I was tired, and so I alluded to them indirectly.

 

[prodromos]

Obviously you need to read up more on Azusa Street. It was pretty much exactly like Acts 2, which in turn sparked at least 1, if not 2 denominations that continue to spread across the world.

If you just want to argue, I'm not here for that.

I asked how it was like Acts 2, and your response doesn't provide an answer. You just say it was. Forgive me for not finding your opinion particularly compelling, especially as everything I have read about Asuza St confirms to me that it had nothing in common with Acts 2.

 

[ARBITER01]

I asked how it was like Acts 2, and your response doesn't provide an answer. You just say it was. Forgive me for not finding your opinion particularly compelling, especially as everything I have read about Asuza St confirms to me that it had nothing in common with Acts 2.

Well, you are a traditionalist, so your ideas on what the gifts are are probably incorrect, but all the gifts of The Spirit were poured out and people were being saved by the blood of Jesus day and night for months on end.

So yea, just like Acts 2, in fact probably greater.

 

[Guojing]

Fair enough, I am glad you did, as that was good of you; I myself thought to quote those verses in my post, but it was late, I was tired, and so I alluded to them indirectly.

Nowadays when I am sick, I usually start by praying according to what Paul teaches us in Philippians 4:6-7 and 1 Thess 5:16-18

And while I go thru it, I will then move on to those 2 passages that Paul continue to teach us about the attitude to take while going thru it, Romans 8:18-25 and 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

 

[The Liturgist]

I agree with my beloved and pious brother @prodromos (whose posts I have yet to disagree with) and my dear Roman Catholic friend @Xeno.of.athens who I do sometimes disagree with, but with whom I agree more than I disagree, that the Azusa Street incident was not akin to what happened in Acts 2.

Also, the idea that it was a good thing because new denominations emerged from it is deeply frustrating; what that actually means is that it caused a schism, which itself experienced another schism, since those present could not apparently retain doctrinal unity, and this is unfortunate, since the more divided the Christian Church becomes, the less effective we are.

The raison d’etre for ecumenical dialogue in the 20th century was to try to reverse this trend by reuniting churches that did not need to be separate, and restoring communion between churches who had become estranged from each other, in some cases due to misunderstandings.

Now not everything to come from the Ecumenical Movement has been good *; the Orthodox for example reject doctrinal compromise as a means of achieving ecumenical reconciliation.

This all being said, Christian unity is still a thing to be sought after, and the formation of new denominations usually represents a needless and schismatic act. **

*In particular, I have a very low opinion of the World Council of Churches due to its history of ill-advised political involvement and also the fact that it through naivete managed to allow the KGB to directly influence its political statements while the Soviet Union was still a force to be reckoned with, since the KGB exerted extreme influence via blackmail and threats of mass persecutions over churches behind the iron curtain, whether Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox, and so those churches located in Communist Countries were to a large extent held hostage and forced to say what the KGB wanted them to say, by, for example, by opposing military actions by NATO, or by overstating the extent to which religion was freely practiced in the Communist countries (while one could be a Christian, priests and pastors were effectively gagged, their ability to preach being greatly restricted, and their ability to criticize the state essentially a one-time ability, since if one did that one would disappear from the pulpit and find that one had been transported to prison and could look forward either to several years of hard labor in Siberia or the deserts of Central Asia or other equally unappetizing destinations, under brutal conditions with safety precautions and medical coverage that could best be described as inadequate, or else a bullet to the back of the head, depending on the year in which one made such an outbreak, the conditions facing the Soviet Union and its satellites at the time, and how directly one had criticized the Communist Party or its leaders, but frankly a bullet to the brain might well be preferable, since martyrdom in the Orthodox faith confers instant glorification and salvation (as does being tortured to the faith, but only after one dies).

Also unmentioned was the fact that all of the best-paying and most important jobs required Communist Party membership, and Communist Party members were forbidden from engaging in religious activities (other than those relating to the peculiar occult rituals of the Communist Party itself, like visiting the embalmed body of Lenin or whatever communist warlord had been the first dictator of the country one occupied. Lastly, there was one more problem, and a substantial one, that being that churches were forbidden from providing Sunday schools, parochial schools or catechism classes or other forms of religious instruction to the youth, which meant that while children could attend church, the extent to which they understood the faith was limited.

**The sole possible exceptions being when heterodox elements have taken over and corrupted the doctrine of an existing church, or in some cases, if a particular church is having organizational problems organizing missions, or if that church is being oppressed politically, and there is a need to form an underground “catacomb church” to compensate for that oppression as a temporary measure until the restoration of religious freedom, but in this case care must be taken to avoid perpetuating the existence of the latter, which would be schismatic. Thus, after the downfall of the Soviet Union, communion was restored between the various Orthodox churches outside of the Soviet sphere of influence, such as between ROCOR and the MP, and between the Armenian Catholicos of Holy Etchmiadzin in the Republic of Armenia (which had been annexed by the Soviets in the 1920s and became independent by 1991), and the Armenian Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia (which was originally created to serve the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, during a brief period when there were two Armenian-ruled nations in defensive positions protecting the northern and southern approaches into Asia Minor, and what remained by that time of the Byzantine Empire. Likewise, the Lutheran Church in the DDR was unified with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Federal Republic of Germany when East Germany was reunited with the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

However, what we are talking about here are not really separate denominations per se, but rather separate local churches within the context of a single denomination, for example, Russian Orthodoxy or Armenian Orthodoxy or German Lutheranism.