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Personally, I think the miracles of Jesus are there to express an idea of wholeness. The idea that God is wholeness: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, etc., etc..., would be teased by the writers of the New Testament.
That, is the perfect answer, proving the Scripture provided.
Inspired, Inspiration
Theological
1. a divine influence directly and immediately exerted upon the mind or soul.
2. the divine quality of the writings or words of a person so influenced.
Really? You blew me off in post 3.
One man was born blind and healed so that the works of God would be displayed in him
This makes me think a little bit of Luke 4:23-27, where Jesus does quite explicitly point out that the prophets only rarely and selectively performed miracles. Seems like it isn't the sort of thing that you can just demand.
I do think the miracles of both the Old and New Testament are meant to be taken literally, just as heroic stories elsewhere in Antiquity seem to have been taken literally. This wasn't a world where people thought that their gods weren't active in history, so I think it would be stranger if the ancient Jews understood everything metaphorically. That seems to have been a later development (see Philo of Alexandria).
I personally don't really believe in the major miracles of the Old Testament, but I think it would be anachronistic to project that back on the actual authors of the Hebrew Bible. I also don't see a theological problem with the possibility of selective miracles throughout Israel's history--given the idea of omnipotence, God could miraculous bend or break the laws of nature even if he never chose to do so, so I don't see much of a difference between never acting and only occasionally acting where the Problem of Evil is concerned.
He hasn't stopped. It's just that now He has a lot of older children (spiritually mature Christians) and He expects them to help the younger ones. In other words, He uses humbler means to provide for His children, believers and unbelievers alike.Why stop, then? Because the children are gown up?
Are we, as God's children, "all grown up" now?
I don't see how quoting a dictionary helps matters... unless God is somehow bound to obey it?
"perfect"? It would indicate that people who claim to be believers are afraid to ask the questions, lest their fellow believers think less of them for their ignorance.
"Perfect," perhaps... but for whom?
You show excellent logic in your question and it is often asked different ways, but the same idea. You also give a good alternative logical possible answer, with it being, just a descriptive “tale” enjoyed by the people to get a message across, but did not really happen.Now, for this thread, I want to define "miracle" as "The overt suspension of natural laws by the divine or agent of the divine in order to achieve a divine purpose."
That said, are the miracle stories as they are described in the Old and New Testaments meant to be interpreted as depictions of actual events?
And if so, do those depictions bring people closer to an understanding of God, or further away?
Because it seems to me that stories of a God who can miraculously bend/break the natural laws of the universe at will raise a lot of awkward questions about the countless times He chooses not to.
Consider:
- God rains manna from the heavens to feed the Israelites.... today, millions are starving.
- God -- either personally or through His prophets -- heals the sick and infirm and even raises the dead... today, millions suffer and die.
- God -- again either personally or through His prophets -- commands the forces of nature... today, drought, storms, earthquakes, etc... kill millions.
Now, I'm not asking "why do bad things happen?" But rather, "would we even have to ask these questions if we didn't assume that miracles were actual historic acts?"
Thoughts?
That said, are the miracle stories as they are described in the Old and New Testaments meant to be interpreted as depictions of actual events?
The reason is, your very own personal definition is incorrect,
therefore the Dictionary is needed for you to understand, but you still refuse to.
That is the answer of someone who is described in the Scripture I submitted in my earlier post, a total and complete inability to understand things which are Spiritual in nature......sorry.
Now, I'm not asking "why do bad things happen?" But rather, "would we even have to ask these questions if we didn't assume that miracles were actual historic acts?"
Thoughts?
There aren't too many performances of miracles even among the prophets, really.
They start with Moses and his successor, Joshua... then there's a gap of a few centuries... then you have Elijah and his successor, Elisha... and after that, it's pretty much miracle-free up until Jesus (and his successors, the Apostles).
Those four men and their stories don't take up a lot of space in the Bible, and if we were to remove them, the miracles would dry up pretty substantially.
Interesting... I'm curious about whether ancient people took their stories literally like that (I'm thinking Greek and Roman myths)
My understanding of Christian theology is that the "Problem of Evil" is a continuous one, and will be until Jesus returns and settles things once and for all. But as I've pointed out -- the miracles may get a lot of attention, but they take up a relatively small portion of the Bible.
But displayed to whom? One thing to remember from secular history is that first century Palestine was crawling with faith healers, miracle workers, "messiahs" and assorted wannabes, charlatans, and con artists.
Two things set Jesus apart from the others:
1. We know (well, you believe and I'll stipulate for the purposes of this discussion) that Jesus was the real deal, while the others were fakes. But the people back then didn't know that... they believed in all the "healers," and the healers always claimed divine or magical power...
No, what got the people's attention was 2. Jesus did his works for free, while the other guys demanded cash in advance...
So you see, the "works of God" were nothing new to the people at the time... Jesus simply undercut the competition.
My understanding of Christian theology is that the "Problem of Evil" is a continuous one, and will be until Jesus returns and settles things once and for all. But as I've pointed out -- the miracles may get a lot of attention, but they take up a relatively small portion of the Bible.
You show excellent logic in your question and it is often asked different ways, but the same idea. You also give a good alternative logical possible answer, with it being, just a descriptive “tale” enjoyed by the people to get a message across, but did not really happen.
If we are going to have a tale about the Jews wandering in the wilderness forty years you are going to have to add a way for them to be fed.
But! Also, if I am going to write just any fictional story about my ancestors, they would be powerful, smart, strong, wonderful, victorious and very obedient to God.
Your question is asking: “why does God save the lives of some and not everyone?”
but you have to realize some things:
If you are not heaven bound death is something to fear, while death in and of itself is not bad, since it is the way good people go home and bad people quite doing bad stuff.
It is extremely unfortunate, but I along with others need to realize God can stop providing life at any time.
If I knew I was going to live for 100 years I might put off my turning to God, since before becoming a Christian the perceived pleasures of sin attracted me and I would have put off repenting. One of the problems with “waiting” is it does not get any easier to repent. If I turn away from wanting to be Loved unconditionally and to have that type of Love for others and seek being loved by others for the way I want them to perceive me to be, I might never turn.
This messed up world is actually the very best place for willing individuals to fulfill their earthly objective. God is doing or allowing all He can to help willing individuals to fulfill their earthly objective and that all includes: Christ going to the cross, satan roaming the earth, tragedies of all kinds, death, hell, and even sinning.
Back to “Miracles”: if manna fell from heaven today and we could not explain it scientifically we would know the God of the Bible truly existed,
but that means we would not have “faith” in God’s existence, but knowledge of God’s existence. The problem is we need “faith” which is a humbling experience, since the lowliest person on earth can believe in a benevolent Creator and not knowledge of His existence since knowledge tends to puff a person up and push faith to the side.
But! Also, if I am going to write just any fictional story about my ancestors, they would be powerful, smart, strong, wonderful, victorious and very obedient to God.
I'm not quite sure i'm buying into the everyone was doing magic shows back in Jesus' day.
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