different
One of the things I struggle with most concerning Christianity is why, when you look at what is called christian today, things are so different from what the early followers of Jesus experienced. What I’m saying is that, when you look at the New Testament, you see all this crazy stuff happening. You read about blind people being able to see, paraplegics being able to walk, people having demons cast out of them, dead people coming back to life, people having dreams and seeing visions that come true, people prophesying stuff that really ends up happening, and lots of other crazy stuff. There are millions of explanations for why this doesn’t happen now, or how it does and I just don’t see it, but I think a lot of that is bullshit, well intentioned bullshit, but bullshit nonetheless.
If you have fooled yourself into thinking this stuff still happens, you are clearly in denial of reality and the rest of this post will be meaningless to you. Healing bad backs and headaches is NOT the same as witnessing someone who was blind be able to see. I would seriously be freaked out if I witnessed something like that, and that is something I have never seen a healer man do.
So, I just keep coming back to this question in my mind: why is it different now? There are a few options that I think are at least somewhat possible: The Holy Spirit just doesn’t work that way anymore, We are just so screwed up as the Body of Christ that we are incapable of having that relationship and faith in the Holy Spirit, or simply the Bible isn’t true and all that stuff was made up in the first place.
The first option is the one that most seminary people like to go to. It is clean and neat and doesn’t require any accountability from God or us for the discrepancy we see between the Bible and modern Christianity. It works well as an argument, but it doesn’t sit well with me. I think it is reactionary, an answer to a problem, and not something anyone would think up unless they were confronted with this clear disparity between the church then and now. It is the typical use of fancy pseudo-intellectual nonsense that hopes to sound smart enough to be convincing, but at the end of the day I think it is just more Bullshit.
So really, in my mind, I think it comes down to option two or three. That is kinda scary. Basically the church is seriously off track, to the point that we are mostly useless, or the bible is a lie.
Well, as most of you know, I think the church is seriously messed up, but the Spirit can do whatever he wants, right? Yeah, he could, but if people won’t be the kind of people to go out there and do that stuff, then it won’t happen I guess. I believe the Bible. There are things, like this, that I struggle with, but I believe it is true. I can defend that belief intellectually, but at the end of the day it is just a matter of faith. So, I am stuck with option two. The church is so far gone, we don’t see any of the crazy stuff the Holy Spirit was doing in the New Testament.
I would love to leave it there, but, since the church is made of people, and I am a person, and I have never been used to do that cool stuff, I have to say that I am part of that screwed up group. So, what am I doing wrong? I have no idea. I know that the people who followed Jesus in the New Testament lived really differently than I do. Maybe I’m missing something huge, maybe we all are. I don’t know what it is, and obviously no one does, or things would be different, but it’s either that or the Bible isn’t true, and like I said, I don’t think that is the case.
It’s interesting that the same folks who make the claim that the days of miracles are over are the same ones who expect that God will hear and answer prayer.
The folks that make a lot of noise about miracles happening today seem to have a lot of smoke but not much fire. As you said, no blow your socks off, undeniable demonstration of God’s power.
We have a whole group of people who simply dismiss any possibility of the miraculous, leaving us to our own resources. We have another group of people who claim to have miracles for breakfast and yet can’t verify any of them. It only confirms your observation, we are seriously messed up.
Faking it or writing it off seem to be the most popular options. For a long time this was one of the things that really made me doubt the bible (although there are still plenty of things in there that i think are weird and make no sense to me), like God isn’t doing things the way He did in the early church so maybe all that stuff was made up in the first place, but the more I learn about what a disaster the “church” is, the less I am surprised that we don’t see God working the same way among us as he did the early believers.
Dan, I agree option #1 seems designed to make the problem go away. I agree the church is seriously messed up. I have not been a regular Sunday morning attendee of a steeple and pew church for more than a few months. But the church “outside” is messed up, too.
I can’t agree that the churches problems are the reason we don’t see miracles. If you look back through the gospels, the reaction to Jesus’ miracles seems to have been mostly either “Yay! Free bread!” or “He’s got a demon, let’s kill him.” Not really different from today, in other words.
I don’t see in the Bible where God expresses his intention or desire to give people spiritual promotions until they become powerful Jedi capable of healing and destroying. That’s what we want, not what God wants. The purpose behind God’s miracles is consistently to reveal his mercy and grace.
An apparent contradiction would be the Exodus. Lots of misery and death involved in those miracles. Quite a lot of Egyptians died. But the point was that all of the people, including the Israelites, were under the threat (or judgement) of death. The children of Israel were only spared by the blood of a lamb. Egyptians didn’t die because they were specially bad; Israelites lived because they were specially chosen.
Jesus told his adversaries that if Moses came back from the dead they would not believe him. In a similar way I think we (as a culture) do not need miracles because we have abundantly the witness of scripture. The miracles are there; not available for our selfish purposes, but testifying of God just fine and so accomplishing their purpose.
But I also do not think you are correct that real miracles don’t happen. I would say rather that real miracles aren’t widely known. They are specific gifts to a specific person and perhaps a few people around them, greatly treasured but not meant to impress the masses (similar to how Jesus often told people not to speak of his miracles). We always want to impress the world with the power of God (in US, incidentally), but the Shepherd calls each one by name.
Arlan
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I have head a lot of the things you are saying here and I struggle with the believability of most of it, but I do think you make a couple interesting points. The first is that God doesn;t depend on us, or our “level of faith,” to do His thing, unlike what a certain group of miracle type people would have you believe. The second is that this stuff might happen, we just don’t know about it on a large scale. The Bible is set in a certain time and tells about a certain small group of people and it just tells us the highlights or main points about what was going on in their lives. So it seems very possible that miracles still happen with the same frequency and along the same lines as they did in the Bible, it is just that I’m not around to see them. The scarier thought is that they are happening right under my nose and God is keeping the truth from me so I will be blind to the truth. I sure hope that isn’t it!
Thanks again for the comment!
Dan
I have heard reports of miracles happening in developing countries where the folks have a more developed view of the supernatural than we do here in the “enlightened West.” I wonder if it has to do with our being so impacted by the scientific views of the Enlightenment that debunk the miraculous and demand a rational explanation for everything. Maybe we don’t have the faith the early church had.
We have written-off miracles with our thorough understanding of all of existence. It feels good to be so smart!
Dan,
I think you are right, that the same God who performed miracles through the early church is the same God we serve now. What has changed? We have. The early church was massively under the influence and direction of the Holy Spirit. People were being sanctified, the body was being built together and people were being matured to walk in their gifts. Definitely signs and wonders are intended to follow the proclamation of the gospel, as a sign to an unbelieving world. I believe that we have forgotten how to proclaim the gospel in a pure manner, and largely proclaim a watered-down, perverted form that in lots of ways looks similar, but holds absolutely no power (“having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof). Why does it have no power? Because we are too busy following society, living our lives by the rules of this world instead of by God’s rules. Walking in the wisdom of men, which is contrary to the wisdom of God. Paul took heat for walking against the grain, ironically against the religious grain. When the people of God begin following after Him, individually and collectively, then we will begin to see maturation of the body, and I believe the manifestations mentioned will follow as a by-product of a maturing body. We must not be afraid to walk separate from the ways of the world. The point I am making, I guess, is that the Lord calls us to live radically. I can think of multiple times where the Spirit led me in a direction in life that, in the natural, was not the wisest decision. I have followed this leading, however, and over time seen His hand work as I followed His ways and not mans’ ways. I don’t know that I’m explaining this well, unfortunately. Along the way I have made mistakes in deciding what I felt He was directing me to do, and there were natural consequences, but He still honored my pure intentions and took care of me in the end.
Finally, a mature body is a unified body. I firmly believe that when we begin to walk in true, selfless community, like that modeled in the NT, we will begin to see more manifestations of the Spirit. We must mature, individually and spiritually, and our current system stunts that maturation.
I hope some of this makes sense. I have difficulty putting into words what is so clear in my mind/heart.
Mark
Thanks Mark. I think you said it pretty clearly (although I don’t know what you were trying to say, just what I understood you to say). I think the fact that we are so off base and struggle to understand even the most basic principles of surrendering to Christ and sharing life with the rest of the Body, that it isn’t surprising that things are generally so, how shall I say it, spiritually dry.
One last thing. God is demanding of His people. He will not move on our behalf just because we want Him to. He is looking for a people that will take Him at His word, follow after Him at all costs, obey His directions. He is looking for a people, as in the OT, who walk separate and sanctified before Him. The difference is that, we’re no longer called to follow the law, we’re called to walk in His grace, and find obedience in the Spirit. When He sees us walking in this manner, He will honor our obedience with the promises of the NT, including the working of miracles. It is not a process of earning His favor, as it could easily be seen to be. One can’t live a certain way hoping to obtain favor and see promises or miracles. One must seek Christ primarily, and, like Matthew 6:26 says, “all these things will be added unto you”.
@Mark I like your final point about all these things being added. How often we become enamored with the gift rather than the giver. Think kids on Christmas morning. As we mature we learn to say thank you and we learn the giver is far more important than the gift. Another example of how the church has left her first love.
Bob
I think that is important too. This post wasn’t about “untapping” the secret gift so that I can heal people and be awesome. I don’t “seek” fancy miracles. Honestly, a part of me would be happy with explaining away why I never see them. The thing I struggle with is simply the inconsistency between us and the church in scripture. It is impossible not to notice the huge difference, not just in our activities and appearance, but in our fruit and God’s work among us. I think you are definitely right, and I think it could be part of the reason, just one way in which we are screwed up, we want the good stuff, but we don’t care much about the guy bringing the good stuff, we don’t seem to notice he is way more awesome than the stuff, so we lost the stuff, and the scary part, maybe we have lost the guy?
Mark
I think that is a great point and I like how you explained it. At first I thought I was hearing the same old “you don’t have enough faith” rhetoric but your explanation really cleared that up! Faith is a gift from God. If I don’t “have enough,” I can’t muster it up. Maturity in Christ and a constantly growing desire for Him seem to be a much more sensible focus.
Absolutely! I find it so true that the difference between truth and fallacy is sometimes so subtle, and it is easy to hear the message of faith and take it from a works perspective. Faith certainly is important, but our level of faith can’t be our focus, like you said. “Maturity and Christ and a constantly growing desire for Him” will result in the growth of our faith. I see faith as being like love, it is a verb not a thing. It is a decision we make, not something we feel.
And I am the WORST, even still at times, at trying to “muster up” my faith. My charismatic roots run SO DEEP!!
Mark
Mark. Sometimes the fallacies that are the closest to the truth are the most dangerous, because they are much easier to believe. The charismatic understanding of faith is one of those tricky things. It can make a lot of sense and seem really on point, until all of a sudden you realize you have some crazy works-based understanding of salvation and faith.
Absolutely. The enemy is sly. He knows that the best way to entrap the people of God is to give them the appearance of truth, but withhold the power thereof. Kind of like Matrix. You create a world that will keep the people happy, and they live their whole lives not realizing that they’ve missed the whole point. This is why so many older people retire and waste away, even in the church. They never grew into elders, never grew into their purpose, and once their worldly useful life is up they languish away in fruitlessness. Not all of course, but many. It is time for The Church to arise, break off our chains, and decide to walk in His ways, to see the establishment of His kingdom on earth, so that this cycle can be broken. The Truth will set us free!
Mark
Sometimes I think… today I’m going to go out and find a sick man and go up to him and ask him if he wants to be healed, then put my hands on him and ask Jesus to heal him.
Then I think… but what if Jesus doesn’t heal him, what if it doesn’t work.
Then I think… boy I’m totally screwed up, but I’m too worried that it won’t work that I won’t even try. I wish I had the boldness that I know I should have.
Yeah, honestly, I never even get that far in my thought process. Usually it is just, “man, i wish someone could help that sick person.” or, “I really wish God would heal that sick person.” without much expectation of it actually happening, and no desire to get personally involved. That makes me sound pretty crappy, but, well, that is usually how I think. If it’s a crappy way to think, then it’s a crappy way to think.
At least you’re honest.