Download Miracles By Jesus Culture
Nerissa Reveron
The song also reminds us that God is the God who was and is to come. He is the power of the Risen One and He is the one who brings the dead to life. We can trust in Him and believe that He will do miracles in our lives.
We can have faith in God and believe that He will do miracles in our lives. We can trust in Him and believe that He will do the impossible. We can have faith that He will bring the dead to life and that He will make us whole.
These lyrics relate to the theme of miracles by expressing faith and belief in the power of God to work wonders and perform miracles. The lyrics emphasize that this belief is centered in a place of worship and praise, where people come together to give glory to God and acknowledge His power to bring healing and resurrection.
The Bible says the effectual, fervent prayers of a righteous man avails much. Does that mean that in healing, if that same person prayed for healing in a western nation, then flew to a third world nation, that his prayers in the third world nation some how become more efficacious? or is it just as a parent doesnt respond to each of their children the same, so our Heavenly Father doesnt respond to each of his children the same. Why because the needs are different, and God knows that in the western world, the health system is far more advanced, and so his children have learnt to have faith in this form of provision. Which may not appear so miraculous but is never the less just as efficacious. This also suggests that in the third world faith may be more developed in certain areas, where as faith in the western world may not have needed to develop to such maturity. What interests me though is deeper healings by, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever, to heal and restore Gods ideal, turning a heart of stone to a heart of flesh, in a person who has suffered so much, not necessarily physically, but deep emotional/pyschological and spiritual scarring, through this upside down world, of half truths, compromises, misdeeds and just plain sin. Whether that be child abuse, whether that be carried over abuse from that to broken relationships as an adult, the habits that become engrained, the root of bitterness/unforgiveness, and inability to truly love and be loved as a image bearer, why because of bondages created through brokeness and sin, so much. To see the world turn right side up, to see forgiveness, healing and true freedom released, from a life that has been scarred by sin, bondages, addictions and become whole again through Jesus Christ and the finished work of the cross, wholly taken hold of, and a person set free to follow and grow in Jesus Christ as the true lifegiver, now that in any nation, culture and country, western, third world or where ever that is the true healing to the nations of the world, one person at a time, from the inside out, for the kingdom of God comes not with observation, they will not say, lo there or lo here, for behold the kingdom of God is with in you. Not down playing the healing of a body and this continueing question about the western world and else where, the question of salvation for all, and redeeming this upside down world, one soul at a time, continues to be the clarion call.
As Jesus embarked in a new era for his ministry, he walked through towns healing the sick and working miracles and the people heard and believed the gospel because they heard of or witnessed such demonstration of power.
3)There were many other miracle workers, especially Apollonius of Tyana. Thus an ad from Prometheus books for Gospel Fictions, by Randall Helms says: "In the first century...there appeared...a remarkable religious leader who taught the worship of one true God and declared that religion meant not the sacrifice of beasts but the practice of charity and piety and the shunning of hatred and enmity. He was said to have worked miracles of goodness, casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead. His exemplary life led some of his followers to claim he was a son of God, though he called himself the son of a man. Accused of sedition against Rome, he was arrested. After his death, his disciples claimed he had risen from the dead. His name was Apollonius of Tyana, he died about 98 A.D."
a) We distinguish simple from complex facts. Complex facts are entwined with an ancient culture which might be hard or impossible to reconstruct. (Really, not hard to reconstruct in the case of the Jews).
b) We distinguish within the area of simple facts some things that are simply picked up by eyes and ears so that there is no room for serious distortion. It is often said: "There is no such thing as an uninterpreted report". This is true in many cases, but not in all. For example, if someone sees a leper stand before Jesus asking to be healed, and Jesus said: "I will it. Be cleansed", there is no room for any substantial alteration by subjectivity, and only pure fakery would make it up out of nothing. Even the enemies of Jesus in ancient times did not deny He worked cures and did exorcisms: they attributed them to Satan or to magic. Nor were his miracles really like those of some pagans, e.g., Apollonius of Tyana, if one reads the life of Apollonius by Philostratus (for example, he once wrote a threatening letter to a demoninstead of commanding it to go out. Apollonius never worked a miracle with a tie to the claim, about which we will speak below.) OK on other parallels, cf. L. J. McGinley, "Hellenic Analogies and the Typical Healing Narrative: in Theol. Studies 4 (1943) 385-419.
Further the miracles of Jesus are in continuity with modern miracles checked to the hilt by modern science at Lourdes, the host of Lanciano, the Guadalupe picture. At Lourdes, many cures are done when the Blessed Sacrament passes, e.g., Madame Biré who in 1908 regained sight instantly, though she had atrophy of the papilla. She could see even with the withered nerve, as checked by a team of Doctors at once after the cure. (No other denomination believes in an abiding presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.)
As we go through these points, please notice that each one easily fits the requirement of being free of entanglement with an ancient culture, and also is such that the senses can readily pick the things up with no distortion unless it would be deliberatewhich is ruled out by the concern of the writers for their own eternity.
2. He claimed He was sent from God as a sort of messenger. Again this is obvious from His whole preaching, in which He often demanded faith as a condition for a cure: Mk 2:1-12; 5:21-43; Mt 8;5-13; and 9:27-29. NJBC on p.1371 asserts: "Consistently, Jesus is presented as refusing to work miracles to show off his power) Mat 4:5-7; Lk 23: 6-12; Mark 8:11-13. Mt 12:38-42; Mark 15: 31-32. "We reply: In Mt 4:5-7 He refused to do as the devil asked in the temptations; in Lk 23-6-12 He refuses to gratify the curiosity of Herod; in Mk 8:11-13 the Pharisees asked a sing to tempt Him they had already seen so many. In Mk 15:31-32 the high priests ask Him to come down from the cross. Are the claims stupid or deliberately fraudulent?
3. He did enough to prove, this by miracles done with a connection between the claim and the cure. For example, He forgave the sins of the paralytic in Mark 2, and when His enemies called it blasphemy He said: "Which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven or to say, take your bed and walk". He did the one to prove He did the other. God who is truth, cannot provide the power for a miracle if it is used to prove a lie.
The facts they learned and passed on were simple in that they were not entwined with an ancient culture, and were things readily picked up directly by eyes and ears in such a way that there was not room for bias to affect the report, e.g., if a leper stands before Jesus asking to be healed, and Jesus says: I will it. Be healed.
A miracle (from the Latin mirari, to wonder), at a firstand very rough approximation, is an event that is not explicable bynatural causes alone. A reported miracle excites wonder because itappears to require, as its cause, something beyond the reach of humanaction and natural causes. Historically, the appeal to miracles hasformed one of the primary lines of argument in favor of specific formsof theism, the argument typically being that the event in question canbest (or can only) be explained as the act of a particular deity.
The philosophical discussion of miracles has focused principally onthe credibility of certain claims in the Jewish and Christianscriptures. But inquiry into the credibility of specific miracle claimsinevitably raises questions regarding the concept of a miracle, andarguments regarding particular claims cannot be evaluated until thenature of that concept has been at least reasonably clarified.
Speaking of miracles as violations of the laws of naturealso raises questions about the nature of violation. Richard Swinburne(1970) has suggested that a miracle might be defined as anon-repeatable counter-instance to a law of nature. If a putative lawhas broad scope, great explanatory power, and appealing simplicity, itmay be more reasonable, Swinburne argues, to retain the law (defined asa regularity that virtually invariably holds) and to accept that theevent in question is a non-repeatable counter-instance of that law thanto throw out the law and create a vastly more complex law thataccommodates the event.
Many arguments for miracles adduce the testimony of sincere and ableeyewitnesses as the key piece of evidence on which the force of theargument depends. But other factors are also cited in favor of miracleclaims: the existence of commemorative ceremonies from earliest times,for example, or the transformation of the eyewitnesses from fearfulcowards into defiant proclaimers of the resurrection, or the conversionof St. Paul, or the growth of the early church under extremely adverseconditions and without any of the normal conditions of success such aswealth, patronage, or the use of force. These considerations are oftenused jointly in a cumulative argument. It is therefore difficult toisolate a single canonical argument for most miracle claims. Thevarious arguments must be handled on a case-by-case basis.
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