Eternity Daily Bible Study No. 152 - Miracles and The Church Service Received this from a friend? Why not join Eternity Daily Bible Study by sending a blank email to: eternitydbs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com The thirty-one studies on the Kingdom of Heaven have just been compiled into an ebook that can be downloaded (for free) from: http://www.aibi.ph/kingdom/ (Luke 4:16-30 NKJV) So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. ...{23} He said to them, "You will surely say this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.'" {24} Then He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. {25} "But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; {26} "but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. {27} "And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." {28} So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, {29} and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff. {30} Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way. The vast majority of recorded miracles in the Bible do not occur during church services. They occur in homes, at a wedding, out in the street, by the Gate Beautiful, at funerals, in sick rooms, in fishing boats and on mountain sides. A few occur in Jewish synagogues and when they do they tend to result in much anger (e.g. the healing of the man with the withered hand). I cannot recollect a single miracle in the Bible that occurs during a Christian worship service. Come to church and see the miracles is thus not a very biblical injunction. Miracles seem to occur most often in combination with itinerant evangelistic preaching in the great outdoors such as in Samaria or Ephesus or on a hillside in Galilee. I cannot recall Jesus doing any miracles inside the Temple building as such. It is as if Jesus took great care to teach us that the power of God was not confined to religious institutions but was freely available in the midst of ordinary life. In fact not only did the power of God not turn up during the elegant and properly performed temple services, but it did turn up in the midst of the unclean and sinful among lepers and women with issues of blood, among lame people and blind people and Gentiles and in graves and at funerals. The power of God turned up in awful provincial Galilee and in fishing boats and among common people listening to Jesus and did not turn up not among the elite listening to scribes. The signs and wonders broke all the rules. This is what Jesus meant when He said in the verse above: "And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." Convention should have had perhaps a pious Jewish leper made clean during a festival at the Temple. Instead an idol worshiping enemy general was cleansed in the Jordan! What did God do here? God touched an unclean person in an unconventional way! Thus the power of God is not controlled by High Priests in Temples. That was Jesus' Big Message - God was not confined to the Jewish ceremonial system. After all He was from Judah, not of the priestly line and yet had God's power. God's power had moved from priests and Levites and temples and ceremonies and "respectable deserving folk" to Galileans and sinners. Hebrews said that Jesus instituted a new priesthood "of the order of Melchizedek" and eternal priesthood of faith to which all believers belong. The High Priests Annas and Caiaphas had all the power, all the theologians, all the gold, all the ecclesiastical control - but were dumbfounded when the man born blind is brought before them Peter walks in with a healed lame man "walking and leaping and praising God". Apoplectic rage was their only response! Thus miracles are not confined to church buildings and pastors and elders and those who have been "properly trained". (Though I think ministry training can be very valuable.) Miracles are the power of God meeting ordinary human needs in the midst of daily life. They occur when the grog runs out at a wedding, when a young girl dies at home, when a leper believes that Jesus can make him clean. Miracles are not confined to the good and the deserving and the spotless. They occurred also to pagan soldiers and widows in foreign lands. Miracles are God's grace meeting human need when faith is tangibly present. And it doesn't matter if its a Roman centurion or a Gaderene demoniac that has the faith. This upsets our neat religious categories of "who deserves" a touch from God and "who should" perform miracles and who should not. We want God to play by our social and theological categories - but He steadfastly refuses to do so. If you want to see miracles go and live among the urban poor in a Third World city or where Muslims are coming to Christ. You generally won't see too many real miracles in suburbia on a Sunday morning. They do not turn up after the third hymn. They turn up where Christ is proclaimed, where faith is present, and God works to touch human lives, in the midst of daily life. Now let me quickly add that I think pastors are wonderful people and that churches are a very good idea. However God is not confined by ordination ceremonies and church buildings. That's a lot of the point of the Gospels. Yes, God does do miracles through pastors and sometimes even in church services. That is by no means forbidden! But lets expect miracles to happen right in the midst of our everyday lives! Blessings in Him, John Edmiston Asian Internet Bible Institute http://www.aibi.ph/ Free Online Bible And Ministry Training Try our free ebooks on prayer: http://www.aibi.ph/ebooks/ Visit the Eternity home page at: http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ This devotional may be freely forwarded to others and used for non-profit ministry purposes as long as the following copyright notice is included. © Copyright John Edmiston 2003