One of the struggles of Bible study is coming to terms with the reality that we cannot and likely will not be able to really know what happened in many circumstances. The Bible speaks again and again of supernatural occurrences, many of which we can easily understand scientifically in today’s world. Most of the time, we can look at those passages and see that the point of the story is seldom the specifics of what happened as much as the “moral of the story.”
Much of today’s understanding of “belief” is fundamentally flawed. The Greek word translated as “belief” in English is not belief that, but belief in. Believing in Jesus’ ministry should not be centered around the specifics of what Jesus physically did. Whether we believe Jesus actually performed miracles is irrelevant to what his ministry was about. Jesus didn’t do great things to simply prove that he could in a petty effort to boost his or God’s ego (I should hope). In that sense, it doesn’t matter whether or not those acts are historically true, because belief in Jesus is not belief that he did those things, but belief in his ministry and his person. Each of Jesus’ acts can be seen as challenges to the ineffectual requirements of the religious institution or acts of radical compassion. Belief in Jesus is better understood as belief in what was behind his acts, not the acts themselves.
Whether or not we can perform miracles in today’s world, we can try to offer healing, compassion, and understanding.
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