What Is a Miracle?

Yesterday a posted about people trying to read into the story of Jonah a miracle that simply isn't there; today I want to get into just exactly what a miracle is.

When I was younger, I was taught that a miracle is something that only God or Jesus could do. That may not be an entirely accurate definition, but I think it's probably good enough. Someone told me recently that part of what qualifies something to be a miracle is that it must be something that has never been done before. I'm not sure where they got that, but perhaps that is why Jesus never did anything the same way twice.

Dictionary.com cites the Random House Dictionary as defining miracle as: "1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God. " American Heritage dictionary as: "1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: "Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves" (Katherine Anne Porter). 2. One that excites admiring awe. See Synonyms at wonder. 3. A miracle play."

There are several other definitions from other sources on that website, but, the point is, none of them say anything about a miracle being something that was never done before. In that vein, though, I would like to point out something that was recently pointed out to me (and not by the person that claims miracles have to be something that never happened before): In Matthew 9:29, Jesus healed two blind men by simply touching their eyes. In Mark 8:23, Jesus healed a blind man by spitting on his eyes. In Mark 10:52, Jesus healed a blind man named Bartimaeus simply by telling him he was healed. In John 9:6, Jesus spit on the ground and made a clay from the dirt and spit, and anointed a blind man's eyes with it to restore his sight. Now, to be honest, I don't know why Jesus didn't heal each of the blind men the same way. It doesn't make sense to me: if He could heal one man by telling him to be healed, couldn't He have healed all of them the same way? I know that if I were blind, I would rather be the guy that Jesus just told to be healed. On the other hand, if I were blind, and he wanted to spit in my eyes and then tell me to go wash in some pool somewhere, I would make sure I went to the right pool. Why take a chance? Eyesight is too important. Granted, it would be easier to make excuses, or just sit and complain (that other blind guy didn't have to go through all of this to get his sight back, why do I?), but that wouldn't get my eyesight back.

I think so many times, though, we as individuals get caught up in things that shouldn't really matter. God treats each of us as individuals, and sometimes it seems as though He requires more of one individual than another (sometimes He does require more of one individual than another, but that's His prerogative). We have an individual relationship with God, and it does not serve us well to be trying to figure out why I have to go through this, but he only has to... Let's just do the best we can to do what's required of us, and try not to come up any shorter than we absolutely have to.

Making a Miracle out of a Molehill

In the book of Jonah (and I hope most of us are familiar with the story), God sends Jonah to go warn Nineveh that He is about to destroy them. Jonah, either out of a severe dislike for the Ninevites, or just a fear of being the sacrificial messenger (killing the bearer of bad news was not uncommon in those days), or maybe a little bit of both, went the other way. He caught a ship to Tarshish, but, on the way, a severe storm blew in, threatening the ship. Jonah, realizing that God had sent the storm because of his disobedience, instructed the ship's crew to throw him overboard. God prepared a whale to swallow Jonah (and that must have taken some preparation, because normally a whale, even as big as it is, cannot swallow anything even close to the size of a man) and keep him alive until Jonah repented. Jonah did repent, and went to Nineveh, and the Ninevites repented, and God spared them. Jonah, not quite getting it, went to a nearby hill overlooking the city, and waited for the light show that never came. God had to deal with him all over again about being grateful that his work had paid off.

Now, I have had some people try to tell me that there is a hidden miracle in Jonah. They use to verses together to show that Jonah was able to go three days' journey in one day. The second part of Jonah 3:3 says, "...Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey." In Jonah 3:4, it says, "And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey..." So, apparently, Jonah was able to move at three times the speed that was humanly possible.

Or was he? Let's examine that a little more closely. First of all, a days' journey is not how far a man could run in a day; it's how far a man could lead a fully laden pack mule in a day (taking frequent breaks, stopping for meals, etc.). If it's urgent enough, you can maintain a pace three times faster than a pack mule (well, a lot of people could have, then, but with today's more sedentary lifestyles, not so much). It's generally considered that a days' journey was about thirty miles. For purposes of comparison, the Western States Endurance Run is an annual 'ultramarathon' held in California's Sierra Nevada. It is a 100 mile course, and you have to finish in thirty hours to get an award (a bronze belt buckle). If you finish in less than 24 hours, though, you get a silver belt buckle. Many people do. Think about that for a minute. Right here, in present-day United States, there are people that can run more than 3 days' journey in one day. Yet it's considered a miracle that Jonah ran three days' journey in one day.

Or did he? Let's look at the verbiage again. Jonah 3:3 tells us that Nineveh was an exceeding great city (how great was it?) of three days' journey. If the first part of the sentence is talking about how big Nineveh was, why would the second part of the sentence change the subject to how far away Nineveh was? I think part of the confusion here is cultural. We generally think of a city a bunch of buildings connected by roads. In ancient times, a city was everything enclosed by the city walls. What's the difference? Well, again, we don't think of farmland as being part of a city, but, if you leave the farmland outside the city walls, you're just inviting an attack at the beginning of harvest. If I have a grudge against you, or maybe I just don't care about you one way or the other but my crops aren't doing well, but your crops are outside your walls, all I have to do is attack you, and, while you and yours are huddled inside the walls, my troops and I can harvest your crops. Yes, you could put archers on the parapets, but I can have my archers shooting at your archers... The bottom line is, that Nineveh was a huge city, even by today's standards, but it was pretty much self-sufficient. They grew their own food, milled their grain, they had craftsmen building things that they needed, and all of that inside the walls of the city. That way, they could continue to live while under siege.

Now, Jonah 3:4 says that Jonah began to enter into the city a days' journey. Again, we are talking about a distance, not an amount of time. My best guess is that when Jonah got to the city, he got inside the gate, and (a) didn't find many people there (a soldier or two to make sure he didn't help himself to the food growing there), and (b) realized that if he started preaching fire and brimstone right there, one of those soldiers would draw a sword or pick up a rock to throw at Jonah, and he would be right back outside the gate headed for another whale... So he walked thirty miles into the city. Now there is a crowd to preach to, most of them don't have swords, and he's too far from the gate to make a run for it anyway. So he preaches; probably hoping that they will kill him quickly so that he doesn't have to suffer very long.

More on Trinity

One of the problems with the Trinity doctrine is that, most people seem to think that Trinity refers to three separate Gods. This can be a real stumbling block to someone who is already monotheistic. Sir Isaac Newton was considered to be somewhat heretical because he believed that Trinity and the First Commandment were in direct contradiction to each other. I can certainly see his point. Of course, Newton was given a lot of latitude because a) he was brilliant, b) in spite of the fact that he was arguing against something that a lot of people considered to be a fundamental part of their belief system, there was the understanding that what he believed wasn't really that much different than what they believed, and c) he wasn't overly vocal about it (many of his peers were completely unaware that he was 'anti-Trinitarian').

One of the problems with Oneness doctrine is that, as soon as one announces that one does not believe in the Trinity, the Trinitarians start trying to figure out which person, or persons, the Oneness-believer denies. The fact that the Jehovah's Witnesses are the best known 'non-Trinitarians' doesn't help. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus was the Christ, but that He was not, in and of Himself, divine. He was the Son of God, but He was not God the Son. Of course, the Jehovah's Witnesses are not generally considered to be part of the Oneness doctrine, but people who do believe in Trinity tend to lump together anyone who doesn't...

Christianity is, by definition, a monotheistic religion. We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth... Sound familiar? John 4:24 tells us that God is a Spirit. So, which Spirit is the Father, and which Spirit is the Holy Ghost? Jesus said, in John 10:30, that, "I and My Father are One." Apostle Paul wrote, in 1 Timothy 3:16, that "...God was manifest in the flesh..." The bottom line is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are all manifestations of our one God. Maybe somebody else can show me differently, but it seems to me that the Holy Ghost descended on Jesus at His baptism, and then Jesus sent the Holy Ghost to us after His Ascension, so, for the entire time of Jesus' ministry, the Holy Ghost dwelt exclusively in Jesus. So, for three years, those two manifestations were the same.

I do want to point out that Jesus was very careful about what He said as far as the identity of God. He knew who He was, but He also knew that His flesh was only temporary. Under normal circumstances, God is an invisible God. God doesn't want us making images of Him. Any image that we make of Jesus is really the flesh that He inhabited during His time among us. That would not be an accurate representation of Him, anyway.

My point is that most of us believe pretty much the same thing about God (well, except for the Jehovah's Witnesses), but we get caught up in terminology that we think expresses what we believe, but that maybe means something else to the person we are talking to. We should be clear about what we believe, so that we don't confuse those around us.

Is Trinity Biblical?

I have a book, written by a very intelligent man named Walter Martin, called "The Kingdom of the Cults." Very early on in this book, there is a list of things to help identify a cult. The very first thing on the list is that what the organization teaches must be biblical. If it's in the Bible, and the organization teaches against it, or if it's not in the Bible, but the organization does teach it, then that organization is a cult. That makes very good sense to me. That seems like a very solid proof. The second item on the list is that the organization must teach Trinity. That puzzles me. First of all, if Trinity is biblical, then that idea is covered under item 1, so item 2 is redundant; on the other hand, if Trinity isn't biblical, then item 2 contradicts item 1. Now, I've already mentioned that the late Walter Martin was a very intelligent man, but I have to wonder, why is this even listed?

I think that it's because the evidence for Trinity in the scriptures is somewhat tenuous. The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible lists 8 verses under the topic 'Trinity.' The word Trinity itself doesn't appear in scripture (of course, neither do a lot of other words that we use regularly in church). Really, it seems to me that there are eleven verses that could be used to support the Trinity doctrine: Matthew 28:19, John 14:26, John 15:26, Acts 7:55, Acts 10:38, Romans 15:16, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Galatians 4:6, Ephesians 1:17, 1 Peter 1:2, and 1 John 5:7. For something that so many people consider to be so important, that seems to be pretty thin. If God wanted us to believe in Trinity, wouldn't that be a bold statement somewhere in the Gospels ("Behold, I am the LORD, and my Name is Three!")?

I can come up with a lot more than eleven scriptures that could be used to argue the Oneness of God, as opposed to the Triune formula. Realistically, I could use some of the eleven scriptures listed above to argue against Trinity as easily as to argue in its favor. Some of them, taken together, can get pretty confusing: For example, in John 14:26, Jesus says that the Father will send the Comforter in Jesus' name, but in John 15:26, Jesus says that He himself will send the Comforter from the Father. So, did Jesus send us the Comforter, or did the Father send us the Comforter? And if that weren't confusing enough, in John 14:18, Jesus indicates that He (Jesus) is the Comforter, but 8 verses later, He tells us that the Comforter is the Holy Ghost.

Furthermore, what does Trinity really mean? To some people, Trinity is simply shorthand for the three major manifestations of God, to others, it means that there are three separate Gods; still others believe that the Father and the Holy Ghost are Gods, but the Son is simply the Son of God, and not really a God in his own right (but we can't ignore Him, because He died for our sins). The use of the term Trinity is very widespread, but there doesn't seem to be any real consensus as to what Trinity is. How can this be a defining point between a legitimate Christian church and a cult if we can't even decide what it is?

Saul and David

Saul was the first king of Israel, David was the second. Usually when people look at these two men they concentrate on the fact that when David messed up, he repented, while Saul would continually justify himself. This is true, but it occurs to me that there is more to it than that. What it really comes down to is that David had better overall character than Saul did.

For starters, lets look at the battle with the Amalekites. God told Saul to destroy Amalek, and to kill everything in Amalek. He was not to let anyone live, or even let any of the animals live. When Samuel met with Saul, after the battle, Saul had taken the king, Agag, prisoner, and had not killed the animals. Samuel confronted Saul, and Saul told him that they were going to sacrifice the animals to God. Samuel told Saul that "...to obey is better than sacrifice."

Now David once had occasion to sacrifice some animals to God, but the animals in question weren't his. Fortunately, the animals belonged to a man named Araunah that was friendly towards David. Friendly enough that he would have been happy to give the animals to David, but David refused. He would not sacrifice what wasn't his. He would not have expected God to honor such a sacrifice.

Let's look also at the battle with Goliath. I think most of us know the story: The Philistines set themselves in array against Israel, but then the Philistine champion, Goliath, offered to fight, one on one, any of the Israelites to settle the matter. The Israelites were intimidated; Goliath was six cubits tall--about nine feet. Now, common sense would dictate that the biggest Israelite would fight the giant. Instead, of course, the smallest Israelite on the battlefield ended up going against Goliath, without traditional weapons. David (who wasn't even old enough to be in the army) took a sling and five stones and only needed one. So, who was the biggest Israelite on the battlefield? Saul was.

Let's consider also the conflict that arose when Saul realized that God intended for David to be the second king of Israel, instead of one of Saul's sons. Saul tried to kill David, but God protected David. David had opportunity to kill Saul, and refused to do it. Now, when David, later on in life, found that Uriah the Hittite was standing in the way of what David wanted, he had Uriah killed. The difference, though, is that David repented quickly for having Uriah killed; Saul never really repented of trying to kill David.

You don't have to look to hard at these two men's lives to realize the difference in the strength of character and the faith in God that they had (or didn't have). And I have to admit, sometimes I feel more like Saul than like David. Particularly with regard to Araunah. If I needed something, and somebody offers me exactly what I need, and they seem happy to give it to me, I'm probably not going to argue with them, no matter what it is that I need that whatever-it-is for. I'm not sure that I have that kind of integrity.

Some would question how the Bible can say that David was a man after God's own heart, when he murdered Uriah the Hittite. God knows that none of us are perfect--He didn't create us that way. Most of the time, though, David had the strength of character, integrity, and faithfulness towards God that God has towards us.

What's Your Excuse?

I'm not sure what I am going to blog about today. Maybe nothing, really. I just don't really have anything on my mind right now, but I have a few minutes with an Internet connection, and an obligation to post something. Believe it or not, there are often times when I have nothing on my mind. People who really know me, know that. It seems funny, though, there are often times when I can't get to a computer when something will strike me and I'll say to myself, "I ought to write a blog about that," but then, when I get access, I can't remember what was so important. Sometimes it's just a question of fighting through the noise.

I spent Saturday sick in bed. I felt fine Friday night, and woke up Saturday just plain miserable. I made the trip from my bedroom to the bathroom several times. made the trip into the kitchen a few times, but I couldn't eat anything. I sipped some water, at first. After awhile, I felt well enough to risk sipping some apple juice. Sunday morning, I felt enough better to eat a small breakfast. After church, I tried to eat some lunch. There was a salad, some lemon chicken, with stir-fried vegetables and rice, and then some lemon pie. I didn't really feel like eating, anyway, so I ate a few forkfuls of salad, but then they brought the entree. Hmm. Do I finish the salad, that I don't really feel like eating anyway, and let the chicken get cold? No, I started picking at the chicken. It was good, but I didn't really feel like eating it, either. I ate a few forkfuls of that, with the rice and veggies, but then they brought me the pie. Isn't it funny how it's easier to eat sweets than nutritious food? I still wasn't able to finish the pie, but a whole more of that went into my gut than anything else. Sunday night a friend from church gave me some saltine crackers. Finally, something I actually felt like eating (even more so than the pie). The thing was, I knew I needed to eat. I didn't feel like eating, but I knew my immune system couldn't fight off whatever had attacked my system without fuel to work with. At the same time, a lot of my problem was gastro-intestinal in nature, so eating the wrong thing could make things much worse.

I think sometimes we are like that spiritually. We know what we need to do, but we just don't feel like doing it. Maybe we're feeling depressed about something, or we're mad at God for some reason, but we can almost always find a reason for not doing what, deep down inside, we know we should do. My mother used to tell me that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. There are a lot of people who never do what they need to do because they always let themselves get sidetracked. They aren't bad people, they just never get anything done.

Tough Choices

In the Book of Acts, it tells us that Saul the Pharisee was out rounding up Christians to be imprisoned or killed, when God knocked him down and blinded him. Realizing that only God could do that to him, but not understanding why God would (he was, after all, a loyal Pharisee, doing what he believed God wanted him to do), he cried out to God. Saul quickly learned that he was very much on the wrong path, but, God told him that He would send a man named Ananias to set Saul straight. Then, the Bible tells us, God told Ananias to go to Judas' house to share with Saul (not Judas Iscariot, of course, but that can't have been encouraging to Ananias). Ananias reacted pretty much the way most of us would: "Um, God? I don't know if this guy Saul has been operating behind your back, but he's been running around throwing Christians into jail, and having us killed... Wouldn't you rather that I go to Nineveh?" Ananias went to Judas' house expecting, at the very least, a tough sell. But he knew that God had spoken to his heart, and he knew what he had to do (and he wasn't sure that he wouldn't wind up in the belly of a whale if he tried to run away from it). He had every reason to believe that he was going to wind up in prison if he did what God was telling him to do, but he made up his mind that he'd rather be a Joseph than a Jonah. Some part of his mind must have contemplated an escape, even knowing that there is no escape from God.

When Ananias got to Judas' house, though, Saul was blind and badly shaken (I guess losing your eyesight can do that to you). Saul knew that God had sent Ananias, and was ready to listen to whatever Ananias said. I imagine that if Ananias had told Saul to sign over all his worldly possessions and cut off his right arm, Saul would have done it gladly. Ananias preached the gospel to Saul, and Saul accepted it. After that, Saul was known as Paul.

The point is that Ananias had to have felt that he was in a no-win situation. He chose to do the right thing, because he trusted in God, but he didn't see the big picture, and he didn't see the good that would come from what he had been asked to do (yes, God told him that Saul was a 'chosen vessel,' but that doesn't really tell the story of what Apostle Paul went on to do). It can't have been easy for him to go to meet with Saul. Once he got there, everything went smoothly, but he didn't know that it would until he got there. Yes, I understand that the passage makes it sounds like he just waltzed in, placed his hands on Saul, said, "Jesus sent me here to heal you and send you out to preach the gospel!" Think about that for minute. How many people do you know with that kind of faith? Now, I will grant you, it may very well be that Ananias psyched himself up to the point where he was able to appear to be completely unconcerned, but, human nature being what it is, I'll bet that he was still shaking on the inside.

God honored Ananias' faith, and He wants to honor our faith, but sometimes we are going to have to make some tough choices.