Category Archives: Miracles

Concerning Miracles

Jesus – Seen or Perceived? Which are You?

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Jesus to Thomas: Stop doubting and believe! (John 20.27)

Stop doubting and believe. (John 20.27)

A Resurrection Day Meditation

After Jesus rose from the dead, he didn’t appear to everyone. Who did he appear to? His apostles and some select disciples. I say “select” because I’m confident Jesus had more than the 500 + disciples that are mentioned in 1 Cor 15.6 that the apostle reports Jesus appeared to after his resurrection.

The obvious question, at least in my mind is, why didn’t Jesus appear to more people? If the resurrection is the most convincing proof of the Christian message – that Yeshua – Jesus of Nazareth – is the promised messiah, the Son of God and the promised divine “Son of Man” to whom all authority is given, (Dan 7.13-14) why didn’t he make it plain to everyone by appearing to more people? Continue Reading

Rejoicing in the Revelation of the King

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Arthur pulls the sword from the stone - Stained Glass

Arthur pulls the sword from the stone as the people recognize the new King

A Christmas Meditation

There’s a recurring theme – both in scripture and in literature where the king, for various reasons, winds up incognito among the people. But even then the king cannot long be hidden. But being incognito for a time is of course a great setup for a dramatic revelation of the king to the people – (though sometimes the revelation is so subtle it goes over the head of the people as in John 6.29-30). But often the revelation is made when the king does something that only a king can, thus revealing his true identity. This is doubly true for the King of Creation – who did many things only the Creator and thus only the rightful king  could do.

But since the king came incognito and is hard for some to see, many religions claim a false king. And atheists claim there is no king. But Christianity makes a unique claim. It claims the Creator, the King entered his creation, though for a time he was incognito.  Not all religions claim that the God who created every created thing himself entered into that creation and interacted with it. Such a creator, the true King of all creation cannot be mistaken for those seeking him.

So for this Christmas meditation we’re going to meditate on how difficult or easy it would be to identify the king, the creator, were he to enter into his creation. For those really interested, the true king is not hard to identify.  Continue Reading

Miracles: Impossible or Improbable?

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Matthew (writer of the gospel) - upon witnessing the miraculous catch of fish

Matthew – “It’s impossible.” The Chosen Episode. 4 “The Rock On Which it is Built”

In “Evidence is for believers, not mockers” I make the case that miracles, one of the strongest proofs of the truth of the gospels, and a validation of the message and ministry of Jesus, is meant for those who already believe, or are ready to believe. They are not meant for mockers like hardened atheists and agnostics or doubters not really looking for the truth. This is true for a number of reasons which I list in the article, so I won’t repeat them here.  I’ll simply encourage you to read the article for the detailed reasons.

As I watched The Chosen (an excellent series I highly recommend about the life of Jesus starting with the call (the choosing) of the disciples) I noticed that they gave a strong defense for why that thesis is true – that miracles are for believers, not unbelievers and mockers. The difference in the approach between those willing to believe and those unwilling to believe a miracle can be seen in how they answer this question: Was that impossible, or merely improbable? Continue Reading

Who Can See the Resurrection? (A meditation)

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The risen Messiah is revealed to Mary Magdalene

Jesus reveals himself to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. “The Bible”, Ep 10 “Courage”

A resurrection day meditation 

In the palm Sunday service this past Sunday, the pastor at my church mentioned that “the great crowd” (John 12.12) that had come out to see Jesus was huge. He mentioned it was likely multiple tens of thousand of people, something I hadn’t considered before. That’s a staggering number. So like a good Berean (Acts 17.11), I got out my Bible history to check.

Sure enough, in “Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus” in an excursus on the number of visitors to Jerusalem during the Passover, Bible historian Jeremias summarizes: Continue Reading

Is the Bible full of fantastic creatures? Part 6: Talking Animals and Jonah

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These two topics – talking animals and “a man who lived in a fish” more than the others really highlight how your worldview and a priori assumptions influence how you understand any text as we’ll see.  Of course I had to shorten the title up a bit for this one. “A man who lived in a fish” following the series name makes for a long title. But we all know who he’s referring to: the prophet Jonah.  As a reminder, here is the list of fantastic creatures this particular atheist takes issue with, with links to the ones we’ve already covered:

“He follows a holy book with a jealous & genocidal god, ghosts, zombies, seers, devils, demons, witches, satyrs, unicorns, talking animals, a man who lived in a fish and a 7 headed dragon.”[1]
(Not listed but also covered already: The Cockatrice)

Are there talking animals in the Bible?

The answer to this question invokes your worldview presuppositions.  Does God exist? Does Satan exist? Are they active in the world?  How you answer these questions determines whether or not you believe the following explanation. Since that is the case, though it should already be clear, let me be explicit about the worldview from which I address these questions:
Continue Reading

Star of Bethlehem – Divine Preparation for the Incarnation

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A Christmas Meditation

The naiveté  of those who doubt that Jesus is the messiah because they suppose that he arranged to fulfill the requirements and prophecies of the messiah himself always amuses me – particularly at this time of  year when the preparations of God for the arrival of the messiah are so apparent.

It reminds me of the naiveté of the comic character Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes – an active and curious child who with his stuffed tiger (who is alive to Calvin) always gets into amusing situations.  In one instance Calvin asks his father: Continue Reading

Distant Starlight – Under Occam’s Razor – Part 2: Critique and Cuts

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Supernova SN1987a

As noted in part 1 of this article, distant starlight has been called the best argument against biblical creation and a young earth. A serious charge. So I thought it would be helpful to identify the best answer to this “best” charge against creation. A number of solutions to this problem have been offered by scientists who happen to also be creationists.  We briefly examined the popular ones in the previous article.  Now that we’ve completed an overview of possible solutions, we’ll get to the meat of the matter: identifying which theory or theories both have a possibility of working, and surviving the principle of Occam’s razor. So without further ado: Continue Reading

This Easter, Thank God For Thomas

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The Incredulity of Saint Thomas

A Resurrection Day Meditation

The Apostle Thomas has been under-appreciated and unfairly characterized as “doubting” – as we understand doubting. Rather than doubting, Thomas is better described as the ultimate realist. He doesn’t put on rose colored glasses and see an idealized world. He sees things as they are in the real world. As such he provides one of the best proofs of the resurrection recorded in the Bible. A good thing to realize as we celebrate resurrection day. Let me explain why.  Continue Reading

Intelligent Design’s Blind Side

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Intelligent Design’s Blind Side

William Dembski is a leader in the Intelligent Design (ID) community, so I read with initial interest a recent interview he did with Sean McDowell titled How is the Intelligent Design Movement Doing? Interview with William Dembski.  which is posted on McDowell’s blog. That initial interest turned to dismay as the adversarial attitude Dembski has toward revealed truth in general and Young Earth Creationism (YEC) in particular was made apparent. When asked how he assesses the reception of ID within the church, Dembski states:

“I would say that the church broadly and even the evangelical community has — on balance — been somewhere between useless and downright counterproductive to the success of ID.”

A most unfortunate assessment given the potential ID has to impact a culture that has largely fallen under the sway of the junk science put forth to support the materialist religion known as Darwinian Evolution. Even more unfortunate is Dembski’s  apparent blindness to how he (and other ID advocates with similar positions) has caused such a reaction from the God fearing, Bible believing faithful they’d like to gain support from. To unravel this mystery for them, let’s start with what both ID advocates and YEC advocates are trying to achieve. Continue Reading

AD Apologetics – Part 2: Jesus’ Triumphant Resurrection

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A light shines during the resurrection of Jesus while Guards at the tomb are unaware.

A light shines during the resurrection of Jesus while Guards at the tomb are unaware. (AD The Bible Continues)

 The series “AD – The Bible Continues” presents a strong case for the resurrection of Jesus.

In  part 1, Jesus’ death and the empty Tomb, the uniqueness of Christianity was examined through  a consideration of the following questions:

Why believe in Christianity?
What makes Christianity different from any other religion?
Why not believe in other religions?
What makes Jesus different from the founder of other religions?
How do you know Christianity is true?
Why should I believe in Jesus?

The answer to all those questions is resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – it is the answer to each question, and what makes Christianity unique. Furthermore, Christianity is the only religion which provides hope for us mortal men and women through a savior who has demonstrated mastery over death by himself rising from the dead. And that savior offers the same resurrection to all who believe in him.

That claim – resurrection from the dead –  is so startling, so bold, so beyond common experience that some people refuse to even consider it as a possibility. Such doubt has been expressed by the well known liberal scholar,  the late Rudolph Bultmann who in his disbelief writes,

Continue Reading