The age of miracles

[Athetotheist]

It's not really my intention to make a whole thread out of this; I just mean to pose a question as a point of curiosity: Can anyone refer me to textual evidence that the age of miracles was to end with the passing of the apostles?

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 97 by onewithhim]

Why do you have to have miracles to prove the truth? Didn't Jesus say that we walk by faith and not by sight? And our faith is assured by what we have learned in the Bible. The fake miracles today are designed by Satan to draw people away from Jehovah and Jesus Christ.

Miracles are God showing who He is and what He can do and will do. To, for, and/or about, anyone, at any time.

Jesus did not say those words, Paul did. Jesus demonstrated them throughout his ministry.

The miracles He does today are designed to expose fake counterfeits, meet needs, and draw people away from Satan and to Himself, to give Him alone all the glory.

What is it to "walk by faith"? How is it exercised and demonstrated, do you think?

God has already shown what He can do and will do, through Jesus when he was on Earth. Jesus demonstrated, with power from Jehovah, what he will do for Jehovah's sake, in the new system of things. We do not need miracles today. Our faith is already established by what we have learned in the Bible. That is what the Bible was given to us for.

Paul said those words, but Jesus had already provided the idea. When Jesus asked Peter who he thought He was, Peter answered, and then Jesus alluded to the difference between literally SEEING a spiritual truth and UNDERSTANDING through Jehovah's Holy Spirit, which generates faith. (Matthew 16:16,17) Jesus also said something very close to what Paul expressed, at John 20:29. He said to Thomas: "Because you have seen me, have you believed? Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe." Same thought, different words.

Oh, miracles today are supposed to bring people TO Jehovah (whom Jesus called "the true God")? I don't recall EVER hearing anyone who claims to have observed a miracle saying that it was Jehovah's power that did it. And what "fake counterfeits" have these miracles exposed? It seems to me that they show that THEY are performed by a counterfeit.

We walk by faith after studying the Scriptures and believing what they tell us, and then obeying what they say to do. We feel assured that what we have learned from the Bible (AND what we see around us in nature AND the prophecies that have been fulfilled and are even now being fulfilled), is true and trustworthy.

"Faith is the assured expectation of what is hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities that are not seen." (Heb.11:1)



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[Checkpoint]

[Replying to post 109 by onewithhim]

Yes, that is right. "Miracles" means healings as well as spectacular displays. They aren't from God. And the so-called healings are fake. If they were real, wouldn't everyone in the world be healed by now?

Some are fake and some are from the God who is reality.

No, of course not. Were they, even in Israel, at any time Jesus was there?

[Sojournerofthearth]

[Replying to post 110 by onewithhim].

Seeing a miracle, a show-stopping phenomenon of biblical proportions, will not build any confidence... enter the children of Israel... the 10 lepers... the followers of Christ's day... who witnessed Him raising the dead, healing the halt, blind and dumb, feeding thousands on what wouldn't have fed 10... picking up a bloody ear and replacing it in the midst of a mob. It will not build any confidence in a person beyond any other stupendous performance unless their heart is turned to God.

YHVH, (who later became Christ)


You lost me right there.

YHVH and Christ are not the same Person. You say YHVH BECAME Christ. How could He when He speaks to Christ in the O.T., and Christ speaks to HIM in the N.T.? If you say God is talking to Himself, I'm sorry, but that makes no sense and abates all reason. Look at these few scriptures and tell me if you think YHVH is anointing, sending and talking to Himself.

Good Evening,

Well, let's see... where should I begin? In a letter to the Corinthians, Paul is trying to get the Corinthians in line with Christ, because they were reverberating back and forth between being closer to the world and Greek Philosophy and then to being closer to Ritualistic Judaism and further and further distancing themselves from Christ. He lays out the pitfalls of both and them begins to remind them of what they were called to, reminding them of how they were so caught up in every wind of doctrine they'd lost sight of who they were. He reminds them of how they came into the truth and, obviously being the season of Passover, he makes several references to the days of Unleavened Bread by telling them that they are puffed up, full of sin and goes into some of that. He addresses their questions on marriage and dating, purchasing food offered to idols, defends himself from gossip regarding his credentials, And then, he gets into Passover, as Christ is their Passover lamb... and he qualifies Christ's sacrifice by reminding them exactly who Christ was...

For I would have you know this, my brothers, that while our fathers all lived under the cloud, all crossed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses by the cloud and by the sea, all ate the same supernatural food, and all drank the same supernatural drink (drinking from the supernatural Rock which accompanied them — and that Rock was Christ) (1 Corinthians 10:1-4)

Aside from Genesis, where it says let US make man in Our Image, and behold, man has become as one of us, it also indicates in many places that God is not just the Father, but there is also The Logos, the Word, Melchizadek, a high priest without mother or father.

The word, Elohim is a plural word... and many places in the Bible it is written in a plural tense.

Ecc 12:1  Remember also thy Creators in days of thy youth, While that the evil days come not, Nor the years have arrived, that thou sayest, 'I have no pleasure in them.' 

Isaiah 54:5 For your Makers [are] your husbands.

Job 35:10  But none saith, Where is God my makers, who giveth songs in the night

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD (is) the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the Holy Ones is understanding

Hos 11:12  Compassed Me with feigning hath Ephraim, And with deceit the house of Israel. And Judah again is ruling with God, And with the Holy Ones is faithful! 

Pro 30:3  Nor have I learned wisdom, Yet the knowledge of Holy Ones I know.

Abraham, your father, was glad that he might see my day; and he saw, and did rejoice.' The Jews, therefore, said unto him, 'Thou art not yet fifty years old, and Abraham hast thou seen?' Jesus said to them, 'Verily, verily, I say to you, Before Abraham's coming—I am;' they took up, therefore, stones that they may cast at him, but Jesus hid himself, and went forth out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. (John 8:56-59)

It is of no consequence if you believe this... but God is a family. You may have some explanation that it doesn't mean what it says, however, the Jews knew what he was saying and they were going to kill him for it.

Soj

[Checkpoint]

[Replying to post 109 by onewithhim]

James 5:14,15 refers to a person who needs spiritual help, a person who is spiritually sick. It is easier to understand those verses if one considers them in context. Verses 19 and 20 harmonize with spiritual sickness being the subject there. No miracles are involved. Just kind, loving brothers prayerfully and lovingly helping to readjust a fellow Christian back to emotional and spiritual health.

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No, James is not repeating himself. He is dealing with two quite different situations.

James 5:14,15 shows two "quite different" situations? I don't see it. Could you explain?

No. Verses 14-15 deal with one situation, and verses 19-20 deal with a different situation.

The responses instructed are therefore also different.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 106 by brunumb]

According to the Bible, if one is so inclined, it says, No man can come to me except the Father, which has sent me, draws him. Jn. 6.44 and it also says, many are called but few are chosen, Mat 22.14. In Rev, it says, you must be called, chosen and faithful. So, unless one is given eyes to see, and ears to hear, they'll see it but they won't take it in, and they'll hear it, but they won't apply it to their hearts. In order to become a believer, God has to be involved from the beginning. It's not in man that walks to direct his steps. Jer 10.23 and Psa 37.23 the steps of a man are ordered by the Eternal and a man's goings of the Eternal; how can a man, then, understand his own way? Pro 20:24

I'm just saying, a man can't believe unless God first gives him eyes to see.

If that is the way God works then I consider him to be a contemptible being unworthy of respect let alone worship.

[2timothy316]

I don't limit my God to the first century. Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. He will be what He is.

It's not God that was limited, it was people that God limited. OWH and I keep saying this over and over but you're not listening. People do not have God's powers to raise people from the dead and cure every sort of disease anymore.

[Checkpoint]

I don't limit my God to the first century. Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. He will be what He is.

It's not God that was limited, it was people that God limited. OWH and I keep saying this over and over but you're not listening. People do not have God's powers to raise people from the dead and cure every sort of disease anymore.

Maybe, as to us, we are not listening because the voice we are hearing, on this matter, is the voice of a stranger.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 112 by Checkpoint]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your post.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 113 by Sojournerofthearth]

I asked you to respond specifically to what I posted about God speaking to himself, sending himself, anointing himself, and giving himself commands and instructions on how to do things. Will you do so?

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 114 by Checkpoint]

Once again I don't understand your post.

But I will say that verses 19 and 20 of James 5 are basically the same. They both are concerned with spiritual sickness. But verses 13-15 deal with someone who is, for some reason (though not going "astray" from the truth) spiritually weak. I was in that very situation a few short years ago. I probably was very depressed and sad and I asked the elders to help me because I was spiritually down. I had that very passage in mind. (In fact, another rendering of the word for "sick" is possibly "tired" one. That does not connote someone with serious physical illness.)

Verses 19 and 20 also deal with spiritual weakness, but much more serious. It pertains to someone who was somehow actually persuaded to turn away from the truth, potentially making him an apostate. Other, faithful, Christians can and did turn back the spiritually shipwrecked person and help restore him to spiritual health.