Consider How the Example of the Early Church Can Inform Our Actions Today
What is your perspective on miracles and supernatural signs? I’m talking about the things we read about in the Bible, especially the New Testament.
This is about people receiving healing from their physical ailments and deliverance from their nonphysical afflictions.
It’s about the resurrection from the dead. It’s about hearing God when he speaks. And don’t forget speaking in tongues, interpretation, and receiving divine insights. Do you believe in miracles?
These things occur in the Bible with regular frequency.
For some people this supernatural power continues today. What they read about in the Bible informs their expectations, actions, and reality.
Their lives and their practices continue to build on what the early church began. It’s the kingdom of God present and at work in mighty ways.
Heresy or Not?
For others their life experience lacks miracles and spiritual power. They don’t believe in miracles, because they don’t see any. They adjust their theology accordingly.
I once even attended an ultraconservative church that taught that the spiritual power that the early church enjoyed, died with the apostles.
The preacher said this meant supernatural power has no place in today’s world. He asserted that anyone who believes so is a heretic.
He could cite no biblical support of his conclusion, merely his experience—or lack thereof—relating to supernatural power from Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
I suspect this person and others like him are the heretics, discarding what the Bible says because it doesn’t align with their experience and their comfort.
I Believe in Miracles
I do believe in miracles. I do believe in supernatural power from Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Though I long for it to be a regular occurrence in my life—like it was in the Bible—it does remain part of my experience, my theology, and my expectations.
If we don’t experience God’s spiritual power like the early church did in the Bible, we have two choices.
We can push aside our supernatural potential and remain comfortably unchanged and unchallenged. Or we can open ourselves up to the possibility that God wants to give us more—much more—in our daily lives and in our witness for him.
Do you want more from your faith, or do you want the status quo? Are you open to believe in miracles?
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.
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