Miracles-Do They Exist?

Biblical Examples of Miracles
In the Bible, there are stories of events that many consider to be miracles. Here are a few examples:

• Miracle of Creation (Genesis 1:1)
• The Raising of Lazarus (John 11:1-44)
• Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind (John 9:1-41)
• Jesus Heals Leper (Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16)
• Jesus Heals Deaf and Mute (Mark 7:31-37)
• Miscellaneous Miracles (Matthew 15:27-31)
• Jesus' Resurrection (Matthew 28; Mark 16; John 20; Luke 24) 

Miracles According to Lee Strobel

Introduction

Neurosurgeon Story

Lee Strobel, a famous journalist, discusses both sides of the story-he discusses miracles with a non-believer and several believers. Then he asks us to decide and wants us to think about miracles. 

He talks about a man who finished very high in ranking in his high school class, scored very high on the SAT, and was granted a full scholarship from Yale. In college, this person was failing chemistry, a prerequisite in fulfilling his dream of becoming a doctor. He wasn't ready for the final exam, prayed to God, and had a dream where someone wrote chemistry questions and answers on the board in a classroom. It turns out that the problems in the dream were the same as on the exam. As a result, he aced it. 

From that point on, this man went on to become the youngest pediatric neurosurgeon in the United States at John Hopkins. One example of a surgery he did was that he separated twins conjoined at the brain. This man's name is Dr. Benjamin Carson (Strobel 15-16).

Do you think this is a miracle by God?

The Non-believer Point of View

Dr. Michael Shermer: Believer to Non-believer

Strobel interviewed a skeptic and his name is Dr. Michael Shermer. His wife got in a vehicle accident, and she was paralyzed from the waste down. He prayed, nothing happened, and then didn't believe (Strobel 44-45).

According to Strobel, he believed that Jesus was just a moral teacher and did not rise from the dead. He points out the discrepancies in the resurrection story in the four gospels. He says that we do not know whether or not God created the universe (Strobel 60, 62).  

Evidence for Miracles

Multiple Sclerosis Case

Strobel also interviewed a skeptic-turned-believer by the name of Dr. Craig Keener. He talks about a case where there is documentation of a patient named Barbara who had progressive multiple sclerosis and was treated at the Mayo Clinic. 

Dr. Keener mentioned that Dr. Harold Adolph, a surgeon who has done many operations and is board-certified, said the patient was one of the most ill patients he ever witnessed. He said that another physician discussed the patient being a gymnast that started tripping, bumping into walls, and becoming unable to get to the rings. This person also had pneumonia and lost control of urination and bowel movements. She became blind and her muscles became deformed. This means that Barbara's body was in a fetal position where she couldn't move. The Mayo Clinic could not stop her disease from getting worse and she was expected to die.

However, someone called her story into a radio station and there was a request for people to pray for her. Hundreds of people wrote her letters and on Pentecost Sunday, her aunt came to read her a few of the letters which were healing prayers. Barbara heard a voice that told her to get up and walk, and she told her friend that God was the voice. The family came in, along with the physician, and they saw Barbara jump out of the bed and walk. She was no longer short of breath and she was completely healed.  The doctor said it was medically impossible and both doctors said they have never seen anything like it. That evening there was a worship service and everyone thanked God for this and sang Amazing Grace (Strobel 101-104).

Vision, Creation, Jesus' Resurrection

Vision

Strobel interviewed a missionary named Tom Doyle who said that Muslims are seeing dreams and visions of Jesus. One example is about a man in Jericho who was a member of the Palestinian Authority and started having dreams about Jesus. Therefore, he started to read the Qur'an more, but the more he read it, the more Jesus came into his dreams. He eventually took the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca (a very holy Muslim event), looked at the Kaaba, and said his prayers. However, he saw Jesus on top of the Kaaba-the same Jesus that appeared in his dreams. Jesus told him that this was the wrong direction and that he should go home, so he did. He met a Christian friend who taught him about Jesus and he turned to Christ (Strobel 149).

Creation

Dr. Strauss offered a fine-tuning example with the strength of the strong nuclear force. The strength of this force is what produces elements from the periodic table. If you manipulate this force by just making it two percent stronger while everything else stayed the same, there would be more elements, but they would destroy life (Strobel 177).

Dr. Strauss discussed the conditions for a life-sustaining planet-Earth.  He says that to have life, Earth needs to be in a spiral galaxy (which it is) with the right radiation levels. It also needs a star that has enough material to create rocky planets, in which the sun does. The Earth is exactly the right distance from the sun for the amount of water and the tilt. It also has the right size so the gravity can have methane escape and oxygen, which is essential to life, stay. The moon stabilizes the Earth's tilt as well. Plate tectonics helps avoid a water world with no continents, helps with the magnetic field, and helps with biodiversity. Jupiter is nearby to attract comets and meteors to try and keep them away from Earth (Strobel 179-180).

Jesus' Resurrection

Detective Warner Wallace discusses eyewitness accounts and that he tested the gospels to make sure they are true eyewitness testimonies. He mentioned the fact that there is evidence that Matthew and John based their eyewitness accounts as Jesus' disciples. He said that in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, it says that Luke carefully investigated everything from the start, and Wallace thinks he interviewed eyewitnesses (Strobel 196).

Wallace then talks about reliability of the eyewitnesses by determining if they had any reason to lie and if the stories changed over time. The Acts of the Apostles does not include the deaths of Paul, Peter, and James because it was more than likely written before the deaths occurred. Luke was written before Acts, and Mark was written before Luke because Luke uses Mark as a source. He also said that not all memories are created the same, and that witnesses remember experiences that are unique, not repeated, and powerful. The disciples' experiences with Jesus met these criteria. He also says that eyewitness discrepancies in the gospels can be reliable and the gospel writers could have destroyed all of the gospels except for one-but they did not. This is because they knew the stories were true and that they were from different perspectives. There are also ancient sources that discuss the disicples' willingness to die for what they preached about Jesus (Strobel 197-198, 206).

Decision Time

Both Lee Strobel and I believe miracles exist. Do you? 

Bibliography

Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages (ESV).  Bible Hub, 2018, 

         www.biblehub.com/. 

Strobel, Lee. The Case for Miracles: a Journalist Explores the Evidence for the Supernatural.

           Zondervan, 2018.