Do miracles happen today? With Dr. Craig Keener

Hi, from the Salvation Army, you're listening to Words of Life. Hello and welcome back to Words of Life. Today is part three of our three-part conversation Bernie Dake had with professor, author, teacher, Dr. Craig Keener. It was an honor to pick his brain on these topics and I pray you were even half as blessed as I was by these conversations. Again, if you missed any of these episodes, subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit wordsoflifepodcast.org.

Thank you again to Dr. Keener for sharing your time, wisdom and passion. It was an honor to have you join us on Words of Life.

Join us next week as we have a special behind the scenes episode before we jump into our next conversation with Dr. Carolyn Moore. God bless and have a great week. We do see miracles sometimes and those miracles that do happen, whether they happen to us or somebody else, they're a gift to all of us because they're a reminder that God hasn't forgotten His promise of a world made new or is going to wipe away all tears from our eyes. Because in the cross we see that in the midst of brokenness, in the midst of injustice, and when darkness seems to prevail, God is still at work to bring about His purposes.

I wanted to start this one with a question for you that you are uniquely gifted to answer. What is a miracle? You know, the world around us is a sign of God's activity. I can't think of anything more miraculous than DNA, the intelligence content to make DNA work.

But having said that, people usually get used to just the world around us. So we often speak of that as general divine action. But when we speak of miracles, historically the definition of that has been special divine action.

That is something that gets people's attention because it's so out of the ordinary, so unexpected. People have defined miracles a whole lot of different ways and a lot of people today follow the definition of David Hume in the 1700s, a Scottish philosopher who argued that miracles are violations of natural law. That's not a good definition in the sense that it doesn't even accommodate most biblical miracles. I mean, for God to blow back the sea all night by a strong east wind in Exodus 14, well, is that a violation of natural law or is God using nature to do it? So I prefer when I'm working from a definition of miracles, I prefer to use the one that's been used historically most often, which is that of special divine action, just something that's out of the ordinary.

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That's counseling.westernsem.edu. The reason I say that you're uniquely gifted or capable of answering this question is you've just written a book about miracles called Miracles Today. And when you hear someone say something like, miracles don't happen today like they did in biblical times, what does that do to your psyche? How do you want to respond to them?

Well, actually what it does to my psyche is like, oh wait, oh, I have some interesting things for you to hear. There was a survey maybe 15 years ago or 20 years ago of physicians in the US. And of course, not all physicians in the US believe in miracles. But in the survey of physicians, maybe three quarters or close to three quarters of them believed in miracles. But over half of those physicians claimed to have witnessed what they believed were miracles in the context of the question before it being about, do you believe miracles happen today like they did in the Bible? So these are people who claim not just that they believe in them, but over half of them claim that they have witnessed them. And there are surveys that show that there are hundreds of millions of people in the world today who claim to have witnessed divine healing. You know, David Hume said, well, you know, if miracles ever happened, then they'd still happen and we'd have credible eyewitnesses, but we don't have any credible eyewitnesses. Well, I don't think David Hume would get away with that argument today.

When there's hundreds of millions of people, you can't just dismiss all of them. And a number of them that I cite are medical doctors or PhDs and so on. They meet Hume's criteria for reliable witnesses.

You know, he said, well, nobody with any reputation to stake on it would claim this. Well, maybe not in his sphere of friends, but today we do have plenty of people who claim these things. And in many places in the West, we have medical reports as well as eyewitness accounts. Now in historiography, what I deal with normally is testimony. So if I get multiple independent testimony, I'm elated.

That's really good evidence, especially when you're talking about 2,000 years ago. Even today, if I can get multiple eyewitness evidence, but when you can get medical documentation on top of that, like Global Medical Research Institute, they investigate accounts of miracles. And most things they investigate can't meet their criteria because usually people don't have the before after medical documentation, not because it didn't happen, but just because they don't know how to get the documentation.

But sometimes they do. And so they published this one article in a peer reviewed journal of this woman who had been blind for 12 years due to organic causes. And one day they prayed, they believed in God. Theoretically, they believed in miracles.

They'd never heard of one happening. But the husband just cried out in desperation, Oh God, please make my wife able to see. Suddenly she could see her husband for the first time. She could see the pictures of her children on the dresser. She'd never seen her children before. And it's medically documented before and afterward.

And the only thing that was different was that that one prayer and the result was instant. So I mean, that's a rather dramatic example, but we have a number of others, even in my own family. My wife is from Congo, Brazzaville. She told me a story from her family where Antoinette Molombe found out that her daughter, Therese, who cried out she was bitten by a snake, she got to her. Therese wasn't breathing.

There was no medical help available in the village. She strapped Therese to her back, ran to a nearby village where family friend Coco Ngoma-Mowiz prayed for Therese. Therese started breathing again. Next day she was fine.

This was decades ago. Therese has a master's degree, no brain damage. So I asked Antoinette Molombe, how long was it that she wasn't breathing? She said, getting from this village to that village, about three hours.

Now, five to six minutes with no oxygen, irreparable brain damage starts in. But Therese has no brain damage. This one really got my attention because Therese is my sister-in-law.

Antoinette Molombe was my mother-in-law. We interviewed so many people about these kind of events. Also, you've got not just people who are already Christians and therefore are primed to believe that something is a miracle. You have millions of people around the world who come from non-Christian backgrounds. Usually they have their own indigenous healing traditions, but they encounter a healing so dramatic that they actually abandon centuries of tradition and become followers of Jesus at great social cost. There was a report from within China around the year 2000 that about half of all conversions in the previous 20 years have been due to people being healed.

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Because when caregiving feels easier, life feels better. Go to ZinniaTV.com and sign up for a free trial today. Use the code RESOURCE for 15% off an annual Zinnia subscription. Dr. Keener, how can we as believers come alongside someone who may be struggling with unanswered prayers and when we say that, I think there are people that are desperate to see a miracle. How would you come alongside someone like that?

Yeah. In the Gospels, you have people who just, they won't let go. They just hold on to God with tenacity in faith. But faith is not just faith that God will do something. Faith is trusting God that he's worthy of our trust no matter what. My wife and I have been through, I think, seven miscarriages.

So she was a refugee during war. We've been through hard times. God doesn't always answer our prayers the way that we want Him to. If something was automatic and always happened, we wouldn't call it special divine action. We call it just the way things always happen.

We wouldn't get our attention the same way. So brokenness is part of this world. And when Jesus did miracles, it's like John the Baptist sends to him and says, Are you the one to come or should we look for somebody else? Jesus sends back the messengers with words that echo two passages in Isaiah that talk about the coming of the kingdom. But the kingdom, even though we see signs of it, like Jesus was healing the blind, healing the deaf, and so on, the fullness of the kingdom is still future. And because the kingdom is already not yet, we do see miracles sometimes. And those miracles that do happen, whether they happen to us or somebody else, they're a gift to all of us because they're a reminder that God hasn't forgotten his promise of a world made new or is going to wipe away all tears from our eyes.

But that's not a guarantee they happen all the time. But we do see something else in the gospels, something that runs deeper than miracles themselves. And that's the cross. Because in the cross we see that in the midst of brokenness, in the midst of injustice, when darkness seems to prevail, God is still at work to bring about his purposes. And so when miracles happen, and when we look at the cross, we're reminded of the hope that we have of a world made new, that in the end we will be healed, we will be restored, whether in the short term, but most importantly always in the long term. Father, you are so good, and you are the one who seeks us.

You gave your own son so that we could know you. And so we know that your heart is in this. Open our hearts. Lord, those who are seeking you, those who are interested, those who don't think they're interested but there's a need in their lives, we pray that you will open their hearts to the joy and the hope that comes in knowing you, in experiencing your gracious, compassionate love, the relationship with you that can last forever, the very thing for which we were created, the very purpose for which you made us in your image, so that we could be in communion with the one who loves us more than anything else. Lord, open our hearts to you, open our ears to you, and take us deep in knowing you. We ask you this, Father, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen. Dr. Keener, this is the shameless opportunity for marketing and plugs, perhaps. Do you have a website, a social media presence?

I guess the easiest way you could look for my stuff on YouTube, and I have a website, CraigKeener.com, and you can find my books on Amazon or Christianbook.com. Make checks payable to Dr. Craig Keener. Well, brother, Dr. Keener, thank you so much for joining us today and encouraging us. God bless you.

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We'll see you next time. There's no better way to start your day than spending time in God's word and in prayer. Don't know where to start? We have a free daily prayer podcast created to help you do just that. The Your Daily Prayer podcast delivers a thoughtful devotional and timely prayer to you seven days a week. Gain inspiration, faith, and encouragement with daily messages in 10 minutes or less. To start listening now, search Your Daily Prayer on your favorite podcast app or visit lifeaudio.com. The Historical Jesus Podcast is the sweeping saga of the life and times of Galilean Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the faith, religion, and church founded to honor and disseminate his acts and teachings. Join me, Mark Vinet, on this fascinating journey through time exploring the many great works of Christian theology, literature, architecture, music, and art inspired by the words and deeds of Jesus Christ.