RE: [asa] Dowd, Miracles, and ID-TE/ASA-List Relations

John Walley said:
"Let me ask you this. By what criteria did God intend the disciples of Jesus to determine He was from Him? Was it the Scriptures? Was it His miracles? Was it His teaching? Was it his compassion and demeanor? Probably it was some of all these things and others. But it had to come down to individual discernment to synthesize all these things into a decision to trust Him, then as now."

In addition, Jesus rebuked the fundamentalists of his day:

John 5:39 (The Message)

 39-40"You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want.

John 5:39-40 (New International Version)
39You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

...Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of John Walley
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 12:29 PM
To: wjp
Cc: asa; Cameron Wybrow
Subject: Re: [asa] Dowd, Miracles, and ID-TE/ASA-List Relations

I can't answer that except to say using God-given discernment and common sense.

Let me ask you this. By what criteria did God intend the disciples of Jesus to determine He was from Him? Was it the Scriptures? Was it His miracles? Was it His teaching? Was it his compassion and demeanor? Probably it was some of all these things and others. But it had to come down to individual discernment to synthesize all these things into a decision to trust Him, then as now.

Jesus even taught this. If you survey the NT most of the claims of Jesus' authenticity were not related to the scripture but to other external events like miracles or signs and wonders that He counted on the individuals being able to discern. He said "My sheep hear My voice". I think the bibliolatry of fundamental American Christianity has replaced this discernment that God intended for us. That is how we got YEC and many other evils of the church.

As I have posted before, I am happy to accept all the miracles of orthodox Christianity and will continue to do so unless I am faced with compelling evidence otherwise. But even if we were find evidence that some of the recorded miracles were embellishments or even hoaxes, it wouldn't negate the presence or nature of God, only our understanding of His revelation to us. We need His discernment to sort this out.

Thanks

John

--- On Mon, 4/27/09, wjp <wjp@swcp.com> wrote:

> From: wjp <wjp@swcp.com>
> Subject: Re: [asa] Dowd, Miracles, and ID-TE/ASA-List Relations
> To: john_walley@yahoo.com
> Cc: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>, "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
> Date: Monday, April 27, 2009, 8:10 AM
> John:
>
> You say:
>
> I think what I do have a problem
> > with is the taking at face value all of the miracles
> recorded in the
> > Bible. This is not because I don't believe in
> miracles but that I have
> > come to realize that the nature of revelation through
> the Bible is
> > different than previously expected. As a result some
> recorded miracles may
> > contain embellishments that make the miracles seem
> larger than what really
> > happened, i.e. Joshua's long day. So from that
> perspective, the
> > non-comittal nature of TE's responses to miracles
> should not be confused
> > with a doubt about God's propensity for miracles,
> but that the record we
> > have of them needs to be examined carefully to
> establish which are
> > actually historical and which aren't.
> >
>
> What criteria do you or others use to ascertain which
> supposed miracles
> "are actually historical and which aren't"?
>
> bill powers
>
>
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Received on Tue Apr 28 15:56:04 2009