Introduction
It is no secret that the world is filled with suffering, misery, and strife to the extent that many people doubt the existence of God and his desire to change the world positively. To date, special attention should be paid to preaching accepted biblical truths and their rational, logical justification. Jesus’ miracles deserve emphasis to enhance our understanding of Jesus, his connection with the spiritual world as a source of power, his use of that power to alleviate human suffering, and his relevance in the contemporary social order. The miracles of Jesus are something that modern people should pay attention to.
Analysis
The whole concept of Jesus is impossible to understand within the flawed and limited constraints of human logic. It stretches into a realm of faith, a horizon where it is challenging to strike a consensus because it is founded on unjustifiable but firmly held beliefs. It is impossible to understand Jesus and his work without attending to how He experienced and drew power from the spiritual realm (Smith, 1991).
Put differently, Jesus is defined by His ability to relate with the spirit world and draw strength from it, enabling Him to challenge the standard conditions of everyday life. His miracles are the most concrete manifestations of this complex relationship. Therefore, one needs to emphasize His wonderworks as a foundation for knowing him better.
The essence of gaining more knowledge about Jesus is to find solutions or hope while experiencing suffering and strife on earth. Jesus used spirit-driven powers to alleviate human sufferings: diseases, hunger, salvation, and even death. MacArthur (2005) argued that the fact that Jesus mostly performed miracles in the presence of his disciples and asked many witnesses to keep what they had experienced to themselves confirms that they were not meant primarily for nonbelievers; they were intended for believers, to strengthen their faith.
This assertion has gained traction among other theological scholars as well. For example, Brown (2021, p. 379) observed how a “philosophical problem of miracles” arises when nonbelievers hold that miracles never happen, leading to the conclusion that Jesus never performed any. Considering these perspectives, it is advisable to stress Jesus’ miracles, but only among an audience that needs its faith strengthened. Nevertheless, miracles consist of the fact that by alleviating suffering, Jesus used his divine powers to affect a new social order that gave birth to the Church and its Christology.
According to Smith (1991), the church’s foundation is faith in Jesus’ resurrection, one of Christ’s most powerful miracles. Rising from death underscores Jesus’ omnipotence, hence his victory over the seeming end of everything: death. Through such great wonders, one can see that Jesus Christ is God and that there is life after death. Importantly, we need to devote more attention to Jesus’ miracles to understand the ultimate goal of God’s manifestation: to effect a change in our everyday lives, so we are better prepared to inherit God’s kingdom after death.
Conclusion
Therefore, humanity should focus on the miracles of Jesus, the experiences, and the triumphant nature of the Christian experience. The spiritual realm is complex to understand using the stringent and flawed human lenses of logic, hence the need for faith. The miracles Jesus performed strengthened faith and expanded the human horizon beyond the arbitrary end marked by death. As a result, it is crucial to discuss these miracles while maintaining a keen awareness of the realities of life that today’s believers face, thereby helping them find a meaningful connection.
References
Brown, R. E. (2021). Biblical Exegesis. In The Oxford Handbook of Jonathan Edwards (p. 370). Oxford University Press.
MacArthur, J. F. (2005). The vanishing conscience. Thomas Nelson.
Smith, H. (1991). The world’s religions by Smith, Huston [HarperOne, 2009] (paperback) 50th anniversary edition [paperback]. New York: Harper San Francisco.