Where’d the Miracles Go?

We look around at this world and see so much sickness and heartache. It’s natural to ask, where is the power that was so active in the Bible? Miracles were happening left and right back then. What changed?

Let’s take a look at a blink-and-you’ll-miss it passage that may shed a little light on this and give us a new perspective.

In Philippians, between the powerful theology and sometimes-troubling commands of chapter 2 and the whoopin’ Paul gives the “mutilators of the flesh” in chapter 3, there is a very personal section that we can easily skim over. Paul says he’s going to send Timothy to Philippi when he can,

But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. (Phil 2:25-27)

Epaphroditus was so sick he almost died? Why didn’t Paul heal him? He healed untold numbers of people in Acts; handkerchiefs he’d merely touched would heal people (Acts 19:12). He even raised someone from the dead (Acts 20:9-10). Why was he now reduced to worrying and praying for his friend?

We need to stop and take a careful look at the Bible. Miracles were not happening left and right. They were focused in specific periods.

The first and most obvious may also be the least miraculous: the days of the exodus. Moses was involved in a few miracles, such as the parting of the Red Sea, but forty years of manna and the pillar of cloud didn’t seem to involve him at all. And the miracles weren’t very personal; the only recorded healing was a group healing (Num 21:4-9).

The ministries of Elijah and Elisha look more like what we think of as miracles: multiplied food, raising the dead, and healing the sick. And also calling down fire and blinding armies. Depending on how you count them, there were maybe 15 miracles recorded between the two of them.

Then, of course, we have the ministry of Jesus and the apostles. Everybody was getting healed everywhere, right? No, of course not. There were millions of people who weren’t healed. Jesus healed people everywhere he went, but only where he went and only the people who came to him. The apostles healed many people, but they did not just bless whole cities with a blanket healing. Their miraculous work was focused, and it reveals some of what was going on.

These periods of miracles were periods of renewal. In the exodus, God was creating his nation to be a light to the world; the miracles were signs to the people of Israel and the surrounding nations. The ministries of Elijah and Elisha came a couple of generations after the division of the kingdom as they called the northern kingdom to repentance and revival; they were signs to the unbelievers to repent. And the miracles of Jesus and the apostles were during the creation of the new covenant and the birth of the church; miracles were signs to those who were hearing the gospel. With just a few exceptions, the miracles of the church age were all outward focused.

Epaphroditus grew ill, but he was not miraculously healed, probably because that would not serve the work of spreading the gospel. God is not a genie or vending machine. The sovereign Lord of heaven and earth works when and how he chooses for his own purposes. And God did heal Epaphroditus, just not through showy miracles but through the usual means of a body being strengthened to fight the infection.

So what about today? Does this mean miracles are over? No.

There are people who say the age of miracles has passed, but accounts of miracles continue. Craig Keener has written a two-volume work that looks at the evidence for miracles that were reported in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. So it seems the Spirit still works miracles through humans at the frontiers of the gospel.

Does that mean people in North America and Europe are out of luck? No. God still heals. Amazing things still happen. I myself have witnessed a doctor saying “I can’t find the tumor anymore”. But he works when and how he chooses, for his own purposes, just as he always has.

We shouldn’t feel cheated that we don’t live in an age of miracles. No one ever really did. God does not owe us healing or signs and wonders. But in his grace he does still heal, sometimes. When he does not, he walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. And that is a priceless gift.


Image: Christ Healing the Mother of Simon Peter’s Wife by John Bridges, 1839, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons