Today Dr. Keener was interviewed by George P. Wood of AGTV about his book Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts.
Miracles: the credibility of the New Testament accounts (video)
Category Archives: Miracles
God does miracles only when we need them — Matthew 14:13-21
The miracle of the “feeding of the five thousand” in Matthew 14:13-21 is greater than the manna of the exodus, since none of the manna would be left over. But manna was never left over because it was to be provided every day, whereas this miracle is a rare one. So much was left over that each of the twelve disciples gathered food in his wicker basket (v. 20). The leftovers stress the lavish abundance of God’s miraculous power in Christ; many people felt that a good host should provide enough food that some would always be left over.
Yet the gathering of the leftovers (compare 2 Kings 4:7, 44; 7:1-2, 16-20; 1 Kings 17:16; Jn 6:12) teaches us something further. Most moralists condemned wastefulness and emphasized thrift. Jesus trusted that God’s provision would always be available when it was needed (compare 16:9-11), but like most moralists he refused to squander what was available. The extra bread, which was more than the amount started with, could be used for other meals.
Everett Cook, a retired Pentecostal minister running a street mission, confronted an associate who had a growth on his nose but refused to see a doctor. “God will heal me,” the man insisted.
“If you needed a miracle, God would give you one,” Everett retorted, “but right now he’s given you a doctor and medical insurance. You need to use what he’s given you.”
The next time they met the man’s growth was much bigger, but the man still insisted, “I am healed.” The third time they met the growth had spread further, and finally the man was thinking that perhaps he needed to see a doctor.
God performed a miracle when he created the world and set its laws in motion, and we are often wise to start with natural means when those are available. God performs miracles to meet our genuine needs, but he will not perform them merely to entertain us.
God is not intimidated by the magnitude of our problem. The disciples saw the size of the need and the littleness of the human resources available; Jesus saw the size of the need and the greatness of God’s resources available. Often God calls us to do tasks for him that are technically impossible-barring a miracle.
The day before I was going to call my prospective Ph.D. program to say I was not coming because I had no money, God unexpectedly met my need. And in the summer after I finished my Ph.D., I found myself still unable to locate a teaching position for the fall. After much prayer, one night I finally determined the bare minimum I needed to live on and to store my research that year, and I cried out in despair. Barring a miracle, I thought, I will be on the street this year. Less than twenty-four hours later Rodney Clapp called from InterVarsity Press and offered me a contract to write the IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament I had proposed-plus an unexpected advance that was, to the dollar, what I’d decided I needed for the year. Undaunted by the magnitude of my need, God was teaching me that he alone has the power to meet my needs.
Another lesson in the miracle is this: God often begins with what we have. Jesus often takes what we bring to him and multiplies it (vv. 16-19). When Moses insisted that he needed a sign to take with him, God asked him what was already in his hand and then transformed it (Ex 4:1-3), using what had been merely a shepherd’s rod even to part the sea (Ex 14:16). When a widow needed financial help, Elisha asked what she had in her house; she responded that she had only a small amount of oil, so he commanded her to borrow jars into which to pour the oil and then multiplied it until all the jars were full (2 Kings 4:1-7).
Although God created the universe from nothing, he normally takes the ordinary things of our lives and transforms them for his honor (see, for example, Judg 6:14; 15:15-19). The narrative does not even report that Jesus prayed for the food to multiply; confident that he represents the Father’s will, he merely gave thanks (the meaning of the Greek expression that some translations render “blessed”; “blessing” food merely means giving thanks for it), which was the standard Jewish custom before and normally after meals.
(Adapted from Matthew: The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Buy the book here.)
It’s okay to expect a miracle – interview from Christianity Today
Craig Keener’s new book Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts is now available for sale. Writer Tim Stafford interviewed Craig for the December edition of Christianity Today.
Following are some excerpts. We encourage you to read the entire interview on the Christianity Today website.
Miracles are an unusual subject for a New Testament scholar. What led you to it?
I was going to write a footnote in my commentary on Acts, and was dealing with questions of historical reliability. Many scholars dismiss miracle stories as not historically plausible, arguing that they arose as legendary accretions.
I was familiar with [contemporary] reports of miracles taking place. There must be thousands of such reports. It was inconceivable to me that people would say eyewitnesses can’t claim to have seen such things.
What do you want to accomplish with this book?
Primarily, to challenge scholars who dismiss miracles in the Gospels as legends and not historically plausible. Eyewitnesses say these kinds of things all the time. I also want to challenge the bias that says these things can’t be supernatural. I believe God does miracles, and I don’t see why we scholars are not allowed to talk about it.
You’re trying to break open the naturalistic tradition of writing history that scholars have followed for centuries.
I understand the historical paradigms within which we work, and I’m able to work within those by bracketing out certain questions. But I wonder who made up the rule that we have to bracket out those questions, and why we are obligated to follow such rules. The way the discipline of historiography has been defined, such questions get punted to philosophy or theology.
What does New Testament scholarship gain from taking miracle stories seriously as historical phenomena?
We have been embarrassed by the miracle stories, and have tended to allegorize them more than other narratives. Accounts from the Temple of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing—nobody allegorizes those.
I agree that the Gospel writers are teaching us broader principles with broader applications. But in much of the majority world, when people read these narratives of healing, they see a God who cares about their suffering, who meets them at their point of need. I think we in the West can learn from the way they hear.
Does your personal background play a role in your views on miracles?
Certainly. I was an atheist before I was a Christian, and for that reason, I have some sympathy for skeptical perspectives.
When I was working on my historical Jesus book and trying to stay within these historical paradigms, I wouldn’t admit things for which I could not offer evidence. Then my wife would say things to me, and I would reply, “Can you give me evidence for that?” I got into a lot of trouble. That approach doesn’t work in the rest of life. If you find someone generally trustworthy, you will trust him or her whether or not he or she can provide evidence for every detail. I was well into this book when, having encountered so much evidence, I stopped trying to be neutral and said, “This is my view.”
How has your wife’s family influenced you?
Médine comes from Congo-Brazzaville. She was introducing me to people in the Eglise Evangelique du Congo, her denomination. As she introduced me to people, I asked them for their stories.
It was remarkable. I got seven eyewitness accounts of people being raised from the dead. One was my sister-in-law, Therese. I asked my mother-in-law to tell me about it, with my wife translating from one of the local languages.
My mother-in-law described how Therese was bitten by a snake. By the time my mother-in-law got to her, she wasn’t breathing. No medical help was available. She strapped the child to her back and ran to a nearby village, where a friend who was an evangelist prayed for Therese. She started breathing again.
I asked my mother-in-law how long Therese had stopped breathing. She thought about how long it takes to get up this hill and down this hill from one village to another. She said about three hours.
What did you experience in terms of trying to verify miracles?
Most people don’t collect documentation, and don’t know how to get medical documentation.
Documenting that you have a certain problem is one thing. Documenting that you no longer have it is another. Even if you do that, how can you prove that the change was due to prayer?
I have a pastoral concern as well: How far do you press people? I felt very awkward when I was interviewing people and would press them with hard questions. Sometimes they felt that I was questioning their integrity or even their experience.
Some people have said that since we know that everything must have a natural explanation, we know there will be a natural explanation someday; there, we have solved the problem, it’s not a miracle.
The purpose of spiritual gifts – 1 Corinthians 12-14
The Corinthian church was like much of the American church today: socially stratified, individualistic, and divisive. Although Paul commends them for their pursuit of spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 1:5, 7), he reproves them for a deficiency far more serious: they lack love, the principle that should guide which gifts they seek (1 Cor. 12-14; 1:10).
Spiritual gifts are for building up the body (1 Cor. 12), and love must coordinate our expression of spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 13). Thus prophecy, a gift that builds up others, is more useful publicly than uninterpreted tongues (1 Cor. 14). Gifts, including prophecy, are no guarantee of spiritual commitment, and one may prophesy falsely or even submit to the Spirit’s inspiration without being committed to Christ (Matt. 7:21-2 3; 1 Sam. 19:20- 24).
Paul reminds his friends in Corinth that they experienced ecstatic inspiration in Greek religion before their conversion, and points out that the message of Christ, rather than inspiration in general, is what matters (1 Cor. 12:1-3). Communicating the content of God’s message, rather than how ecstatically one speaks it, is the important thing. This principle applies not only to tongues-speakers and prophets, but to well meaning preachers who mistake enthusiasm for anointing while delivering empty speeches devoid of sound scriptural teaching.
Paul then reminds his hearers that all the gifts come from the same Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4-11) and that the gifts are interdependent (12:12-26). Paul ranks the leading gifts (apostles, prophets, and teachers) and then lists other gifts without ranking their importance or authority (12:27- 30). Paul urges this church to be zealous for the “best” gifts (that is, those that will best build up the church; 12:31), especially prophecy (14:1). Thus it is appropriate to seek spiritual gifts, but we choose which gifts to seek by determining which gifts will help the body of Christ most. That is, we let love guide our choice (1 Cor. 13).
Paul covers this point in some detail. Even if we had all spiritual gifts in their ultimate intensity, we would be nothing without love (13:1-3). The gifts will ultimately pass away, but love is eternal (13:8-13). While noting the priority of love over spiritual gifts, Paul describes the characteristics of love (13:4- 8a). Many of the characteristics he lists (for instance, not being boastful) are precisely the opposite of characteristics he earlier attributed to his readers (see 5:2; 8:1). Thus while the Corinthian Christians were strong in Spirit-led gifts, they were weak in Spirit-led character. For this reason, Paul needed to emphasize the importance of the gift of prophecy, which edifies the whole church, over uninterpreted tongues, which edifies only the speaker ( 1 Cor. 14). Although Paul focused on what would serve the church as a whole, he was careful not to portray tongues negatively (14:4, 14-19, 39). He exercised this caution even though he could not have known that some later Christians, contrary to 1 Corinthians 14:39, would despise the gift.
The relevance of Paul’s words to the Corinthian churches raises the question of whether Paul would have applied the same argument to all churches in his day. As many Pentecostals and charismatics note, some of his specific restrictions on gifts may have applied to the excessive situation in Corinth rather than to all churches. If, as is likely, most Corinthian house-churches seated only forty members, I suspect that the dynamics of spiritual gifts would apply differently there than in a congregation of two thousand members, where more limits would be necessary, or in a prayer meeting of five members, where fewer would be necessary.
Likewise, in churches today where spiritual gifts are suspect, prophecy would edify the church no more than tongues would, because even the purest prophecy, approved by other trustworthy prophets, would only introduce division.
Some charismatics insist that the public function of all the gifts, including tongues and prophecy, is so important that we should pursue them ( 1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1) even if it splits a church. Other charismatics, however, recognize that this view misses Paul’s whole point. The purpose of the gifts is to make the body of Christ stronger, and if public use of gifts would divide a non charismatic congregation, charismatic members should honor the unity of the body first and foremost. This is not to say that they should not work through appropriate channels to bring the congregation to greater biblical maturity in the matter of spiritual gifts.
But while gifts are very important and biblical, they are not the most important issue in the body of Christ. The greatest sign of maturity is love.
(Adapted from Three Crucial Questions About the Holy Spirit, published by Baker Books.)
Will gifts like prophecy and tongues pass away? — 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 in context
Paul says that spiritual gifts like prophecy, tongues and knowledge will pass away when we no longer need them (1 Cor. 13:8-10). Some Christians read this passage as if it said, “Spiritual gifts like prophecy, tongues, and knowledge passed away when the last book of the New Testament was written.” This interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13 ignores the entire context of 1 Corinthians, however: it is a letter to the Corinthians in the middle of the first century, and they had never yet heard of a New Testament in the middle of the first century. Had Paul meant the completion of the New Testament, he would have had to have made this point much more clearly–starting by explaining what a New Testament addition to their Bible was.
In the context we find instead that Paul means that spiritual gifts will pass away when we know God as He knows us, when we see Him face to face (13:12; when we no longer see as through a mirror as in the present—cf. 2 Cor 3:18, the only other place where Paul uses the term). In other words, spiritual gifts must continue until our Lord Jesus returns at the end of the age. They should remain a normal part of our Christian experience today.
A broader examination of the context reveals even more of Paul’s meaning in this passage. In chapters 12-14, Paul addresses those who are abusing particular spiritual gifts, and argues that God has gifted all members of Christ’s body with gifts for building up God’s people. Those who were using God’s gifts in ways that hurt others were abusing the gifts God had given for helping others. That is why Paul spends three paragraphs in the midst of his discussion of spiritual gifts on the subject of love: gifts without love are useless (13:1-3); love seeks to edify (13:4-7); the gifts are temporary (for this age only), but love is eternal (13:8-13). We should seek the best gifts (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1), and love gives us the insight to see which gifts are the best in any given situation–those that build others up.
The context of Paul’s entire letter drives this point home further: Paul’s description of what love is in 1 Cor. 13:4-7 contrasts starkly with Paul’s prior descriptions of the Corinthians in his letter: selfish, boastful, and so on (1 Cor 3:3; 4:6-7, 18; 5:2). The Corinthian Christians, like the later church in Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-22), had a lot in their favor, but lacked what mattered most of all: the humility of love.