Did Christ Work Miracles?

Did Jesus really perform miracles as the Gospels record? Clarence Edward Macartney (1879-1957), a pastor and evangelical leader in the first half of the last century contends:

"The quiet disregard, or the implied denial of, certain great facts of the life of Christ as we have that life in the Bible, every masculine mind must recognize to be, intellectually, absolute inconsistency. Christianity cannot be ethically divine and historically false. The man who is preaching the so-called ideals of the Christian faith and at the same time ignoring, or evading, or denying its facts, is indulging in a sort of theological legerdemain, which, if followed and adopted by others, could have no other result but complete denial of Christianity, ideals, facts, hopes, and all. We want no soft, mossy bed of sentiment upon which to lie. We prefer the hard rock of fact, even though the facts cut and wound our pilgrim feet. Did Christ work these miracles attributed to Him in the Gospels? We know that the miracles are inextricably involved with the other facts of the life of Jesus, and that there is no Christ but the Christ who walked on the sea, and raised the dead, and made blind men to see. Men who talk about any other Christ are talking of a myth, a shadow, a vapour, for there can no more be a non-miraculous, non-supernatural Christianity than there can be a quadrangular circle."

-Twelve Great Questions About Christ, p. 69

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The True Story of Thanksgiving - Desiring God

The True Story of Thanksgiving - Desiring God:

'via Blog this'

Growth Group Homework for Nov 18

This week, we took a closer look at a remarkable story in Luke’s gospel which explains why some were drawn to Jesus while others rejected Him.

• Read Luke 7:36-50

1. Which part of this story most intrigues you? Why?
2. Pastor Josh explained how the sinful woman and the Pharisee both picture different ways of avoiding God as Savior. Those who go the way of irreligion, represented by the sinful woman prior to her initial encounter with Jesus, reject God by rejecting his law and living any way they see fit. On the other hand, those who go the way of the religion also reject God but do so by embracing and obeying God’s law so as to earn their salvation. What further insights can we gain about these two ways by examining the details of this story more closely?
3. How does the Gospel constitute a “third way”? Where do we see the Gospel at work in this story? 
4. Pastor Josh shared a quote regarding the tendency of Christians to revert to the way of religion – or moralism – as a way of relating to God. Listen to part of this quote again and share your responses to it: “Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many… have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification… drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude…” Can you identify with this? How should Christians seek to overcome this tendency?

Without Scripture We Slip Into Error

"Suppose we ponder how slippery is the fall of the human mind into forgetfulness of God, how great the tendency to every kind of error, how great the lust to fashion constantly new and artificial religions. Then we may perceive how necessary was such written proof of the heavenly doctrine, that it should neither perish through forgetfulness nor vanish through error nor be corrupted by the audacity of men. It us therefore clear that God has provided the assistance of the Word for the sake of all those to whom he has been pleased to give useful instruction because he foresaw that his likeness imprinted upon the most beautiful form of the universe would be insufficiently effective. Hence, we must strive onward by this straight path if we seriously aspire to the pure contemplation of God. We must come, I say, to the Word, where God is truly and vividly described to us from his works, while these very works ate appraised not by our depraved judgment but by the rule of eternal truth. If we turn aside from the Word, as I have just now said, though we may strive with strenuous haste, yet, since we have got off the track, we shall never reach the goal. For we should so reason that the splendor of the divine countenance, which even the apostle calls 'unapproachable' (1 Tim. 6:16), is for us like an inexplicable labyrinth unless we are conducted into it by the thread of the Word; so that it is better to limp along this path than to dash with all speed outside it... For errors can never be uprooted from human hearts until true knowledge of God is planted therein."

The Institutes of Christian Religion, John Calvin

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Growth Group Homework for Nov 4

On Sunday, we learned that Jesus called His followers to a new code of conduct for relationships – a code that is based in grace.

1. Listen again to the following statement made on Sunday: “God’s grace makes demands on those who have received it. His grace is relentless and will never leave us where we are.” What is your initial response to this? 

• Read Luke 6:37-38

2. We all would agree that a judgmental spirit and an overly-critical attitude are inappropriate for a follower of Jesus. But why are these so hard to avoid? What does Christ call us do and believe in these verses? How does grace enable us to be generous even though people hurt us?

• Read Luke 6:39-40

3. What attitude is Jesus condemning here? Jesus is calling for His followers to have a teachable spirit. How does grace make us teachable?

• Read Luke 6:41-42

4. What point is Jesus making by giving the absurd example of the “telephone pole” versus the speck? Darrell Bock writes: “If there is to be accountability, it must start with ourselves. We often are aware of little faults in others, such as our children or our spouses, while we ignore our own great faults. Jesus calls such priorities hypocrisy. He calls his disciples to self-accountability. Those who do the best job of restoring others in their walk are those who can restore themselves. That means being able to receive rebuke and honestly going before the Lord so that our beam may be removed. Only then are we ready to consider how to help a fellow believer remove the speck from his or her eye.” What stumbling blocks do we encounter in our efforts to stay spiritually sensitive in the way Bock describes?