APOLOGETICS CLASS
WEEK THREE
MIRACLES
MIRACLES
• (Video shown from Star Trek: Into Darkness near end of film when
Enterprise, plummeting to Earth, has power restored and a
crewmember proclaims it to be a miracle but Spock disagrees)
• Is Spock right? Are there no such things as miracles?
RELIGIOUS DEFINITION OF MIRACLE
• Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758) is credited with defining a miracle as:
o An event whose production exceeds the power or visible and corporal
nature
o An event of religious significance
• A biblical miracle may also be defined as:
o An event demonstrating the power of God
o An event of demonstrating a man of God is indeed someone God is
working through (e.g., Moses)
o An event to present the revelation of some lesson from God
LANGUAGE DEFINITION OF MIRACLE
• The English word “miracle” is used throughout the Bible but has
three origins.
o Hebrew – “OTH” meaning a sign or an event that indicates something
other than itself
o Greek – “Thaumasion” meaning that which evokes wonder or
astonishment and being extraordinary in itself and amazing or inexplicable
by normal standards
o Latin – “Miraclulum” meaning same as “Thaumasion”
RELIGIOUS DEFINITION OF MIRACLE
• Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758) is credited with defining a miracle as:
o An event whose production exceeds the power or visible and corporal
nature
o An event of religious significance
• A biblical miracle may also be defined as:
o An event demonstrating the power of God
o An event of demonstrating a man of God is indeed someone God is
working through (e.g., Moses)
o An event to present the revelation of some lesson from God
MIRACLES AND NATURAL LAW
• Do miracles violate natural law (e.g., are they supernatural)?
o Why would God need to violate His own natural law?
o God does not set aside His own laws (thus the need for Jesus)
o If you can’t trust God to keep His physical laws then how do you trust Him to
keep His word about Jesus’ resurrection and our own salvation?
o The universe is made up of space, time, matter and energy so the cause of the
universe had to be outside of the universe --- outside of nature as we know it
SAMPLE CASE FOR HOW GOD USES MIRACLES
Luke 18:35-43
As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When
he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of
Nazareth is passing by.”
He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the
more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus
asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.
Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” Immediately he
received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they
also praised God.
SAMPLE CASE FOR HOW GOD USES MIRACLES
• Jesus asks what the beggar wants from him
o A beggar would normally ask for money and a religious person would give to
the poor as expected
o A beggar provides the religious with a service by enabling them to fulfill an
obligation to God by helping the poor
o Jesus asks the beggar what he wants because, while it may seem obvious he
wants his sight, there is a cost to be borne with vision
o Once the beggar’s vision is restored, he would be expected to find
employment and that would be difficult since he likely has no training or
marketable skills. He would be expected to grow to a new stage in life.
• The beggar changes his vocation to being a follower of Jesus
o He goes from addressing Jesus as “Son of David” to “Lord” and accepting Jesus
as Lord, with faith in his power and promises, saves him
MIRACLE CASE STUDIES
THE CHRISTMAS STAR
• Matthew 2:9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way,
and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it
stopped over the place where the child was.
o Matthew 2:1 says they followed the star from the East which is consistent with
our planet’s rotational direction
o Matthew 2:3-7 indicates this star was a surprise and not a predictable
recurring celestial event but was present long enough for the Magi to travel
o The star seemingly stopped over Bethlehem
THE CHRISTMAS STAR
• Natural explanations are varied and there is no agreement
o Could have been a comet as Chinese and Korean astronomers recorded a
comet in the general space of years attributed to Jesus’ birth but this is
unlikely as comets were considered bad omens so not likely
o Could have been a hypernova in the Andromeda galaxy which would have
been in the right position in the night sky to appear over Bethelem at midnight
but there’s no way to prove it
o Could have been the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn which signified the start
of the “Age of Pisces”
• In any event, consider the mere fact…the miracle…that a birth could
be timed to coincide with a nonrecurring, unpredictable celestial
natural event!
THE VIRGIN BIRTH
• Matthew 1:18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about:
His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they
came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
o Parthenogenesis (meaning “virgin creation” in Greek) is a form of reproduction
accomplished without the fertilization of an egg
o Parthenogenesis occurs in some plants, scorpions, bees, fish and reptiles
o In February 2004, South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk produced the first
human embryos resulting from parthenogenesis
o In June 2007, International Stem Cell Corporation, a California-based stem cell
research company, announced that a research team were the first to
intentionally create human stem cells from unfertilized human eggs using
parthenogenesis
MIRACLES AND NATURAL LAW
• (Video shown from The Final Countdown in which Martin Sheen is
explaining there are things just now becoming explainable by science
such as black holes and curved space)
• Just because we do not understand something or how it can be
possible does not mean it is not true
THE RESURRECTION
• Jesus was raised from the dead but there are other instances of being
raised from the dead
o
o
o
o
o
Luke 7:13-15 Jesus raised the widow’s son
Matthew 9:23-25, Mark 5:40-41, Luke 8:53-55 Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter
John 11:38-44 Jesus raises Lazarus after being dead for four days
Matthew 27:51-58 Many saints were raised and seen by many
Acts 9:36-42 Peter revives Tabitha
• All these people were seen by many and Jesus was seen by over 500
people
• Maybe its baryon annihilation via electroweak tunneling or maybe its
some other method of reanimation but the evidence points to truth
THE GENESIS EFFECT
THE GENESIS EFFECT
• (Video shown from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in which Doctor
McCoy states “According to myth, the world was created in six days.”
• Was the Earth created in six days or is it myth?
• Genesis is the logical place where many people begin reading the Bible
but have trouble getting past all the questions that arise when trying
to align Scripture to historical and archeological evidences
GOD CREATED THE WORLD IN SIX DAYS
• How do people believe the world was created in six 24-hour days?
o They believe in the Bible’s reliability when compared to the reliability of other
ancient texts that are accepted as accurate
o They mistakenly tie 2 Peter 3:8 to the Genesis
o They look to science events such as the Cambrian Explosion (542 million years
ago) which was a rapid appearance and development of most major animal
groups found in the fossilized evidence
o They look at the fallacies of science
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Scientists debate about the Cambrian Explosion since the appearance of so much life in
such a short time is pretty well unexplainable by evolutionary modeling
Asteroid strike (Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event) that wiped out the dinosaurs and
allowed mammals to be the dominant species was debated by 41 scientists for 20 years
before agreement in 2010
GOD CREATED THE WORLD IN SIX DAYS
• Genesis is actually quite accurate in the sequence of events that
science says must have occurred to populate life on Earth
o The planet rotated to establish gravity which, in turn, establishes day and night
o The planet established magnetic fields allowing atmosphere to remain around
it and allow photosynthesis to begin
o The planet was covered with water until geological forces pushed land masses
above the surface
o Plants formed before insect or animal life (necessary for atmospheric
oxygenation)
GOD CREATED THE WORLD IN SIX DAYS
• It is possible, however, that the six days are used as device to simply
tell the simple story that God created all we know including us and
establishes a day of rest for fragile human bodies
o Remember the arguments for God’s existence that state He was outside of all
we know and caused the Big Bang. Why would He mark time as we do?
o The 24-hour day is a manmade construct that is imperfect
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We had to create leap seconds that we add to our manmade 24-hour clocks to keep time
Since 1972, we’ve added 25 leap seconds so that we have 24 hours instead of 23 hours,
59 minutes and 35 seconds in a day
o 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake shortened a day (e.g., sped up the Earth’s rotation) by
6.8 microseconds
o 2011 Chile earthquake shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds
o 2012 Japan earthquake shortened the day by 1.8 microseconds
GOD CREATED THE WORLD IN SIX DAYS
• God created all the planets in our solar system
o
o
o
o
A day on Mercury is 58 Earth days and 15 hours
A day on Mars is 24 Earth hours, 37 minutes and 22 seconds
A day on Saturn is just over 10 Earth hours long
So are we placing God in a manmade box when we try to define a day for Him?
• But I am still hung up on six days!
o Remember that the Bible is not a “History of the Universe” and its not a
science book
o The Bible tells you what God wants you to know in order to have a healthy
relationship with Him
o He may use “day” so that people can understand his overall point of wanting
you to have a day to rest (Jesus tells us in Mark 2:27 that the Sabbath was
created for man)
ADAM AND EVE
• Creationism versus Evolution
o Home sapiens evolved in Africa some 250,000 years ago
o Species labels are manmade divisions based on physical attributes
o No one has been able to connect the dots between us and a direct ancestor
• But I’m created in God’s image, aren’t I?
o People will argue whether or not Adam looked like God (and us today) or not
o Consider that, physically, you are an image of your parents but you aren’t born
looking like them
o 2 Cor. 3:18 Says that we are being transformed (evolving) into God’s image
with ever-increasing glory. This speaks to a spiritual image so the argument
can be made that Adam may or may not have physically looked like God but
it’s the spiritual image that God is concerned with since our bodies die and
decay but our soul does not
ADAM AND EVE
• Mitochondrial Eve
o The Bible tells us that the first woman was Eve
o Science calls her Mitochondrial Eve, a common female ancestor for us all
o Charles Darwin hypothesized that humans have a single point of origin
(Descent of Man, 1871)
o In the 1980s, his theory was proven with the studies on present day
mitochondrial DNA which comes exclusively from our mothers
o Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived approximately 200,000+ years
ago, most likely in East Africa
• Y-Chromosomal Adam
o The Bible tells us that the first man was Adam.
o Science calls him Y-chromosomal Adam who lived approximately 200,000+
years ago in East or Southern Africa
THE GREAT FLOOD
• Genesis 7:24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty
days.
• Was the whole world really under water for 150 days?
o Estimates are that the waters would have to be six miles deep to effectively
cover the whole planet
o God has shown no interest in His righteousness going out into the world so
was primarily concerned with the lineage leading to Abraham
o Where did all that water go to?
o Genesis 8:11 has the dove returning with a freshly picked olive leaf. Could any
plant life survive 150 days submerged in six miles of water (consider the
darkness, lack of photosynthesis, temperature and pressure)
THE GREAT FLOOD
• If the whole world wasn’t flooded then what happened?
o A regional flood is a possibility—remember Noah’s understanding, even
Moses’ understanding, of the vastness of our planet (their whole world) was
limited to their own travels
o Ancient Mesopotamian accounts of a great flood closely resemble the story of
Noah
• The Mesopotamian Flood
o As part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh searches for Utnapishtim, who has
been directed by a god to build a giant boat and fill it with pairs of animals plus
his family and certain village craftsmen before the world is flooded
o An Akkadian account recounts basically the same story as Gilgamesh with
different names
o A Sumerian account, Eridu Genesis, also has a great flood account
Genesis Conclusion
• Genesis should be the starting point for discussions, not the ending
point
o Consider that the Genesis narrative leaves out the details of Revelation 12:9;
God clearly didn’t intend for Genesis to capture everything that went on
o Even with science, there comes a point where you have to make a leap of faith
o That’s what God wants----faith (aka trust) in Him and His Word