I Don't Buy It

And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word. Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. [Acts 4.29-30]

This prayer comes on the heels of having been told to stop preaching about Jesus Christ.

In the face of increasing opposition to all things Christian in the USA and abroad, do we dare pray this prayer today?

Oh sure, portions of the prayer are OK, but the entirety of it is a bit scary.

Where is the God of great miracles today? Where are the PEOPLE of the great God of miracles today?

I realize this is a complicated issue - but why have we deemed the miraculous, "passed away"? I realize there are certain scriptures that "passed away" proponents point to, but frankly, I don't buy it! The way I comprehend the book is that the miraculous has not passed away near so much as the PEOPLE of the miraculous have passed away.

AND, it is certainly much easier to formulate "passed away" theology than it is to simply 'fess up and acknowledge how faithless we really are. I believe God is sick of the excuses for theology we have concocted so that we might appear not to be weak and pitiful in our faith. Jesus did NOT teach us to be this way!

I admit, I am not there myself. Frankly, I don't know that my faith could move a grain of sand - let alone a mountain. But that is no reason to water down the message of Jesus Christ!

I challenge all the OYB readers to notice the post resurrection digression away from the miraculous. Notice then how we today have settled into a comfortable so-called inner faith that pretty much takes everything as it is - and faith's only strength is a hope that one day we will go to heaven...

I don't buy it.

Father, I want my life to reveal real faith here and now...