Miracle Workers

 

Acts 19 continues to chronicle Paul’s missionary journeys. In this chapter he arrives in Ephesus and he finds people there who were disciples of John the Baptist and Paul baptizes them in the name of Jesus and begins to preach the gospel. As usual, opposition arises which forces him out of the Jewish synagogue and into the streets. After describing Paul’s teaching the Bible records this: 11 Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. This kind of thing intrigues me because we don’t see this in today’s world, at least not in America. But it seems like these types of miracles would be so “useful” in the spread of the gospel…at least it seems that way to me. But apparently it isn’t so. Even with all of these miracles, the church at Ephesus doesn’t explode with great numbers of believers.

It seems like the pattern of miracles in the New Testament is that they appear to validate the message and then they pretty much disappear. In Ephesus, these miracles are done as a way of validating the messenger, Paul, and his message of supernatural resurrection of Jesus, but then they seem to go away. There is no mention of miracles at all when Paul writes a letter to these people in the city of Ephesus, which we have in the book of Ephesians. Unfortunately, there have been so many charlatans and phonies that it is difficult to distinguish a genuine miracle from a fake one designed to elicit money and power for the “miracle worker”.   I suppose if any of us wants to be a miracle worker we should simply live our lives in obedience to the Holy Spirit and share the good news of Jesus Christ. I suppose that’s enough of a miracle in my own life to be able to do that. I’m not going to expect my apron or my handkerchief to be of much help other than to keep the spaghetti sauce off my shirt or to blow my nose (don’t worry…I’m not old enough to actually carry a handkerchief).