Derren Brown - Miracles for Sale - Review and Critique

These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth. To them, a show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy.
1 Tim 6:5 (NLT)

Last night, Derren Brown did a TV expose of American faith healers. There's a link to the website here. I thought a lot of it was good and well done, but it could have been significantly better.

Brown started with a crowd of volunteers, and then picked and trained one to become a fake faith healer, using some of the techniques he was sure that many of the "real" fake healers were using. His target was specifically the faith healers linked to the so-called Prosperity Gospel who teach that in order for God to bless you the most, you need to give the most money to them.

I don't doubt that there are plenty of such people. The Bible warns about them (see above). I've written against the "prosperity gospel" before. I thought it was especially good how Brown at al worked alongside Christians and Christian organisations in trying to expose the con artists.

One of the problems they had was getting enough publicity in the US. Most churches were surprisingly well-guarded about letting Brown's fake faith-healer preach or publicising his event - encouragingly so. It was also encouraging that Brown decided not to use a US Christian publicist, for fear of destroying his business when it became clear that they were fakes.

Critique

Brown is of course dead right that a lot of "faith healers" are manipulative charlatans. But there are others too. I'm sure that some are well-meaning and wanting to see God at work, and get easily tricked into faking stuff without realising they're doing it, and then misled into running after money. I'm sure too that others are genuine. I have a friend whose leg was miraculously healed, and who has a letter from his NHS consultant to that effect.

One of the key ways of telling the difference is their attitude to money, sex and power. If they are getting rich from their status and their ministry, then I would suggest they aren't genuine. Maybe some of the healings might be, but their hearts are clearly in the wrong place. Jesus did lots of miraculous healings; the apostles did miraculous healings, but they didn't get rich from them - they got killed.

The well-known Christian leaders I have the most respect for are the ones who are either on fixed salaries / stipends (as in most of the C of E), or who have set up trusts so that they personally don't get book royalties, donations, etc (as Rick Warren, John Piper, etc) and are instead paid by the church they work for. They also make sure they don't profit in other ways - strict rules about accountability and so on. Billy Graham famously didn't allow himself to be unsupervised with any woman except for his wife - he'd even refuse to go along in a taxi if the driver was female.

Healing on the Streets is an informal British movement which got briefly referenced. When that sort of thing is done as publicity for big rallies with financial appeals, as with Derren Brown's examples, it may well be faked and wrongly motivated.

I'm pretty sure that most of the British stuff is in a different category. Let me explain. I've been to a big conference where we were encouraged to go out and pray for people on the streets. Not to fake stuff, but to go out and do it. I've also seen the leg lengthening thing done in that context, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't done like Derren Brown did it with the loosening of shoes. I think it was to do with posture and the angle the person was sitting at on a cheap plastic chair - if you slip slightly to the left because someone is pulling your left leg, it appears to become longer. I'm not sure if the person showing us that knew that he was faking it, but I know that "miracle" is easy to fake, even if you don't realise you're doing it. I know people who do Healing on the Streets, and they're genuine about it - they're doing it because they want to see God blessing people rather than to get money, sex or power, and they're not trying to do fake healings like on the film. I also know that God does sometimes heal people genuinely.

I know too that God does sometimes give people words of knowledge about others. It was interesting to see how they faked it on the programme, but the existence of a fake does not imply that real ones don't exist.

Lessons for us

I help to run a bi-monthly Service of Prayer for Healing and Wholeness. And it's really important for us to be clear that we're not in it for financial gain. So we don't, and we shouldn't take collections at services where we pray specifically for healing.

We should be clear it isn't about personalities - I read somewhere that best practice is only ever to pray for healing in pairs or groups, so that you never know which person's prayers led to any healings that happen and so detract from any possible personality cult. The Biblical model is that it should be done by the elders (plural) of the church, with anointing with oil, and that seems right. There is one person who heals, and it's Jesus, not me.

We should be clear in our attitudes that it's about us serving and laying ourselves down for others, just as Christ has done for us. If attention ever starts to drift onto us or onto the healings, push it back onto Christ, because that's where it belongs.

We should also be clear to distance ourselves from those who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. And that's partly why I welcome Derren Brown's programme.

James 5 - praying for the sick

One of the most difficult passages in the New Testament in some ways is in James 5. Here's the NIV...

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
James 5:14-16, NIV

Any attempt to argue that this passage doesn't say that anyone who is sick will be healed sounds either like special pleading or like finding contradictions in the Bible. Of course, part of the problem is the translation, and pretty much no English translations manage the same nuances as the Greek...

Is anyone in you weak/sick (the Greek can mean either)? Let him call the elders of the church and let them pray on him, anointing with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the wearied / ill person (the Greek can mean either); and the Lord will raise him...

It looks to me as if the first bit is a general statement which is deliberately ambiguous. It might be talking about physical sickness; it might be talking about physical or moral weakness or weariness. And the promised help is salvation / raising, which might be talking about physical healing, or it might be talking about final salvation.

There is then a clear application to the case of people who are ill because of sin (for example because they rightly feel guilty, and the guilt has led to all kinds of stress-related problems), and they will be healed. By verses 19-20, the passage is all about bringing people who have sinned back.

My conclusion from this passage is that the passage itself does not promise immediate physical / medical healing for everyone who gets the elders to anoint and pray, except in the case of sickness that is directly due to sin. Of course, God still does sometimes heal physically and medically in other cases, but he doesn't promise here that he will do so. What is promised is something far better. What this passage promises is that God will sustain and keep his people going when they are weak and get the elders to pray for them, and that they will finally be saved and raised from the dead; if they ask the elders to pray for them then like this then no sickness or weariness or sin committed in the past can stop them from being saved.

Augustine on Miracles and Science

When such a thing happens, it appears to us as an event contrary to nature. But with God, it is not so; for him 'nature' is what he does.

Augustine of Hippo, Literal Commentary on Genesis

Webb - Healing

Hezekiah recovered as the Lord said he would. It is rather surprising, however, after the astonishing nature of the sign, to be told that recovery itself was accomplished by something as mundane as the preparation and application of a poultice! But if we are surprised, it is because of a defect in our own theology rather than anything incongruous in the text. For there is no disjunction in Scripture between miraculous and natural healing, as though God were involved in one and not the other. He is as much Lord of the soothing poultice as he is of the moving shadow, and perhaps our eyes would be more open and our hearts more thankful if only we could grasp this simple and sane biblical truth more firmly.

Barry Webb, The Message of Isaiah (comments on Isaiah 38

Book Review - "Not Me, Lord" by Max Ramsay

Time for a break from blogging about Israel, though I've got plenty more to say... Time to review a few books I've read recently.

This one was very generously given to me by a well-meaning relative. It's a really interesting read, and as with most interesting reads, it raises a lot of questions.

It's an autobiographical account of the author's time training for the Anglican Ordained ministry, having previously taught science (oh, that's like me!). It is pretty much there that the similarity ends.

While I'm sure that the author was a very good science teacher, he seems to have understood science to say that miracles can't happen, which is a very naive mistake. What science observes, of course, is that miracles do not usually happen, which is actually part of the point of miracles. They wouldn't be miracles if they were part of the normally observed process by which the universe works, and Jesus wouldn't have been able to do them if he was just a normal bloke.

He also somehow seems to have been selected for ordination training without any experience of leading churches, of preaching or anything like that, or indeed without being sure whether he was a Christian. He then went to one of the more liberal colleges in the Church of England, which seems to have affirmed him in his belief that he didn't need to believe much to be a vicar.

Which rather raises an issue about selection for ordination training. I know my process wasn't easy, but I think it was sensible. I was expected to do quite a bit of Bible teaching and leadership in my home church, both up front and in small groups, to ascertain whether I was gifted / capable at that sort of thing. The official selection process beyond the local level didn't really seem to investigate that much, but for me my sense of calling was strongly tied up with other people telling me I was gifted.

Here's Paul's list of criteria for church leaders:

• above reproach, respectable, good reputation with outsiders
• the husband of but one wife, must manage his own family well
• temperate, self-controlled, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome
• hospitable
• able to teach
• not a lover of money
• not a recent convert

(from 1 Timothy 3, NIV)

Which rather raises the question - why don't the C of E use those as their selection criteria?

Presuppositions and Miracles

One of the things that's coming up quite a bit at the moment in discussions and lectures is the presuppositions that we bring when we come to look at a text.

For example, there are plenty of accounts of Jesus performing miracles.

If someone looks at them with the presupposition that miracles can't happen, they will have to conclude that the account should not be taken at face value, but is either untrue or is using metaphor in some sense to communicate that truth. That's actually an underlying principle behind a lot of modern liberal theology.

They'll look at a passage from the Old Testament, for example, and notice that it has some straightforward historical accounts (which can frequently be verified archaeologically) and a scene where an angel turns up and does something. They'll then conclude that the passage they're reading is actually a composite made by combining a genuine historical document with a fictional account with angels in or something.

On the other hand, a Christian (me, for instance) could read the passage and say “Historical events, yep. Angel appearing, fine. No worries.”

I've got some sympathy with the liberals here. I think they're wrong, and often far too arrogant in stating their position, but I understand where they're coming from.

It looks the same as we might do with the Iliad. The Iliad is a long poem by Homer, about the Greeks attacking and capturing Troy. And again, the Greek gods do a fair bit of stuff. People used to think the account was totally fictional, until some archaeologist with a name like Schliemann or something discovered the ruins of Troy. So what classical historians do now is they try to keep the story, but take all the god-bits out of it. And it's reasonably possible to do – it turns out that the god bits are mostly back story – and you can end up with a story a lot like the one in the film Troy, except with the gay sex bits kept in.

So if that's ok with the Iliad, why isn't it ok with the Bible? The difference is in the role the “supernatural” bits play in the story. In the Iliad, the gods are mostly used to explain motivations (when there could have been other ones), to give ideas to people (which they could have had anyway) and so on. In the Bible, God does much more than that. He doesn't just slightly influence the course of battles, he strikes all of one side dead before the battle starts. He parts rivers to let people through. He brings people who have died in a very real, public and verifiable sense back to life. The Iliad can be rewritten without the god-stuff as the story of a great military victory, which it would make sense to write poems about. Without Jesus' miracles and rising from the dead, there isn't anything special about him for the whole religion to have started around.

So if we look at the Bible with the presupposition that supernatural events don't happen, what we are left with is an impossible puzzle. In the early apostles, we have a group of people who were clearly in a position to know what had happened, claiming not just that there were everyday events to which they attached a supernatural significance, but where the events themselves could only be explained supernaturally and where the events have a significance which is deeply uncomfortable.

It also raises the question as to what the correct presupposition is when we are looking at an alleged supernatural event, and I think I can explain this with reference to science.

Scientists argue about whether cold fusion is possible. Pretty much all serious scientists agree that it hasn't happened, most think that it can't happen either. But that doesn't stop people trying (mostly because it could make whoever discovered it very rich indeed). Suppose that someone claims that they've managed to achieve cold fusion, and that I, as a scientist, am asked to investigate.

What should I assume? Should I go in assuming that cold fusion is impossible, and whatever evidence comes up, keep on believing that it's impossible? No – what would be the point of either asking me to investigate or me investigating? I'd just conclude that it hadn't happened, whether or not I could come up with another explanation.

What I should assume is that it might be possible, and then look at the claims and at alternative explanations.

The Purpose of Miracles

This is carrying on a series on miracles I started here with a study on how the word "miracles" is used and continued here, by thinking about the relationship between miracles and the laws of nature. The question I'd like to consider this time is the purpose of miracles.

In other words, this is an attempt to answer why God doesn't do more miracles to heal people, etc. (though I know plenty of people I trust who say they have seen miracles in the last few years)

What Miracles Don't Do

Perhaps surprisingly, what we've established over the course of these posts (read the comments too, and also this post that sprang out of a comment) is that miracles don't actually help people believe much. If people have decided not to believe in God, there is always another explanation they can think of for any miracle, whether it's the apparatus not working, whether it's alien technology, whatever. If someone doesn't want to believe, then a miracle isn't going to convince them. That's also true in the Bible - Pharaoh in Exodus is one classic example. God sends all kinds of plagues on Egypt, yet Pharaoh will not give in until in the end his army is destroyed in the Red Sea. The Israelites see the miracles too, and profit from them, yet over the following years they keep on failing to trust God.

So then, what's the point of miracles if they don't help people to believe?

The "Big" Miracles

There are a few miracles in the Bible that are referred to again and again, and it will actually help a lot if we think about them.

The miracles in Exodus are "big" - the plagues on Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the manna in the desert, ... They were all about God saving his people from slavery in Egypt so that they could worship him.

Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, "This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: 4 'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession
Exodus 19:3-5, NIV

The other really "big" miracle was the resurrection of Jesus. And once again, it's about God saving people so they could know him. In this case, Jesus rising from the dead meant that he beat death, so that people who trust in him can beat death too, so that we can know him. Just like God saved Israel from Egypt so they could know him and worship him, God saved us from sin and death so that we can know him and worship him.

The big miracles seem to be about God saving people so they can know him and worship him. So what about the small miracles?

The "Small" Miracles

Most of the other miracles in the Bible happen around a few key figures. Moses did quite a few, which showed people that God was going to use him to save his people. Elijah and Elisha did some, which showed that God was using them to warn his people to stay close to him. Jesus did lots, which again showed people that God was going to use him to save the people. And the apostles did some, which showed people they were announcing how they could know Jesus.

So if the "big" miracles are all about God saving people so they could know him, the small miracles seem to be about God pointing out to people that he's doing some saving. The point of miracles is that they point to God saving people in Jesus.

The Priority of Miracles

Here's the account of one of Jesus' miracles:

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
Mark 2:1-12, NIV

Now, there's quite a lot going on there, but there are a few points which it's useful to think about here:

What was Jesus' priority for the paralytic? Well, the passage makes it look very much like Jesus thought that the forgiveness was important, and the miracle was only done to show that he could forgive people. Jesus seems to think it is more important that people should be forgiven and should be right with him (which means we can know him) than that we are physically healthy. That actually makes sense when you think about it. What matters more? Where we spend eternity or how easily we can move around for the next 50 years?

Why did Jesus heal the person then? To show that he could forgive sins - once again, it's to point to the fact that he really is the saviour. He can save people, he can forgive them.

It matters far more that we are forgiven than that we are well.

So what is God's priority for a paralytic today? Or for someone with an amputated limb? That they should be forgiven, get right with God and be able to know him, to praise and worship him. That's far more important than physical healing?

Miracles don't convince people, but they do point to Jesus who saves people.

Does Science Work?

In a recent discussion, JL posted some interesting thoughts on the nature of knowledge in science. He's also done them as a post on his blog. I think there are some very interesting points here, that it's well thought through and well written, and while I agree with most of them, there are a few things that need a bit of clarification.

I give you this analogy: Before you walk into a building, you don't know how structurally safe it might be, and whether or not it might collapse on top of you. You might be 50% certain - either it will collapse, or it won't. You decide that your accumulated experience with buildings is a good guide, and enter the building. If you repeatedly return to the same building, and it doesn't collapse on top of you, your previous experience leads you to the conclusion that this building is structurally sound, and is unlikely to fall down while you are inside. You go further into the building each time you visit, increasing the risk of being trapped or hurt if it does start to collapse. You might be 80% sure, or 90%, or given long enough, 99.999999% sure. You can never be 100% sure, but you conclude that given the evidence and experience, the likelihood of this particular building collapsing with you inside is remote in the extreme.

I agree with the majority of what you say about science here (well, I would, I was a physics teacher until last month).

I think the analogy could be improved a little, however.

We don't have experience of anything else "like" science. We don't have a (naturalistic) understanding of why it works. We don't have any explanation of why or how electrons and photons should interact in the way they do in QED - we just observe that they do. In fact, that has to be true of any theory we see as fundamental.

So science is more like seeing a building with no visible means of support. We can't see a priori why it should stay up. We can't go away and test other things like it to see that they stay up, because there isn't anything else like it. We can't use our pre-existing understanding of engineering to say that it looks as if it should stay up, because we don't have any pre-existing understanding of the universe.

But yes, the reason most people believe that science will continue to work is that it has worked so far. That's not the reason I believe science continues to work - I believe it continues to work because God is reliable, and he continues to work it.

Actually, I think what you describe is a very good analogy for faith. Not in the post-existential sense of "a leap in the dark", but a process of putting your trust in something based on a growing understanding (which is how the Bible uses the word). So I observe that God is trustworthy and doesn't let me down, so I trust him a bit more, and so on.

Taking the analogy further, if the building has been carefully planned and thoroughly tested, well designed and constructed, it will survive all manner of adversity unscathed: fires, floods, earthquakes, strong winds. By the same token, small defects might be uncovered after such events, and these deserve much scrutiny and enquiry, and ultimately some resolution.

I agree. This is also largely the point I was making with miracles and people not believing - even the (hypothetical) absolute rationalist could say it was simply an example of some science or technology they had not yet fully understood. I'm pretty certain that miracles have happened. I have good reason to believe that they still happen.

When people don't believe, in my limited experience (others who read this blog have far more), it is usually either because they have not yet realised how trustworthy God is, how amazing Christ is and how wonderful it is to have a relationship with him, or it is because they have decided not to believe.

I very much doubt that it is possible to prove anything to someone who has decided not to believe, unless God first weakens that resolution. I think that's what is meant in the Bible by the phrase "a hard heart".

Miracles and the Laws of Nature

This is the second in a series on miracles - the first can be found here. It's mostly stuff I wrote a while ago, but haven't put on the Web until now.

Do Miracles Break the Laws of Nature?

It is a common belief today that a miracle is something that does not fit in with the laws of nature. Does the Bible support this? Let's look once again at the events surrounding the Exodus, in this case, the parting of the Red Sea, one of the many miracles performed by God to rescue the Israelites from Egypt.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
Exodus 14:21-22, NIV

First, let us be clear that this was God's action. I showed last time that the purpose was to teach the Egyptians and the Israelites that God was powerful. The passage above says clearly that it was God who drove the water back.

Why then was there a wind, and why did it take all night? It certainly seems that here God uses normal "scientific" means to drive the water back, just as he uses normal "scientific" means (gravity) to cause it to crash back down on the Egyptians.

This should not surprise us. After all, if scientific laws are only a description of the way that God acts in the universe, then why should he not follow them when demonstrating his power? If God brings the rain through the normal physical processes at work in the universe, why should he not deliver his people using those same processes?

The crossing of the Red Sea can be "explained" in terms of physics. So what makes it a miracle?

The parting of the Red Sea is a miracle because it displays God's power. Moses could not have parted the sea on his own. Neither could Pharaoh, and neither could we. But God could.

I have heard it said that occasionally strong winds do come, and do cause the sea in that area to part. Even so, people cannot make it part on demand.

If we could build a machine to do it, then that would still not make this occurrence any less of a miracle, because God did not use such a machine. It was a miracle because it showed that the wind and water obeyed God in a way that they do not obey people.

We see the same thing in Mark 4:35-41. Jesus commands a storm to stop, and it stops. It was not a miracle because the storm stopped –storms stop all the time. It was a miracle because, as the disciples noted:

"Even the wind and the waves obey him."

So, in the Bible, miracles do not have to break the laws of nature in order to be miracles.

Can Miracles Break The Laws Of Nature?

There is a real danger of saying that God does not work through the normal operation of science. But there is also a danger of domesticating him and saying that he can only work through the normal operation of science.

In some miracles, such as the parting of the Red Sea, God works in accordance with the laws of science. But that is not true of all miracles.

The clearest example is the resurrection of Jesus. All the evidence points to Jesus being dead on the Friday evening. Yet on the Sunday morning, Jesus was able to convince people that he had conquered death rather than merely surviving it. This was not just a resuscitation where Jesus came back from death but was still near it. This was a resurrection where Jesus conquered death and came out the other side.

Now this does not fit in with the normally observed way that the universe works. In general, people do not come back from the dead. Occasionally, people are wrongly thought to be dead and later revive. But when they do, they are nowhere near as clearly dead as Jesus was, nor able to give the impression that have conquered death so soon afterwards.

So Jesus' resurrection was not in accordance with the laws of science.

That does not make it in some way more God's action than parting the Red Sea. Both are miracles; both are things which God did and we could not, and both point to God's power and rescue of his people. One is done through the way the universe usually works, and one is not.

How Can God Break His Own Laws?

All of this raises an important question about God's faithfulness. After all, in Jeremiah, God said that he had "established the fixed laws of heaven and Earth", and he used it to show his faithfulness.

So if God established those laws as fixed, how can he break them?

I think the best answer to this is that there is one fundamental law of the universe, which is that everything does what God tells it to do. This is actually necessary if we are to explain how the universe works at all.

Now if the fundamental law of the universe is that it does what God tells it to do, he can sometimes tell it to do things a bit differently.

Why would he do this? To show clearly that he is God, and that he has total power over the whole universe. To show that he is not domesticated – that he is not always limited by what we think he should be like. To show that he is not limited by the way that the universe works, but that he can do anything he wants to do. Scientific agnostics can cling on in the face of miracles such as the parting of the Red Sea by saying that it is just a very unlikely coincidence. But they can do nothing in the face of the resurrection of Jesus.

As Don Carson writes:

A miracle is not God doing something for a change, it is God doing something out of the ordinary. That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that he does not always do so should keep science humble.
Don Carson, How Long, O Lord?

So why then does God sometimes do miracles which fit in with the way that the universe works? To show that he is God over science as well. God is accomplishing his purpose through the normal way that the universe works, just as he is also accomplishing it when he does things a bit differently. It is to show us that the universe does not just carry on regardless except for the odd moment when God steps in and decides to act. God is continually at work in the universe.

Miracles - a Word Study

This is the first part in what may well be a series on miracles, etc. Several of the comments have flagged up that it's an area that needs explaining. It's going to be useful to first look at what the word "miracle" means in the Bible before we look at some of the implications...

The English word "miracle" does not occur in the original text of the Bible – it was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. So we should not automatically assume that the word "miracle" is necessarily the best translation of all the words used in the original. We need to think about what the words used for miracles actually mean. "Miracle" comes from the Latin word "miraculum", meaning an object of wonder. So, in English, a miracle is something that people are amazed at.

In the New Testament, there are three groups of words often translated as "miracle" or "miraculous" – δυναμις (dunamis), σημειον (semeion) and τερας (teras).

Dunamis comes from the same root as our word "dynamic", and is well translated by the English word "power". So a miracle where the word dunamis is used is something powerful that is done. An example is in Acts 8:13

Simon himself believed and was baptised. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

Semeion means "sign". So a miracle where semeion is used is something that points someone or something out as special and different. In the verse above, the word translated "signs" is semeia – the plural of semeion.

Every time teras is used in the New Testament, it is paired with semeion. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is used to translate the word mowpheth (see later), so it seems to mean roughly the same as dunamis.

All three are used in Acts 2:22.

Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles (dunamis), wonders (teras) and signs (semeion), which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.

These three words are not talking about different events. There are not some things that are miracles, some that are signs, and some that are wonders. In his gospel, John consistently uses the word semeion for all of them. These three words are complementary ways of describing the same events. Dunamis and teras emphasise God's power, and semeion emphasises the significance.

In the Old Testament, there are three Hebrew words used – mowpheth, 'owth, and pala' (I haven't yet set up this computer to be able to type in Hebrew).

'Owth means much the same as semeion, and is usually translated as "sign". Mowpheth means something like "wonder" or "display of God's power". Both can be seen used in Deuteronomy 26:8 and elsewhere, usually talking about the events connected with the Exodus.

So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders.

The Hebrew pairing of 'owth and mowpheth seems to be equivalent to the Greek pairing of semeion and either dunamis or teras. Just like in the New Testament, the words seem to refer to the same things – the same events at the Exodus were both signs and wonders, as were Jesus' miracles.

Pala' means something like "amazingly better than anything else". We see it used in Genesis 18:14

Is anything too hard (pala') for the LORD?

It is also used to mean things which are amazing because they are so difficult to do.

Before all your people, I will do wonders (pala') never before done in any nation in all the world.
Exodus 34:10

So then, what shall we say a miracle is? The words used in the Bible to describe them point to this as a definition:

A miracle is a demonstration of (God's) power which acts as a sign to show that God is particularly at work.

There may of course be other purposes for the miracle as well. The crossing of the Red Sea also served the purpose of God rescuing his people from the Egyptians. But even then, God could have rescued the Israelites without a miracle. God said that the purpose was so that

The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.
Exodus 14:18

And afterwards we see the effect of the miracle on God's people.

And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.
Exodus 14:31

God's stated purpose in the miracles of the Exodus was to use them as a sign to show people that he was (and therefore still is) God.

In fact, miracles in the Bible are always signs. The very first miracle where a person is involved in performing it is in Exodus 4, where God is giving Moses some signs:

"This," said the LORD, "is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has appeared to you."
Exodus 4:5

It is therefore not at all surprising that miracles in the Bible mostly occur when God is revealing more of himself to the people: in the work of Moses and Joshua (the Law), Elijah and Elisha (the Prophets), Jesus and the apostles (the Gospel).

I'll think about the implications of this and look at some examples in more detail another time.

Part 2...