In the Twenty First Century, a miracle has several interpretations.

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

GCSE RS Coursework

Rob Allen

10AJB

a) I)

Today in the Twenty First Century, a miracle has several interpretations. To define a miracle depends on your interpretation, whether it is religious or atheistic but everyone can say it is something extra-ordinary. In common everyday speech, you may say: ‘We need a miracle!’ but this does not necessarily mean you need to be cured of haemorrhages or leprosy but it may mean you need to get out of debt or be cured of a cold. In Religious terms a miracle is an event that happens due to a direct intervention by God that breaks all laws of Physics and Nature due to a surge of faith. It is something that cannot be explained. Owing to the modern definition of miracles many people seem to think that miracles do not happen today. Some people may think that escaping death perhaps by being cured of cancer, that that is a miracle.

However, another definition of a miracle is when something does not happen. If you pray for someone so they have good day in the morning, God may have been planning to have that person run over by a bus that day. So as you have had the faith in God and the belief that he will help that person during the day, He will possibly prevent the bus from coming at that time or someone may call you back. This absence of action is also classed as a miracle too. He may postpone the person’s death to another day.

The true meaning of a miracle may be missed if it is just treated as news. Miracles are more important than this; they express a belief that Christians have about God and Jesus, which is expressed in the four Gospels. They are an expression of belief because they contain certain accounts of miracles. Religious miracles are physically impossible events that happen due to divine intervention by God due to an act of faith that are not normally possible.

A) B)

Throughout Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is portrayed as being able to perform miracles. He healed the sick and raised the dead back to life. However the miracles were performed not to give him glory or to encourage others to follow him, but rather to show the love and compassion of God. Luke’s Gospel presents the miracles, as a sign that Jesus was really the Son of God.

To many, the most important miracles in Luke’s gospel are the healing or physical miracles or Jesus. The healing of the woman with haemorrhages is just one of many miracles that portray Jesus as a worker of miracles. In the miracle, there was a woman who had had severe bleeding for 12 years and had spent all her money on doctors but no-one could heal her. She had faith in Jesus and as crowds were pressing against him she reached out and touched Jesus’ cloak and immediately her bleeding stopped. Jesus noticed that someone had touched him because he felt power go out of his body. Then the woman who realised she had been found out, fell at Jesus’ feet and begged for forgiveness and she told why she had touched him and how she had been healed. Jesus saw her faith and said:” Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace”

In this story Luke wanted to show that Jesus had God’s power inside of him and anyone could be healed. He does this by showing that God’s power can be drawn out of Jesus like a battery and he also shows that the cloak was not a thaumaturge because Jesus sensed that power had left his body.

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Luke, being a gentile, also wants to show that Jesus’ power is universal. Luke does this because, even though the woman, who was considered a sinner because she was ill, (and Jews considered you to have done something bad against God) could still be healed. Luke is trying to show that if you have the faith in Jesus, you can be healed by him no matter how severe your illness is. The greater the faith you have in Jesus, the more likely you are to be healed.

Luke was a doctor and so the healing miracles of Jesus were important for him. He also believed that the miracles proved that Jesus was the Son of God. From this miracle, Christians today can see that Jesus is for everyone. They should also learn that they should understand other people and not discriminate against them. At least, these miracles show Jesus had supernatural powers and that he showed care and compassion to people. Christians today can learn to be kind and compassionate to others, whether it is by donating money to charity or actual physical help such as helping someone in an accident or becoming someone in the caring profession.

Secondly, there is one other important healing miracle of Jesus, the faith of the centurion. In this miracle, Jesus is in Capernaum. In Capernaum, a centurions’ valued servant was sick and about to die. The centurion had heard of Jesus and sent some elders to ask him to heal his servant. They saw Jesus and pleaded with him to heal the servant mentioning that the centurion had built their synagogue for them. So Jesus went with them. When he neared the house, the centurion sent friends to say that he does not deserve Jesus in his house and like him Jesus could just give the order and he would be healed, because he had servants who would do as he said. Jesus realised his faith and said: “I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”

In this story, Luke wants to again show that Jesus is universal. He uses a Roman centurion, part of the rulers of Israel to show even though he has taken over the land, he can still be healed by Jesus. Also, in this story, Luke has added that this is at a distance. This shows that Jesus’ power is so strong it can combat illness even at a distance, nothing can stop it. Luke is finally trying to say that other people can have an effect on miracles for someone. In this story the centurion has tremendous faith in Jesus to heal the servant and Jesus acknowledges this.

From this story, Christians today can learn that Jesus is universal. Jesus will heal anyone who has the faith in him, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.” This miracle also shows that Jesus was kind and compassionate and Christians should aspire to live like he did. So Luke is trying show that Jesus had great power and used it to help others.

Jesus also performed natural miracles. The feeding of the five thousand is an example of a natural miracle. In this story, Jesus meets a crowd in a town called Bethsaida and heals those who needed healing. Then the disciples came to him and asked for Jesus to send them away to find food and lodgings. Jesus told them to feed them their selves but couldn’t because they only had five loaves and 2 fish. Then Jesus told the disciples to make the crowd sit down in groups of about 50 because there were 5000 there and he took the bread and fish, he looked up to heaven, gave thanks and broke them. Then there was enough for everyone to eat and there were twelve basketfuls left over.

This miracle is very important because Luke shows Jesus as a provider. He wants to show that Jesus cared for his people as he single-handedly fed the people in a desolate place. Luke is also trying to show that Jesus has God’s power inside of him and with this he can perform even the most difficult miracles.

This can teach Christians today that they should try to help and give to other people perhaps in charity or they could just live a better life caring for others. This miracle is very complex as it involves many people and Jesus. This is also seen as symbolism by some people with the 5 loaves the five books of the torah and the 2 fish the neviim and ketuvim and the 12 baskets being the 12 tribes of Israel.

Finally, there are the supernatural miracles of Jesus. These involve demons and the story of Legion is a good example in Luke’s gospel. In the story of Legion, Jesus and the disciples go to Gerasenes, where upon arrival Jesus is met by a demon possessed man. For a long time this man had not lived in a house or even worn clothes. Jesus commanded the demon to come out but the demon pleaded with Jesus not to torture him. Jesus asked it it’s name and it replied Legion and they begged Jesus not to kill them. Jesus gave the demons permission to enter a heard of pigs on the Cliffside and he allowed them and then they ran down the steep bank and people came to see what had happened. Then when Jesus turned he noticed the man sitting clothed in his right mind. Then the people of Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave because they were scared of his power. The man asked to go with Jesus but Jesus told him to go home and speak of what God did for you.

In this story, Luke is showing Jesus’ amazing power in the fact that he can cast out demons and they are afraid of his power. He has power over everything and even the people who saw it were afraid. He is once again trying to show that Jesus is holding God’s power by using the phrase “what God did for you.” Luke is also trying to show that Jesus really was the Son of God by showing this awesome power he has by being able to cast out demons.

Christians today can learn that Jesus is universal. Jesus even helps the demon possessed, considered a high sin and brings them back to their usual self. They can learn to treat others with respect whatever their colour and try to help others as much as they can. Once again the phrase:”For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.”

So in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is portrayed as being able to perform miracles. He healed the sick and cast out demons. However the miracles were performed not to give him glory or to encourage others to follow him, but rather to show the love and compassion of God. Luke’s Gospel presents the miracles, as a sign that Jesus was really the Son of God.

The healing miracles of Jesus are the most important miracles he did. This is because they involved God’s power and helped everyone. They were intended to normal everyday people and happened due to immense faith. Examples of the healing miracles are the woman with haemorrhages and the faith of the centurion.

These miracles are important as they teach Christians how to go about their daily lives. There are two categories that this comes under, practical action and faith. Under faith, Christians can read about the healing miracles of Jesus in the Bible and can be inspired to take up a more active part in the religion. They could aspire to pray more regularly by praying at night or go on a prayer walk in the morning which can clear your mind and you can have deep spiritual thoughts whilst getting fit and becoming a better Christian.

Secondly, Christians can be inspired to attend church regularly. They could go to church for daily services or discussions and they could attend communion and Sunday service. Christians could also be inspired to delve deeper into the religion and research the meaning of the Bible or perhaps get a degree in religious philosophy. Becoming more active in a religion can also see Christians starting discussions about religion. Christians do this to feel better about their selves and to actively seek salvation which can be found in prayer

When recognising God’s power and seeking wholeness of body, mind and soul, Christians could also read the miracles of Jesus and aspire to take practical action to help others. On a lower level Christians could give money to charities that help the needy e.g. Oxfam and Scope. Developing this Christians could join the caring profession. Christians could become a nurse or a member of the Samaritans. Christians could help a drug addict by helping them in rehabilitation and getting them safely back into society. Christians could also set up their own charities like Dr Banado did to help homeless children in Victorian England.

Taking this one step further, a Christian could join a local church community and evangelise the word of God. They could do this by perhaps going on a mission trip to Asia where little Christian worship takes place such as Nepal.

Also, a devoted Christian, could read about Jesus’ healing miracles, especially the passage, “Crowds came in from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits and they were all healed,” and they could look to go on a pilgrimage, perhaps to Lourdes in France, where there is holy water which is said to be where a miracle has taken place. This could be whether they are ill or not and they could take a friend or relative and cleanse their sins in the holy water.

Finally, the healing miracles show how Jesus lived. This could teach Christians to aspire to live like he did and help others whilst spreading the word of God. They could become the perfect devoted Christian and help others in need. They could do as Jesus did, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.”

Healing miracles do happen today. Healing miracles happen in churches and stadiums when healing crusades are held. This is where people congregate to cure people with the power of God and many people over the past testify to this. This point is also reinforced by Lourdes. In Lourdes miracles are said to have happened to critically ill people and they have survived. Scientist may ask for a logical argument, theory if there is lack of proof as if a patient suddenly becomes well as in Lourdes, many disagree with the miracles at Lourdes, but Christians would say that it is an act of God and as they are not at such an advanced level as God, they cannot attempt to understand God’s reasoning.

Emphasizing this view that miracles still happen today, if your definition of a miracle is an event that is unable to be performed by a human then in the case of a person with cancer who has a malignant tumor. If it spreads and spreads and then the person recovers and lives to tell the tale then that would be a miracle. This is because there is no cure for cancer that humans know of but some people are cured of cancer. Christians put this down to God’s action.

I strongly believe that miracles still happen today, just not in sense that people think. It's the small miracles and the seemingly invisible ones that occur. It would be scary to see a dead person rise from the grave but small personal miracles, (i.e. childbirth etc) things that most people think is just life is in fact small miracles, just depends on how you view them.

Miracles do not happen today, however, because you never see people being cured of leprosy or having a demon cast out of them. Most people seek medical attention when they are sick rather than God. Even if someone is cured of leprosy, it is just treated as news rather than a deep spiritual event.

Furthermore, miracles do not happen today because there is a lack of faith. Faith produces a miracle not a miracle produces faith. People today do not have the faith as the people in the 1st Century CE. People in those days used to be mostly poor and had nothing in life to look forward to so they turned to religion to have hope. People today do not turn to religion for help as so many people do not need it nowadays.

Jesus performed the miracles in the 1st century CE. Jesus isn’t around today so therefore people could say that miracles do not happen today. Jesus was the battery that carried God’s energy and he is not here so miracles do not happen today for this reason.

Overall, I feel that miracles do and don’t happen today. I believe that small miracles such as childbirth still happen but I also believe that the other miracles do not happen.