The healing miracles tell us a lot about Jesus and his life. It tells u that Jesus came to earth to help and save us not only to perform miracles. It also tells us that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus also quoted words from Isaiah to them to suggest the Messiah had come., because he was able to perform miracles and no one else was able to except if they were aided with dark magical forces. Jesus had no connection with magic or sorcery no formulas or manipulation were used. The miracles teach us that Jesus has authority over evil. Jesus healed people because he felt pity for most of them, so if Jesus had the power to heal it would’ve been amazing if he had not used it when he came in contact with people in need. Jesus refused to perform miracles to draw attention to himself to show who he was, in some cases Jesus told people who he healed not to tell anybody. Jesus healed people who had faith in him. All the miracles of Jesus symbolises that Jesus had the power to heal and was the messiah.
Jesus was demonstrating power over the forces of evil in the world. He was demonstrating power over the devil.
Healing is when someone wounded is healthy again, pain relived or hurt or mental health made to become sound or healthy again. People who need healing are people who suffer from disability weather small or big, very little even. Things like being infected with bacteria diseases like malaria. Or virus diseases like pneumonia, people who require healing are also people with mental problems or hurt. These people need healing to become better or to be a better person. an example is somebody who can’t sleep at night because they have done something terrible. They need to seek forgiveness from god and the people they have done this thing too to be healed and be relived of the burden, they have to have faith to be healed.
Most Christians believe that the healing miracles happened during Jesus time because they believe that Jesus was the messiah and has the power to perform miracles and to heal people who believe in him and needs healing. Other few Christians that do not believe in the healing miracles give reasons for this:
They think that Jesus may have used the forces of nature that we do not know of yet or by suspending the laws of nature
Some people say that Jesus might have used the ‘mind over matter’ ability.
In the arguments between the fundamentalist conservative and the liberal’s, the fundamentalist believes that if the story was written in the gospel then it must have happened exactly as it says it was written. He believes that the cure of the blind man was a sign that he was the messiah, and also In the feeding of the 5000 people The fundamentalist says that the story is more about physical healing because he just knows that Jesus had the power to heal, he doesn’t look into why Jesus healed or what the meaning of the miracle is supposed to represent or teach us about Jesus.
The conservative thinks that the story is likely to have happened because there are other accounts of Jesus healing other blind people, she thinks Jesus cured blind people but she thinks he used “the forces of nature that we do not know of yet”. A she think that it is also has a spiritual meaning but “it is secondary to the fact that he helped people.
The liberal thinks that Jesus might have used paranormal powers, but they think it isn’t relevant to the story because the meaning of the story matters the most. Liberals takes the story as like a kind of parable, which has a hidden meaning, which to him are the real miracle and the meaning of the story of the healing of the blind man.
Liberals also think the story happened because God might have given Jesus the power to cure people of their blindness and Illnesses. I do not believe that it is a kind of parable like the liberal or Jesus managed to change the forces of nature. I think this because it isn’t written as a parable and Jesus was sent to earth by god to take care of us.
Some Christians do pray for people to be healed today. They pray in churches, in their homes and some place else where they think they can. The places which people pray doesn’t really matter as long as they have faith and want to pray. Christians believe God is everywhere so they can pray to God anywhere. I agree that the places where people pray doesn’t matter as long as they believe and have faith. Most Christians go to the church to pray because they believe that it is the best place to come closer to God. When Christians pray is mostly morning and evenings of the day and also on Sundays which they believe to be the holy day. These Christians pray for people or themselves because they believe in God and about what Jesus did and the miracles he performed and that Jesus or God could heal their friends, family, themselves or even anybody else that they are praying for. Some priests in churches pray for people to get well and to be healed from any kind of sickness that they’re suffering from. Christians believe that God is still guiding over them and they pray so that God could help them (give them the strength) to get through whatever illness that they are going through.
Christians believe that God gives some special people authority to pray for the sick because they believe strongly and are ready to sacrifice things for their beliefs because they have the faith. Some priests in churches believe that God has given them authority to pray for the sick so that they get well through the power of God. The reasons, which these people are given, this authority is because of their faith in God makes them to be able to do good things and believe and help other people to believe in God.
I believe healing miracles do happen today but some people around are not aware of it or do not believe in the miracles I have reasons to believe that miracles do happen today. There are lots of ways people use miracles today and there are some exceptional unbelievable miracles, which I believe has been possible because God wanted it to happen. I think that if God wants you to live your life to a certain date you will live your life till that time against all odds, weather there is a volcano eruption or an earthquake, storm. You will survive it. And there have been people who have survive it and there have been people who have survived it and there is no explanation that people can come up with apart from it being a miracle.
I think the healing miracles happen because there are facts to back this up. There are people who have been diagnosed with cancer and after asking for forgiveness and praying to God to help them, they have been cleared from their disease. There have been remarkable recoveries which people never thought would happen. People waking up from comas and people who were thought never able to walk again walk.
Reasons which people might think that the healing miracles do not happen today is partly to do with the rapid advancement we have has in science and technology in the past years. There are new drugs and medicine to heal people when they are sick which means they don’t have to pray to get well. They just have to go to their GP for prescriptions, take the drugs and then they will be well, because of this people don’t believe in the healing miracles because science and technology now just seams to know, understand and try to produce solutions for every illness known. But what they don’t realise is that through they have ways to make you feel better, there have been people who have taken drugs for certain diseases and it has not worked. People may argue that praying does not always work but certain conditions may cause the praying not top work, maybe the person does not have enough faith or has done a great sin or even the person is supposed to learn something through their suffering.
Some Christians still go to the doctors to get well but some do not do this but go to church and get prayed for so that they can get better. Christians go to hospital not because they don’t believe in the healing miracles but just because it is a quicker option. The Christians who do not necessary go to the hospital when they get ill normally pray to God to get healed, these people are normally the ones with a lot of faith and belief.
I can see why people would not believe in the healing miracles happening today because of the belief in science and medicine and science seams to know all, nowadays and they present a more attractive and quicker, easier solution or way out.
World Hunger – Christian beliefs.
A. What do Christians teach about the causes of hunger and diseases today?
Hunger can be described as the need or desire for food lack of food leading to sickness or death.
The immediate short-term causes of hunger includes:
Lack of developed equipment for producing sufficient food, this means they take longer to produce food and also don’t produce enough to feed people, at the specific time needed. This means there are normally lower yield, and more energy used.
Lack of developed form of treatment for diseases, so people cannot produce their own food when they’re ill.
Famine and droughts in countries, famine normally occurs when there isn’t enough food to feed people at a specific time, people may starve and could die because of this. Causes of famines may be the lack of water in some areas of the countries, natural and natural disasters
Things like this above produce a cycle of poverty.
Christians believe that a number of things cause hunger and disease. Christians normally believe and teach that to be poor is not to satisfy basic human needs. The basic needs which these Christians are trying to put across are things like health, food to be able to sustain life, shelter and clothing, things like education and social participation also includes the these things.
Things, which Christians believe cause poverty are:
Diseases
A disease is known as becoming ill or sick, which is when someone is mentally or physically unwell and unhealthy. Poverty and the lack of sufficient food in most less developed and developed countries are what normally result in diseases.
Children die because of an unhealthy diet which causes and unhealthy immune system, which means they normally lose the effective resistance to diseases.
Christians believe that this is one of the main causes of hunger around the world, but thy also believe that this can be prevented if people decide to help.
Overpopulation
Christians think that overpopulation cause world huger, there is an estimated 2.5 million human beings born to his earth. It took the human race 10,000 generations to reach two million members but it is now taking one generation to explode from two billion to ten billion, part of this is that in most less developed countries the people who live there have little or no knowledge about contraception. So they are more mouths to feed. Also since the introduction of medicine they are more people who die out of disease than are saved out of sickness. Rich countries like America aren’t overpopulated mainly because of education; USA has 6% of the world’s population but consumes 25% of the world’s resources.
Selfishness
Some other Christians say that it’s the selfishness of people and also people who are rich that cause world hunger and that if every one give out to the poor and take what they want to eat and they need to eat then there will be enough food to feed almost everyone around the world.
This is a quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“A church is that is in solidity with the poor can never be a wealthy church. It must sell all, in a sense, to follow its master. It must use its wealth and resources for the sake of the least of Christ’s brethren.”
In other words if most of the people give out to the poor to help them fend for themselves or if the very developed courtiers gave other countries loans or buy stuff from the less developed countries without adding abundant interest then maybe the countries will be better off in helping themselves and people to reduce the hunger which the citizens suffer.
This is a Baptist Church Statement.
“What is needed is nothing less than a new international economic order so that the rich can no longer dictate to the poor countries the terms on which they will trade with them.”
It is said that the world is producing enough food to feed every man, woman and child, enough grain is produced to provide everyone with 3,000 calories per day and that’s without counting beans, fruit and vegetables. Also enough food is produced in the less developed countries where so many people are forced to go hungry.
(ii) Explain biblical teachings, which they might use
In the parable of the rich fool the ground of a certain rich man produced a good harvest, then he thought to himself, what should he do because he has got no where to store all his crops, then he had an idea, he would tear down his barns and build bigger ones so that he can store all his crops then he said happily. So he thought, “Now I can eat, drink and be merry.” But then God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you, then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”
At the end Jesus said after telling the parable that “this is how it would be for anyone who stores up things for himself, but is not rich toward God”
This parable shows us a good example of the Christians teachings about selfishness. This parable is teaching the dangers of the search of wealth. This farmer in the story puts all his efforts into getting rich, and just the moment when he thinks that he has done what he wants and can “eat drink and be merry” he dies. Someone who hasn’t done for his wealth inherits them. This shows that there is no use of storing up wealth for you, to be greedy and selfish. The farmer here hasn’t done anything that is of any value in Gods eyes, he should have used his wealth to help people who are less fortunate and he could’ve been getting his richness in heaven. This parable teaches that people will not be judged by how rich they are but how much they have done to help the less fortunate people and people in need of their help. This man has been very greedy and he ended up in disaster.
The second parable, which I will be talking about, is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
This parable shows a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day at his gate there was a beggar named Lazarus longing to eat what fell of the rich mans table. They both die and Lazarus was sent to Abraham’s side in haven, then the rich man died and was sent to hell; he was in agony. He begged Lazarus to cool his tongue but he couldn’t he also asked that they should warn their brothers so that thy do not come o hell, but Abraham said that is they don’t listen to the prophets then they wont listen to the dead.
This parable shows a rich man so lived in comfort and because of that he was blinded of the needs of others and refused to notice the beggar Lazarus a the door. This man was also told that the scriptures contain warnings of what will happen to people who are like him. And people shouldn’t be greedy.
The relationship between the rich man and Lazarus is similar to the relationship between the richest and poorest countries, this is because most rich countries normally, gain a lot of money and goods from the less developed countries which means they aren’t fair trading, also they sometimes refuse to acknowledge the problems which are going on.
B. Using Christian aid or CARITAS, explain how Christians might respond to world hunger and disease.
A charity can be defined as an act of kindness or feeling of generosity, Christian love for God and human kind and also to help the poor, a society or organisations that gives help to the poor.
The church long ago began helping the needy and the poor because Britain was full of desperately needy people. Workhouses were made during that time; this was a place where the poor could go for food and shelter in exchange for work. But even when this was introduced at the time things didn’t improve for most poor people, some people even blamed the poor for their suffering, and some people claimed that it was Gods will for them to. At the second half of the 19th century things began to change, charity organisations and orphanages was set up to help the poor and needy. And also the state became responsible for helping the poor and providing resources to improve their condition.
Since the introduction of charities people have been saying that charities are good in what they do. Charities can fill a gap by providing service, which might otherwise not exist, they give the public a choice on how to spend money, they provide new ideas for cares and treatment, they can compliment, supplement and extend the influence of a welfare state. Charities can also help people develop talents which they might not other wise use, they can help make the society more caring.
Some people believe that charities are not such a good thing. Because charities make people less responsible, they also make the government not give money or resources to places because they believe that the charities will do it, because charities exist some people believe that it makes it difficult for people to se the real problems of society.
But despite this most people believe that charities are a very good thing, Christian Aid is a charity organisation that works to improve the quality of life for the poor and powerless by giving them the power to help themselves.
It is an agency of the churches in the UK and Ireland; Christian Aid works wherever the need is greatest, regardless of religion. It works through local organisations that understand local needs, as well as giving help on the ground through 16 overseas offices. Christian aid works in over 70 countries with more than 500 major partner organisations including catholic agencies.
Christian Aid believes in strengthening people to find their own solutions to the problems they face. It strives for a New World transformed by an end to poverty and campaigns to change the rules that keep people poor.
Christian Aid's purpose is to expose the scandal of poverty and to contribute to its eradication. The organisation strives to be prophetic, challenging the systems and processes that work against the interests of those who are poor or marginalised. Christian Aid recognises that change will only come about as a movement is built of individuals who are committed to a better world for all, bringing their faith and talents, their energy, their influence, their gifts and their actions, to achieve what should surely be possible.
Christian aid grew out of the efforts of the British and Irish churches to help refugees in Europe after the Second World War. The churches collected £1 million for this work in 1945. By 1948 they had decided to collect money for people in the third world too.
Things which Christian aid provides to help people fight against hunger and disease include, working in areas of emergencies where it finances medical supplies, food and blankets, transport and building materials and tries to support, feed and resettle refugees. Christian aid tries to help people with their belief that:
- God hopes and works for a new earth where all shall be included in the feast of life. In Jesus Christ they see how costly it is to bring that new earth about.
- God's design for a new earth is to put the poorest first, and the Gospel tells the importance of bringing the poor good news.
- Anyone, rich or poor can be generous, wise and creative because everyone, rich or poor, is made in God's image and everyone is impoverished when one person is excluded.
- The world is structured to benefit rich rather than poor communities, but we can work together to redress the balance. None of us can be entrusted with too much power over others.
- Loving our neighbour’s means working for justice, so that all people have some control over the way they live their life. God made the earth to sustain and delight us, and we are called to take care of it and enjoy it.
- The God of all the earth is at work beyond the churches as well as within them, making common cause with all who want the poor to be included.
- Despite the persistence of evil, now is always the time when more good can be done and we can make a difference. We long for the time when the meek shall inherit a new earth and all who hunger and thirst after justice shall be satisfied.
Local people are best placed to solve local problems. Therefore Christian Aid provides funds to over 700 local groups in 60 countries to enable them to find their own solutions to the great hardships they face. While emergency help is given where needed, Christian Aid is committed to tackling the root causes of poverty and campaigns for lasting change. Christian aid doesn’t get funds form the lottery.
The money Christian aid gets goes to local church organisations or other community groups in the countries concerned. They use the money to fund long-term projects that help the poorest and neediest groups of people to become self-sufficient. Some of the ways they do this is by
- Raising crop yields by providing to old and expertise
- Paying for emergency aids
Christian has done project like one in Ethiopia where the Ethiopian orthodox church has been working with 4,000 households to help them improve the soil; and grow the food they need to survive.
C. ‘Christians are responsible for each other – no matter where in the world they live.’
I think Christians are responsible for each other no matter where they are around the world, I think that no matter where Christians are around the world they can help other people, through many ways which includes giving to charity organisations or just encouraging people to help others. I don’t think that a Christian should ignore other people’s sufferings around the world, again no matter where they are. I think that Christians have a responsibility to others, this earth and God to make things better and this includes helping others to see this responsibility and taking note of it and also doing something about it. Christians believe that God loves the world and all that’s in it, they believe that God became a human in Jesus and that in a real sense they meet God in every human being. Christian faith provides the example of Jesus and how he mixed with, and showed respect for, the poor and the despises, this can been seen in the parables which Jesus told and how he taught them to treat people equally and help others, treating them with compassion and respect.
Many Christians believe that faith is not a private matter but means putting faith into action, Christian faith provides a vision of what life could be like if people become less self-centred. They work towards his vision, by helping the world’s poor. This shows that Christian beliefs asks of people to take a responsibility for each other no matter where in the world that they live.
Christians believe God loves the world and all that is in it. Jesus mixed with and respected those who were poor or despised by others this is a good example for Christians to follow, the old testament makes powerful statements about justice, and Jesus adds to these in his own teaching. Christians should commit themselves to live out this teaching on how people should treat the poor.
I believe that those who aren’t Christian should also help the people around the world. Although they aren’t Christians and they do not follow that teaching of the bible, they might follow other religions, which teach them to help others. Also the bible teachings are simple moral beliefs which anybody can follow. People should help other people round the world no matter their faiths or beliefs, people have consciences and moral standards, I think they should use this to guide them to help others so the world can become a better place for people to live in. I don’t think that anyone HAS TO help people, but people should Chose to help people.
