Jesus: Son of God series part one
MIRACLES
Small group devotion
The purpose of this small group devotion is to open a discussion on miracles. What are they? Should we expect miracles today?
Opening question: Have you ever witnessed a miracle? If not, have you heard of someone else who has? Spend some time sharing stories.
Watch the “Living vlog” posted on 28th September to the Living Room facebook page. Jordan talks about the extravagance of God’s kingdom come near and alludes to Mark 6:30ff.
Jordan finishes by hoping that we would experience the extravagance of God’s kingdom come near. Do you feel God’s kingdom has come near? Why or why not? What does it look like for you when God’s kingdom is near?
Miracles are signs or symbols of God’s kingdom coming near. God’s new creation is breaking into our present. With this in mind read Mark 6:35-44.
What do think this story is saying about Jesus and about what God’s kingdom is like?
How do you react to this story? Do you believe this miracle (and others) really happened? If so, why? If not, why not?
What is your expectation for miracles today? Should we expect them? Why or why not?
Why do you think miracles don’t always happen when we pray for them? e.g. miraculous healing (See leader’s notes)
Spend time praying together for any requests or needs. You may also like to ask God to grant you faith and open eyes to see the extravagance of God’s kingdom come near.
Leader’s notes:
1. Tom Smail, a theologian, wrote an article on healing. Here is an excerpt:
“…we are not allowed to say that the doctors heal naturally, by using the mechanisms built into the world and into our psychosomatic humanity, whereas in the Christian ministry of healing, God heals super-naturally, overriding all these mechanisms and doing something that is a pure miracle deriving from his divinity rather than by a divine power operating first through Christ’s and then through our own humanity.
I have come to think that the contrast between natural and supernatural is not a helpful one in theology in general and in the theology of healing in particular. It creates a chasm between the two as if one were all human and the other were all divine and that is in contradiction to the divine/human relationship as it is unfolded in the Incarnation.
If we speak instead of the order of creation and the order of redemption, of the healing that derives from the world’s origin in the triune God and of the healing that derives from the world’s future in the redeeming activity of the triune God through the incarnate Christ, it becomes much clearer that the human and the divine are involved in the healing that happens in both orders and that the distinction between them is real but relative rather than absolute because the same God works through human means in both.”
2. Another excerpt from the article in response to a healed brain tumour:
“It is not that God applies some laser-like energy from heaven to excise the tumour from the brain, setting aside all the complicated interactions between mind and body that affect the health of both.
Rather through the ministry of healing and in all the freedom of his love he touches a person’s spirit with his own; he energises that part of us that is open to him so that something fresh and new that comes from the Father through the Son and in the Spirit is inserted into the situation and proceeds to achieve its aim through the itself mysterious psychosomatic interaction which is the context in which all healing takes place. That interaction works sometimes on the mind through the medicines and the treatments applied to the body and sometimes on the body through what energises and renews the mind. That interaction is being taken more and more seriously in contemporary medicine of all kinds.”