The other major world religions, even the tribal religions are much more in touch with the spiritual world than we are!
We seem to think that we are too advanced to believe that nonsense, even looking down on these beliefs in other religions as primitive or pagan. We, on the other hand, are 'wiser' than they; we know that the world is made of atoms and is material! And we have grown up with a deep belief in our own superior knowledge of how the world works.
But actually it is we who have traded sight for blindness and become blind guides.
We have fallen for the lie that what we can see and explain is all that matters - the materialistic view. We have believed a lie - not so much that science is wrong, but the view that it is all that is true!
But that is not Biblical Christianity.
Some resolve this conundrum by coming to the conclusion that Jesus lived in a pre-scientific age, and explained things in the language of the common (read: primitive) people of his day. Had he lived in this era, they think, he would of course have explained things in material and scientific terms...
But then we would need to remove not just the miracles, but all references in the Bible to the spiritual - even to God being Spirit! And what are we left with? Well, not much at all, really:
- the miracles were obviously some unusual but explainable scientific phenomena
- the spiritual gifts (prophecy, discernment, etc) were a figment of the imagination, or perhaps altered states of mind
- the demonic can be readily dismissed as psychological or mental health issues (and how offensive is that?)...
And is it then surprising that we decide that Christianity isn't very useful in this day and age, and so it is thrown out completely!
Other Christians assume a different 'solution': they are clear that the miraculous used to happen - and especially that Jesus rose miraculously from the dead. But they seem very uncomfortable with the notion of spiritual gifts and with angels and demons, and are clear that miracles don't happen nowadays. They are probably people whose Christian life so far hasn't been touched by the majority of the world where an awareness of the spiritual is a normal part of day-to-day reality.
Anyway, they are left with a castrated Christianity, impotent and nonsensical - a belief system in which God used to be able to do all sorts of things, but offers little these days to those who have any need beyond wanting a cosy circle and a warm feeling. (After all, why would we need any of that spiritual stuff now that we have psychologists and modern medicine? Come to that, why would God need to go to any such effort now that we are so well advanced and able to do everything ourselves?)
While much of life looks simply natural and not obviously spiritual, if we only work at a material level we miss all the spiritual action; we are reduced to feeble human (mis)understanding. We are then blind, powerless and useless.
How true are the Bible's words about collective unbelief:
"He (Jesus) did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith." (Matt 13v58)
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