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Why are miracles so rare today?

by James Barringer  
2/09/2010 / Bible Studies

I hear it asked all the time, by Christians and non-Christians alike. The Bible is chock full of miracles, so if God is still God, why does he seem to have downsized his highly-popular Miracle Department? I think there are two answers, one of which is fairly obvious and the other of which is highly discomforting.

The first answer is that the Bible, because of its nature as a historical book, only records the more memorable parts of history. Consider the story of Othniel, found in Judges 3:7-11. His story spans forty years, yet it's condensed to only four verses. If you've read the Old Testament before, you've probably read his story, and I bet you still don't even remember anything about him. The authors of the Bible, selectively and for quite obvious reasons, edit down or edit out the less important or less noteworthy parts. The reason it seems that miracles happen constantly in the Bible is that the dozens of years of tedium in between them are snipped out. The book of Judges, for instance, covers over 300 years in the space of just 21 chapters. Of course only the most memorable parts of those 300 years are going to be recorded.

By the way, most of Judges is suspiciously devoid of miracles. It's essentially one lengthy chronicle of the people of Israel screwing up time and time again. We should be very glad they were more interested in recording history truthfully, even if it makes them look like incredible knuckleheads, than in manipulating the record to make themselves look good. Who would make up a story like the Bible to be the history of their people, given how badly it reflects on them?

The second reason miracles are so rare today, and the one that may cause us some discomfort, might have to do with the collective righteousness of God's people. 1 Samuel 3 mentions, "The word of the Lord was rare in those days; there were no frequent visions." Not many miracles, no divine revelation. God might as well have not existed. I don't think it's merely coincidence that God's silence occurred at the same time as the corruption and religious backwardness of Judges; the book of Judges even ends by observing, "In those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes." That line should sound pretty familiar to us these days.

When it says there was no king, it means there was no person serving the office of king, but also that the people did not consider God their king. He wasn't ruling over their lifestyles. If you've read much of the Old Testament, you know that this is something God doesn't have much patience for. He is God, the single most being in the entire universe. He not only wants to be at the center of our lives, he deserves it, because he made us, and it's selfish arrogance on our parts to afford him anything less than first place in our hearts. This is why he sometimes refers to himself as jealous; he wants the respect and worship that he is entitled to, and he doesn't want anything else to get the love that we should be reserving for him.

So we have a situation where God's people were behaving like everyone around them, not following his word and his way like they were supposed to be doing, and the result is that his voice was silent and his power was not commonly shown among them. Again, it doesn't take much imagination to see the connection to today. There's not much difference between the church and society. Our divorce rate is, shamefully, no different than the secular world's. We watch the same TV shows and the same movies, use the same language, tell the same jokes. We lust after the same bigger houses and the same newer cars, and we live in the same endless cycle of craving more money so we can buy nicer things.

We go to churches that praise our military, which trains people to kill and to see others as enemies instead of as God's beloved creatures whom he died to save, a military which is currently halfway across the world sending Muslims to hell without a chance to hear the gospel. We listen to preachers talk about politics when they're supposed to be talking about the Bible. We want to know how God can bless our finances, but only 2% of Christians give the full tithe or more. We wonder why God doesn't speak to us, but 86% of us don't have a daily quiet time. We can find forty hours a week for work and, on average, 35 hours a week for television, but we can't find ten minutes a day for prayer. If someone were to look at your life from the outside, to watch you for an entire week except for Sunday morning and maybe Wednesday night, what compelling evidence would they find to prove that you're a Christian?

I know it's very popular to criticize the church today, and I'm not really interested in accusing people of being lazy or apathetic. I don't think most of you are. I think most of you want to be the very best Christians you can possibly be, but you're doing life the way society does because you genuinely don't have any idea how it might be done differently. If you knew how to make God the master of your time or your finances, you'd probably do it. So find out. If you've never thought about those things, maybe it's time you decided to make God your king.

I don't know if this issue of righteousness in the church is the exact reasons that miracles are so rare in the west - they're not rare in the rest of the world, by the way, so let's not fall into the America-centric fallacy that the rest of the world is exactly like us. But I do know that God has a proven track record of staying silent when his people aren't living the way they're supposed to be. Even if God's silence is for some other reason, should we ever pass up a chance to align ourselves more perfectly with his way?

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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