In the book of John, we see Jesus admonish his followers two times to believe in him because of the works he does. I believe “the works” stands for the miracles he did. Specifically, in John 10:38, he said “… even though you do not believe me, believe the works…”. Then in John 14:11, he said again, “believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on the account of the works themselves”. Jesus expects his followers to believe in him either because of the words (the message) he spoke to them or on the account of the works (the miracles) that he did. This is the reason why we see the gospel writers detail so many of these supernatural acts of Jesus in their epistles. They did this to help the reader or believer build their faith in Jesus because of the numerous supernatural acts that he did that validate his calling. That is why John said:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. – John 20:30-31

John also said: 

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. – John 21:25

Jesus’ miracles and wondrous signs were recorded to help boost your faith in him. The believer is not called to a life of blind faith. God expects us to believe in Jesus after a careful consideration of his ministry – which is a combination of his message, miracles and mission. This is why a careful study of the miracles of Jesus is a vital exercise every believer must undertake to know him and his power and to believe in Jesus as the messiah.

In the visualization above, we have a summary of the supernatural acts of Jesus. The bible mentions that Jesus did many miraculous things that were not written. However, the ones that were written with accompanying details have been visualized above. In the book of Luke alone, there is a record of 3 different instances that Jesus healed an unstated number of people in 3 separate meetings. In Luke 4:40 it is written that he laid his hands on a number of people and healed them of all their diseases and sicknesses. The setting of this narrative gives us the impression that it wasn’t a great number of people: Jesus had visited Simon Peter at home to heal his mother-in-law then at sun set the people in the vicinity started bringing in their sick relatives and friends for healing. However, in the second instance in Luke 6:19, Jesus was in the midst of a great multitude. The term “great multitude” is tautological because a multitude is a large number of people hence for the Bible to describe the crowd as such indicates the size of the gathering and perhaps that the number of people there was uncountable. In this case, since the number of people gathered was huge, Jesus didn’t lay hands on them. The Bible says “…power came out of him and healed them all”. It could have been 200 people who were healed that day; it could have been 700 or even a thousand. We cannot tell. All we know is that Jesus had the power to heal every sick person at a meeting that attracted a “great multitude” of people. Finally, we are told in Luke 7:21 that “In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight”. Again, we see that Jesus healed an unstated number of people in this gathering. The bible referred to all those who were present at this gathering as “crowds” (Luke 7:24), this gives us a fair idea of how large the gathering was and perhaps the number of people affected by the miraculous ministry of Jesus that day, because the text did say he healed “many” of them.

I say this in agreement with what John said in John 21:25, that Jesus did many awesome miracles that were not captured in the gospels;  it would have probably taken a library of books to record them all. Just to reiterate, the visualization above looks at the supernatural acts of Jesus that were recorded with accompanying details in scripture. Three times we read in the gospels that Jesus raised the dead. Two times we are told that he fed thousands of people with very little food. In reference to casting out demons, it occurs in the gospels specifically two times and on all these two occasions the act was not linked to sicknesses. But as you may already know, it was the custom of Jesus to heal sick people by rebuking and casting out demons from them (eg. in Matthew 9:32). Those instances I have included to the data on the “healings” that Jesus did. 

From the visualization above, it is also clear that healing tops all the recorded supernatural acts of Jesus. It is closely followed by what I have termed “miraculous acts”. This term refers to the many wondrous acts of Jesus that do not necessarily border on ministering to people directly but are supernatural nonetheless. Examples of such acts are turning water into wine, walking on water, calming the raging seas etc. These acts had an indirect impact on people but they weren’t directed at them. 

Below is another visualization that looks at the breakdown of the supernatural acts of Jesus according to how many times they are recorded in the gospels. Matthew and Luke recorded the highest number of miracles amongst the 4 gospels. Although John recorded the least number of miracles, he was careful to give us a picture of the enormity of Jesus’ supernatural ministry. Perhaps he adopted hyperbole in his description of Jesus’ supernatural ministry when he said that the whole world could not contain the books that would have been written detailing all of Jesus’ miracles. John walked closely with Jesus and so was privy to the many miracles that he did from a front-row perspective. I have no cause to doubt him or any of the gospel writers on their accounts of the works of Jesus.

We have already discussed the purpose for the recording of Jesus’ miracles, but allow me to reiterate. The miracles of Jesus were recorded so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ and the son of the living God (John 20:30-31). This Bible Data Story was written with the aim of shedding some light on the miracles of Jesus from the perspective of a data storyteller. The end goal is so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ and the son of the living God. If he is the same yesterday, today and forever, then we can believe that he is still in the business of healing as many people as he did in one meeting when he ministered to a great multititude. And he is more than able and willing to perform miracles in and with our lives. It is my hope that your faith will be stirred up to believe in him as the son of God and then as the mighty healer and miracle worker that is proven beyond reasonable doubt in the gospels.

Find the dataset on my GitHub account here.

At least once every month I see a street magician set up his ‘apparatus’ at some vantage point on the streets of Accra to display his magical powers in the full glare of a captivated crowd encircling him and his side kick. I have been told that it is actually a ploy to create the opportunity for pickpockets to steal from people. I don’t know how true that is but what I do know is that the goal of a street magician is to ‘WOW’ his audience but the end goal of the miraculous is to solve a problem and glorify God.

In 2015 I was in a service and Dr. Lawrence Tetteh prayed for a little girl whose legs were unequal in length. All of us in the congregation literally saw the little girl’s leg grow out slowly. It was amazing. I had never seen anything like that before. I was wowed! It was spectacular. However, the point is God didn’t set out to impress us by that miracle that day. He has already done that enough in the splendor and majesty of the universe and creation at large. That day God simply set out to solve a problem in a little girl’s life. It was a health problem. This reality dawned on me when the lady sitting next to me told me the little girl’s story. Apparently, she knew her and long story short, the little girl was supposed to have a surgery some time ago but her parents couldn’t afford it. It was then that it really dawned on me that what just happened was a major solution to a problem in the little girl’s life only that the solution came dressed in the supernatural. The miraculous is meant to make social impact so let’s not get lost in the grandeur and forget the true purpose of miracles. In my opinion this is the reason why Jesus didn’t sin when the devil tempted him. He knew that the true purpose of the miraculous was to help people and bring glory to God. Miracles are not done to merely show off God’s power. Some of us wouldn’t have even known that the devil was tempting us if we were in Jesus’ shoes. We would have seen it as an opportunity to show off God’s power. But it wasn’t. Where is the problem solved? Where is the glory to God? If Jesus had done the devil’s bidding he would have cheapened the miraculous and dishonored God who gives us power to do miracles.

When Jesus healed the blind, the lame, the leprous etc. he was solving health problems. In the book of Acts Peter’s shadow and aprons rubbed off on Paul’s body healed sick people – a solution to health problems too. When Joseph, used his gift of prophecy (word of wisdom) to save Egypt and other nations from famine, he was solving a hunger and economic problem. When Jesus fed the 5000 men and the 4000 men, he too was solving a hunger problem. When Moses used the power of his rod to save the children of Israel from Egypt, he was solving a slavery and servitude problem. The bad water of Jericho was killing people, when Elisha prophesied over the water and turned it into good water, he was solving an environmental problem. In the garden of Gethsemane when the soldiers came for Jesus, Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of one of the soldiers. Jesus healed the soldier (by putting the ear back in its place, I suppose) right there and then he rebuked Peter. When Jesus did that, he was dealing with the problem of religious extremism. When Jesus instructed Peter to go catch a fish, open its mouth and remove some money from it and use it to pay the temple tax, what he was doing was employing the miraculous to solve a financial problem in the temple. I can go on and on and space and time won’t allow me to finish giving examples.

In our day and age though there is a dramatic advancement in science and technology yet the miraculous has not lost its essence. Healing evangelists are moving from town to town, city to city and country to country, healing the sick, raising the dead and above all restoring the lost to the fold of God. These are examples of social problems being solved by the hand of God. Advancement in knowledge doesn’t mean the miraculous is outmoded neither does the miraculous imply that there is no need for pursuing knowledge. We need Christians to function in both capacities to the glory of God. I believe the advancement humanity has made in knowledge helps us (those who haven’t experienced certain health problems before) appreciate the cost of a miracle sometimes. Until you know how expensive an eye surgery is, you will never understand the joy of a poor blind man healed at one of the Healing Jesus Crusades organized by Bishop Dag Heward Mills. We may never know what it feels like to be blind, but the fact that we can put a price tag on what it takes to make a blind man see, when his sight is restored unto him by an act of God, we too can understand to some extent what it means.

The miraculous must always be employed to solve problems in the lives of people and ultimately bring glory and joy to God. Jesus said in Matthew 10:8 “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give”. This sounds like a command to believers. We are commanded to do these things. Are you carrying out this command? Am I? The last sentence also sounds like a caveat. We are warned by Jesus to do all these things without taking a fee because the ability to do miracles is given to believers freely. Remember, when a socially impactful activity is made for sale it is no longer a noble act but a business. So may we not make profit from that which we have been commanded to give freely.

See? So this is why Ghana may never go into the production of cars. Because other countries produce cars at a lower comparative cost and therefore we would have to concentrate on the production of goods that we have comparative advantage in. All I am trying to say is this, to the layman, the government of Ghana must attempt producing cars and assist private companies like Katanka. But this seemingly intelligent suggestion doesn’t make economic sense. Therefore, what seems logical to the layman isn’t logical in the field of Economics.

When it comes to religion – Christianity to be specific – people do not understand this simple idea. People do not understand the fact that what is completely logical in Christianity may come across as nonsense to them because they aren’t Christians. It is simple, just know that once you are not a Christian, certain things Christians do will never make sense to you so you just have to respect that and move on. I am saying this in connection with the recent frenzy about what men of God say. I think nowadays, too many journalists go to church for the wrong reasons (to fish for catchy headlines). Archbishop Duncan-Williams prayed a few months ago, commanding the cedi to rise! Well, I don’t particularly know what inspired him to do that but I was shocked when he became a laughing stock after that. Wait, shouldn’t we be laughing at the people who were trained in school to fix the problem and are in the position to do so but are fumbling badly like they were being electrocuted?  He is a man of God, what do you expect him to do? Pass a bill? Implement government’s policies? Clearly, he did what he was supposed to do and maybe if we all did same this country would be a million miles away from where we are. It isn’t as if he declared a fast and required everybody to stop working and pray? He just said a simple prayer and this prayer, when its answer materializes, will be beneficial to all of us. So what’s up with all the demeaning comments? For some mysterious reason, people believe prayer is a cheap getaway for lazy people and being prayerful simply means inactivity. Really? It is the bible that stated that faith without works is dead.

Let’s discuss the merits of that command the Archbishop uttered. He said ‘I command the cedi to rise’. This is a statement of authority which can only come from someone with spiritual oversight and jurisdiction over a particular area. What is wrong with this? Oh yeh, I get it, he was speaking to an inanimate entity and expected it to obey his voice. Excuse me, have you heard about Jesus Christ? Jesus was out there speaking and commanding invisible things like the wind. He cursed a fig tree. He healed an epileptic boy, not by casting out epilepsy, but by casting out a demon. I am not saying that every single physical occurrence has its roots in the spiritual world, but a lot of them do. I am more concerned about the fact that some Christians came out to openly deride the man of God. My question to them is this, is the bible a fable to you? Jesus said he who has faith can command a mountain to be uprooted and be thrown into the sea and it will happen. Well, maybe you are right when you assume He was speaking metaphorically. If He was, then it is only right for the man of God to command a mountainous economic situation. Remember what I said earlier, logic isn’t absolute; it varies from field to field. So what is logical in a particular worldview may be irrational in another.

As I stated earlier, people tend to assume that prayer gives prayerful people the impression that things are happening for them supernaturally hence they can fold their arms and look into the skies and manna would pour down. This isn’t correct. What prayer does sometimes is it sets physical processes in motion. The tree that Jesus cursed started withering from the roots gradually. Let’s look at the creation story for example; it is recorded in two different chapters in Genesis: these are Genesis one and two. Chapter 1 contains all the commands: the ‘let there be’s’ and the ‘calling forths’. But chapter two contains an account of the physical processes that were underway for the commands to materialize. Let’s take for example the creation of plants or the calling forth of vegetation. In verse 11 of chapter1, we see God command the earth to sprout vegetation. Nevertheless, in verse 5-7 of chapter 2, the bible says because there was no rain, plants couldn’t grow. So God caused a mist to hover on the earth thereby watering the earth which created an enabling environment for plants to grow. This is what the creation story in chapter2 of Genesis gives us: a detailed account of what transpired after God commanded. This goes to support my earlier point that commanding things spiritually(Prayer) comes to begin or even quicken physical processes. What if the Archbishop’s prayer was actually meant to give ideas to the economic team at the Central Bank of Ghana? What if it was going to quicken the process? A command is a command but there are things that work in the background to make it materialize. And this is seen vividly in the creation story.

On the other hand, we have seen many things happen in the church that don’t even make logical sense in Christianity. It seems the church is the last place to think. The truth is, you need to know the bible for yourself and weigh what you hear in church by it. As the bible itself said, in the last days there will be an eruption of false teachers and prophets. Therefore there is the need to be guarded with the truth of the word of God. Believers must think. Thinkers must believe. Nowadays, people seem to be drawn by miracles and signs and wonders more than the unadulterated word of God. On TV these days, we see so many churches airing deliverance sessions and it is an awful sight mostly. This is what a friend of mine, Abotsi, calls ‘prophetic journalism’ or ‘spiritual journalism’. These prophets seem to enjoy interviewing demons that are manifesting through people. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t like to be in a church where I would hear the voice of a demon more than the voice of God through my pastor. They spend countless minutes having discourses with demons meanwhile Jesus and Paul didn’t waste time on demons at all. They cast them out immediately; Paul and Silas cast out a demon from a girl who was even speaking the truth about them. The truth is you can’t trust the words of a demon. So to prevent confusion, shut them up and cast them out. I believe that a deliverance-centered ministration won’t waste precious time on one case but would want to deal with one quickly and totally before moving on to another. A lot of these things, I believe are just for showmanship.

Anyway, let’s just respect the fact that the activities of people who hold a different worldview may never make sense to us if we are not believers of that worldview. Also, the best way to judge if someone is doing what his worldview dictates, is to look at the originator. In Christianity, Jesus is the originator. So if Jesus didn’t interrogate demons, then it isn’t biblical to do so. But if Jesus spoke to inanimate objects, we SHOULD do same.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK.

The lady next to me was on her feet as well. You could tell she had a lot to say as she looked at me with eyes that were glistening because they were teary. She had a lot to say; her whole demeanor depicted one who had some sort of fire burning inside of her, causing her discomfort. But the greatest discomfort was, trying to hold herself back, and if you like, trying to tame the wild fire. You could tell vividly that she wanted to scream but her words rolled off her tongue in a murmur: a soft speech under her breath. She said to me, ‘I know that girl; we met once at the hospital. We had both gone there to see the doctor. That day the doctor told us we would have to undergo a surgical operation to correct the deformity in our legs. She told me later that her parents could not afford it – mine could, anyway – so I encouraged her. I told her not to lose faith and that God will make a way’. By saying ‘God will make a way, I am sure she meant God will make the needed amount for the surgery available. She obviously didn’t expect God to come through for the little girl in such a dramatic fashion. All of us in the auditorium that day were stunned at the sight of the miracle but the lady next to me was hit the hardest. Obviously due to her past encounter with both the little girl and the same condition. Seeing a condition literally vanish into thin air in such a dramatic way was awesome. Especially if you once had the same deformity and had to pay a huge sum of money to get it fixed (in this case, the lady next to me). My life hasn’t been the same since that day. What happened? Did the Evangelist stretch the little girl’s left leg till it was of the same length as the right? Was it thermal expansion? They say there is a scientific explanation for every phenomenon, so I guess it was thermal expansion: the process by which heated objects increase in size. I cannot explain it, but I know I saw it together with the hundreds of congregants on that day.

The occurrence of miracles simply reiterates the fact that not everything can be explained scientifically. That is the very reason why some scientists do not believe in them. They claim miracles are a breach of natural laws and since that is impossible then it means those who claim to have witnessed miracles are delusional. I love C.S Lewis’ explanation of what miracles are. He made this illustration:

‘when I put 2 dollars on a table and add 2 dollars to it later, it equals 4 dollars. Leaving the money on the table, when I come back and only see 2 dollars, it doesn’t mean that the laws of arithmetic have been broken, but it means that the laws of ALABAMA have been broken’.

What he is saying here is, when there is a strange occurrence, especially one occurring in a realm where there are laws, we need not always allude it to a breach of the laws. Those two dollars he came to meet on the table later on do not signify that the laws of arithmetic have been broken (since 2+2 equals 4). They signify that the laws of Alabama have been broken, in the sense that, it is likely somebody came in to steal the other 2 dollars. Do we say that this person broke the laws of arithmetic or the laws of Alabama? Certainly not the law of arithmetic because he operates in a different realm and that realm is governed by laws too. So the thief broke the laws of Alabama because he is under those laws. One can only break a law he is under. When it comes to miracles, we are talking about God here. He doesn’t have to break any natural laws, because he isn’t subject to them in the first place. He is God. Many claim the bible is full of fables because most of the happenings in it cannot be verified scientifically. Well of course, the bible is a book about God and his relationship with men and anywhere there is God you should expect supernatural occurrences. I have seen police officers direct traffic many times even though the lights were working. This is usually due to the heavy nature of the vehicular traffic on those roads that day. On such occasions, the cars obey the policeman and not the traffic lights. The red light could be on, but the officer would beckon that particular row of cars to move because that power has been vested in him. Do we say the policeman has broken the laws of Ghana because of that act? Certainly not, on such occasions, he has the authority and sovereignty to do so. So in the case of miracles, think of God as the policeman who stepped in to direct traffic. Though there are laws governing natural occurrences, He steps in to do his will as He pleases. That is SOVEREIGNTY!

 
Miracles are supernatural occurrences that cannot be explained; Creation in itself is a miracle. The universe is arranged too systematically for it to have just occurred without an agent creating or even guiding it. The many stars and galaxies, the sun and the other heavenly bodies and the other planets couldn’t have been created out of nothing by nothing. Instead of scientist giving God the credit for these things, they would rather give it to a random occurrence. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding. This claim is held in high esteem by scientists the world over. It is also a proven fact that the earth is hanging in space. More than 5000 years before that, these 2 facts were recorded in the book of Job:

‘He stretches out the north over the empty SPACE, and hangs the earth on nothing’ Job 26:7.

It says ‘He stretches…’ implying that it is an on-going activity; it never ended. God hasn’t stopped expanding the universe, otherwise the verse would have read, ‘He stretched…’ which would have communicated a sense of finality. I am fascinated by the fact that the author of the book of Job knew that the earth hanged on nothing. How did he know that? Was he an astronaut? Did he know Neil Armstrong? Maybe he owned a spaceship. Whatever the case may be, the author knew something that took 1000s of years for the smartest brains of this world to know. The irony of the whole situation is in the fact that children at Sunday school probably knew this and erudite scientists had to wait till 1929 to be sure of it. Wait… let that sink in.

I believe in miracles because I have seen many in my own life and in the lives of others. Day in and day out I encounter people who operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are a tangible proof of the existence of God. It is my prayer that many Christians shall hunger for God more and he will also grant us these gifts to help in showcasing his power thereby pointing many to him. At the display of such gifts, many shall run and announce, like the woman at the well, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did’ – Jesus. Our God is alive and not dead.