09 of 34 - Prayer and Miracles

Why does God want us to pray? How can we pray effectively? What are miracles? Can they happen today?

A consideration of the subject of both prayer and miracles is closely connected with God’s providence, which was considered in the previous lesson. There we argued that God exercises an extensive, ongoing, sovereign control over all aspects of his creation. This chapter will assume an understanding of that discussion of providence and will build on it in approaching the question of prayer and miracles.

Once we understand that God is omnipotent and sovereign over all creation, it seems reasonable to conclude that he also preserves and governs everything in the universe as well. Though the term providence is not found in Scripture, it is used to summarize God’s ongoing relationship to his creation.

We can define God’s providence as follows: God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes.

This is a doctrine on which there has been substantial disagreement among Christians since the early history of the church, particularly with respect to God’s relationship to the willing choices of moral creatures. There are two main positions presented - the “Reformed” or “Calvinist” position, and what is commonly called the “Arminian” position.

The doctrine of Providence is the subject of lesson 08 of my 36 lessons in systematic theology. Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context?

My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration.

I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 36-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well.

Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows: Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56