[Micah] Christianity is founded in true stories full of miraculous accounts. But today we are much more scientifically minded. We have a deeper understanding of the natural world, and as skepticism has increased in popularity, many Christians have attempted to explain away some of the miracles in the Bible as the misunderstandings of an ancient, more mystical mindset.

[Joe Rogan] What do you think about those scholars in Israel that believe that the burning bush was some sort of a psychedelic experience?

[Jordan Peterson] Oh, well, I think we have no idea how psychedelic experience shaped religious presumption. Brilliant. Brilliant.

[Micah] But Christianity, even in this modern time, is quite literally a supernatural worldview, with the word supernatural meaning anything outside of or transcending the natural world. In fact, without certain miracles like the creation by God or the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the entire ideology falls apart. While it's true that the Bible is full of non-literal storytelling like poetry, parable, and metaphor, the miracles in the Bible are meant to be taken literally. Let me explain. The Gospels are biography, the book of Acts claims to be a historical account, and the miracles in the Old Testament are found in non-fictional forms. Not poetry, not allegory, not prophecy. Historical records of actual events. As I said a moment ago, Christianity as a whole is a faith built on the story of the miraculous.

In these places where the Bible claims that these miraculous events are true acts of God, we can either reject that the Bible is truthful or we can accept the miraculous. There really isn't a great way to talk our way out of that one. If nothing supernatural exists, then God, who by necessity transcends nature, can't exist. If miracles can't happen, then the creation from nothing must have some other explanation than God, which just isn't logical. And the resurrection could never have occurred. In attempts to rationalize seemingly smaller miracles with natural causes, many end up slipping down that slope and denying the major tenets of the Christian faith.

When we read the Bible, it seems like the ancient world was steeped in the miraculous. Seas were parting, pillars of fire were appearing, God was speaking directly with his chosen people.

[Man] Who are you?

[Voice] I am, that I am.

[Micah] But when we look up from our Bibles and out into the world around us, we don't see much of that. No. Why not? First, consider this. There is a reason that examples of miracles are recorded in the Bible. They were amazing then, too. It's not like people were witnessing divine action on a cosmic scale every other day. Often, it was a sign or a revelation to a select few people for a specific purpose. If you were to count up the supernatural events in the Bible and divide them up into the time span that the Bible covers, we might start to realize that the times we live in look very similar to theirs. In between Malachi and Matthew, 400 years of no new scripture. 1 Samuel speaks of a time when the word of the Lord was rare and there was no widespread revelation.

[Voice] So I will stretch out my hand and do my wonders.

[Micah] Of course, we can look at individual events and debate for ages whether it was our awesome God performing a supernatural act or whether it might have had natural causes. However, the very fact that everything comes forth from God, the rain cycle, a body's ability to heal, and the forward motion of growth that everything is subject to makes the natural world itself miraculous. And if the Bible is to be believed, flip to the end of the book. Prophecy tells us of a time when big acts of God are coming on a global scale. God does not always do things just to satisfy our curiosity or make us say wow. And even if he did, as was demonstrated through scripture, doubters will find a way to doubt.

God parted the sea to facilitate Israel's freedom from Egypt and led them through the wilderness with miracle after miracle. And they quickly found God's amazing works so commonplace that they complained and desired to turn away from the love of God back to the tyranny of Pharaoh. He raised Jesus from the dead so that we can have hope of our own resurrection. And still, people from the 1st century onward have refused to believe. He gave the gift of tongues accompanied by cosmic wind and fire to those at the first Pentecost so that they could effectively and efficiently spread the gospel message across the land. And it took the apostles years to even leave Jerusalem to spread the good news.

So if you don't see something that you count as a miracle during your lifetime, consider this, maybe you are too swayed by skepticism and aren't recognizing some of God's amazing work for what it is. Maybe you're demanding certain proofs from God that He knows you don't actually need in order to believe in Him. Maybe the one thing you are hoping to see doesn't fit into His greater purpose. Maybe God will grant that miracle now or sometime in the future, but one way or another, He knows what is best and has perfect timing. All of this is a hard reality, but it's one that we can ask him for strength to accept. And that in itself, the fact that we can speak with God who transcends the natural world and ask him to intervene in this world on our behalf, is a miracle.