Well, I decided to jump ahead a little bit and see what our friends Paul and Barnabas are going to be up to next week in Chapter 14 of Acts, and as it turns out they are going to be quite busy. Among other things, they heal a man who has been unable to walk since birth and are mistaken for gods by the Gentile bystanders.
As usual, Luke doesn't tell us anything about this guy, such as how did he come to be in the crowd (someone had to have brought him) or why he would have come with such an expectation. He must have heard some kind of rumors. I mean, this is not the sort of thing that you wake up one day and say, oh, I think I'll go hear the new speaker in town because I just have a feeling today's going to be my lucky day. He had to have a reason to go through all this trouble.
Now this healing business is quite interesting. Apparently Paul looks out at the audience, sees this guy and knows that he not only has the desire to be healed, he has the faith to be as well. And this is crucial. Faith is such a fragile thing that any doubt on either end will cause the "spell" to fail. Any doubt. It's the standard reason why miracles don't occur more often.
In the movie "Faith Like Potatoes", a South African evangelist goes around making big claims for God. He tells his farmer friends that if they have enough faith, it doesn't matter what the weather systems are doing, God will make it rain. Then his son is killed in a tractor accident. The movie cuts to his grieving wife being comforted by a friend. The wife sobs that the people in town are so cruel, they keep asking didn't your husband pray for the lad? Uh, no, I don't think it is cruel at all. I think that is a perfectly legitimate question, which the moviemakers completely shied away from. As my father always likes to say, "Don't talk loose." Sadly, this doesn't deter the evangelist, and he keeps on making wild statements about faith and prayer. Was Paul a bit like that, I wonder? Maybe that's why people were ticked off at him so much! Happily for the lame guy, Paul does deliver.
I am very glad that our world does not work like that, where doubt can topple faith and cancel out prayer. I have been reading about an amazing experiment that took place in January 2008, where brain waves from a rhesus monkey in North Carolina sent to a robot in Japan made that robot walk! You can read all about it in Miguel Nicolelis' "Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains With Machines--and How it Will Change Our Lives." When I say that there are things going on right now that sound like science fiction but are not, this is an example. I am going to go out on a limb and make a prediction. Within our lifetimes, we will see a cure for paralysis through the use of brain-machine interfaces. We already have cochlear implants to cure some kinds of deafness; and corneal transplants and cataract surgery have restored sight to many.
I don't know what Nicolelis' religious beliefs are but based on remarks he makes throughout "Beyond Boundaries" about the brain evolving to meet changing conditions, it's clear that he has a completely different worldview than the one I am being exposed to each Sunday. And I think this is significant, because it is people like him who are changing the way we live and think. Faith is not a prerequisite for science to work.
To use an airplane analogy: It doesn't matter if people believe a plane can fly or not; once it gets going fast enough the laws of physics overcomes gravity to the point that it MUST fly, and all the doubt in the world can't stop it.
As usual, Luke doesn't tell us anything about this guy, such as how did he come to be in the crowd (someone had to have brought him) or why he would have come with such an expectation. He must have heard some kind of rumors. I mean, this is not the sort of thing that you wake up one day and say, oh, I think I'll go hear the new speaker in town because I just have a feeling today's going to be my lucky day. He had to have a reason to go through all this trouble.
Now this healing business is quite interesting. Apparently Paul looks out at the audience, sees this guy and knows that he not only has the desire to be healed, he has the faith to be as well. And this is crucial. Faith is such a fragile thing that any doubt on either end will cause the "spell" to fail. Any doubt. It's the standard reason why miracles don't occur more often.
In the movie "Faith Like Potatoes", a South African evangelist goes around making big claims for God. He tells his farmer friends that if they have enough faith, it doesn't matter what the weather systems are doing, God will make it rain. Then his son is killed in a tractor accident. The movie cuts to his grieving wife being comforted by a friend. The wife sobs that the people in town are so cruel, they keep asking didn't your husband pray for the lad? Uh, no, I don't think it is cruel at all. I think that is a perfectly legitimate question, which the moviemakers completely shied away from. As my father always likes to say, "Don't talk loose." Sadly, this doesn't deter the evangelist, and he keeps on making wild statements about faith and prayer. Was Paul a bit like that, I wonder? Maybe that's why people were ticked off at him so much! Happily for the lame guy, Paul does deliver.
I am very glad that our world does not work like that, where doubt can topple faith and cancel out prayer. I have been reading about an amazing experiment that took place in January 2008, where brain waves from a rhesus monkey in North Carolina sent to a robot in Japan made that robot walk! You can read all about it in Miguel Nicolelis' "Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains With Machines--and How it Will Change Our Lives." When I say that there are things going on right now that sound like science fiction but are not, this is an example. I am going to go out on a limb and make a prediction. Within our lifetimes, we will see a cure for paralysis through the use of brain-machine interfaces. We already have cochlear implants to cure some kinds of deafness; and corneal transplants and cataract surgery have restored sight to many.
I don't know what Nicolelis' religious beliefs are but based on remarks he makes throughout "Beyond Boundaries" about the brain evolving to meet changing conditions, it's clear that he has a completely different worldview than the one I am being exposed to each Sunday. And I think this is significant, because it is people like him who are changing the way we live and think. Faith is not a prerequisite for science to work.
To use an airplane analogy: It doesn't matter if people believe a plane can fly or not; once it gets going fast enough the laws of physics overcomes gravity to the point that it MUST fly, and all the doubt in the world can't stop it.
