Why didn't Jesus' miracles cause more people to believe?

  • Thread starter Thread starter milimac
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Agree with most of what you said.

I’ll just point out that in the some instances e.g the locusts - the Egyptian sorcerers couldn’t replicate the feat. Some miracles simply can’t be performed without heavenly assistance.
 
Debbie_Kono said:
I wonder what happened to the 9 lepers who did not return and thank Jesus
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This is a little different… Read Leviticus 13 which basically tells a Jew that “your leprosy is not cured until the priest says it is… and (only) on his word you can then be let back into society”. So the faithful jews were doing what Jesus told them to do “go show yourselves to the high priest” and they were likely running as fast as their little legs could carry them. But the last leper, a non-Jew said “Hey I’m cured!” and immediately turned around to run back to Jesus and thank him. Priest, Schmiest… I don’t need anyone to tell me I’ve been cured … and returned in gratitude and to give glory to God.
 
He was accused of sorcery, this is literally a documented fact. Non Christian writers in the ancient world didn’t deny his existence, nor even his miracles, but instead accused him of sorcery.
 
@crownofswords

Jesus did perform an impossible feat ,which no one else could perform nor will ever perform till the end of time. Raising the dead sure Elijah, St Peter or other could do it ,but unlike Jesus after four days Awesome!

John 11:39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.
 
Sorry to be awkward but all this does presume that one takes the NT as reportage. If one doesn’t then the question of NT miracles becomes a matter of literary criticism rather than a historical puzzle.
 
Hey there, your son sounds like a clever little fellow, his question makes perfect sense.

Doubting and lack of believe has been a problem since the creation of mankind. Already in the very first story, Adam and Eva live with God in Paradise, they even talk to Him, but do they believe what He says? One simple trick of the serpent is enough to have them doubt God’s word.

Later on, God frees the Israelites from Egypt, they see seven spectacular miracles, walk through the Red Sea and eat manna from heaven. How could they ever doubt God? Yet when things don’t go their way, they immediately doubt God again and worship a silly statue of a calf instead!

Then later again, when they Israelites have been living in the holy land for ages, in the book of kings it’s described that there are 100s of prophets of false Gods in Israel and Elijah is the only Prophet of Jahweh left.

In Jesus’ time it still was not much different. People are so stubborn. They probably liked the miracles but when they found out how difficult it was to follow Jesus, to follow the will of God instead of their own, they doubted God yet again and many made the decision not to follow Jesus.
John describes how many people leave Jesus after he tells them to eat his flesh and drink his blood (in the form of the eucharist of course) Jesus sadly asks the 12 apostles ‘You don’t want to leave too, do you?’ Many people left Jesus cause following Him was (and is) difficult.
 
I’ve always wondered about this, too. If I witnessed a person bringing a dead man back to life you bet I’d be listening to him very closely.
 
You’d like to think so… but then again if I saw the Red Sea part at someone’s command and escaped on dry land and saw the seas close again over my enemies, and followed a column of fire traveling with me through the desert stopping and starting as it moved along with my family, flocks and herds, or saw a fountain of water erupt from a rock in the middle of the desert and then was also fed for 40 years each day by miraculous bread that fell from heaven … uh … well… I’d like to think I’d be paying attention, too… but somehow that didn’t always seem to be the case. Why is that?
 
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