thus, in john, signs are there to be seen always byt the faithful. miracles are ultimately for those with inadequate faith.

when you tell me about someone being miraculously healed, of course my natural skepticism kicks in - i want to talk with the oncologist; i want to see the scans; i want to hear first hand. like many atheists have stated, show me an amputee whose limb has been restored without recourse to surgery. just one. then i’ll believe.

of course i do believe; not necessarily in every single story i hear, but rather in the lord god himself and that he is entirely capable of doing exactly what he wishes at any given time. miracles do happen. they are however only effective apologies (in the strict sense of the word) for the people who are directly involved (and even then, there is always a hermeneutic of suspicion which kicks in - as it should).

we are called not to believe in miracles, but rather to believe in the one sent by god himself - jesus christ, who, it seems, chooses to withold miracles much more readily than granting them. thus we follow him on the unmiraculous path to the cross, hoping against hope, praying against the evidence, daring to leap into the promise of a resurrection.

(1) The Resurrection of Jesus (without this there is no Christian Faith!)
(2) Salvation (ditto!) (Steve Martin’s comment I think is suggesting this)

The miracles in the Gospels surely have less prominence as the cross gets nearer - surely for that one reason alone - ie so we can focus on the cross.

My struggle would be with anyone who suggests that miracles are not important - particularly if they say so because they are unable to believe in them. Jesus’ miracles were important and clearly continue to be so today.

Take my dear friend Geoff (one of a number of miracles that I can give witness to) for example who was miraculously healed of cancer in extraordinary circumstances:

As people were praying for him, one of the intercessors discerned that God was going to heal him there and then. The cancer was cast out in Jesus name and immediately Geoff got a massive pain in his throat. The pain got so bad that he rushed to his doctor, who sent him straight to hospital. The hospital did an emergency xray and by the time the xray had developed, the cancer had quite clearly disappeared and so had the pain in Geoff’s throat.

This happened about eight years ago and he has been clear of cancer ever since.

This miraculous healing has obviously been important to Geof, but also important to the number of people who have come into a relationship with Christ partly due to Geoff’s testimony.

As John wrote - ‘Believe in me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of miracles themselves.’