‘A Reader Writes’ is a regular feature of www.bradburke.com

Dr Brad,

Hey, I just finished reading your book, “Does God Still Do Miracles,” and I would like to say, “wow.” This book has been so relevant to me. I was a Pentecostal for many years, and began to get suspicious completely on my own concerning the way we approached miraculous healings. Even without any medical training whatsoever, I could see noticeable trends in the healing claims that our church was making. I actually began studying the subject of faith healing on my own - taking notes in faith healing services, and talking to the owners of websites on which healing claims were made. It is really interesting for me to read books like yours, which confirm exactly what I myself concluded. I also happened to read Dr. Nolen’s book just before I read yours, so that was pretty cool to see you discussing his book also. If anybody asks my view on miraculous healing, I’m going to tell them that it is perfectly summed up by your book. I’d like to mention a few testimonies of note that I came across.

A Pentecostal faith healer claimed that a woman with no bones in her hands had the bones miraculously regrown inside her hands. He gave the video as evidence, which showed her opening and closing her fist, to the applause of the audience. When I asked this man how he knew she didn’t have any bones in her fingers, and if he had seen any X-rays of her hands before and after the miracle, he conceded he had not, and that she had just told him she was missing some bones. Another Pentecostal website I came across, had a testimony of a woman who had begun prayer to be healed of hepatitis after getting a false positive on a test. When she finally got a negative, the church celebrated her healing as if she’d been healed of hepatitis! I also came across a healing claim in which a young boy was miraculously healed of a scratched cornea. The testimony mentions a strange liquid that the doctor put on the boy’s eye before applying an eye patch, which the boy had to wear for a week. After a week, when the boys scratched cornea was better, his eye patch was removed. Neither the family of the boy, nor the church celebrating the miracle were aware that the strange liquid was a topical steroid!

Miracles are possible, just not nearly as common as we’d like. We can create the illusion that miracles are occurring on the same scale as those recorded in the Book of Acts by broadening the definition of miracle, and just giving a wink and a nod at the testimonies that don’t quite tell the whole truth, but I think we just end up hurting people. I read an article recently that said that parents of terminally ill children who have an intellectual and emotional realization that their child is dying experience depression for a shorter length of time after the death of their child than than do parents who do not make that realization. Better said, “short emotional awareness time puts fathers at increased risk of long-term depression.” I do know of cases in which Pentecostals held onto faith that God would heal their child, despite being given a “close to zero” chance of that child’s survival by their doctors. At the same time, I find myself very much sympathetic to them for not wanting to lose their child. Sometimes the subject of healing is very difficult. Even knowing what I know, I find myself wanting God to “let this be the big one,” so to speak.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for the hard work you put into writing your book. I can tell you first-hand that it has been an incredibly significant read, and I look forward to reading your other books.

God bless you,

Gabriel L.

Another Reader recently wrote this very encouraging letter:

Hello Dr. Brad,

I live in Joinville, State of Santa Catarina, in the South of Brazil. I work as an English teacher and a translator. I’ve already come across a lot of materials on suffering but yours is really interesting, especially for the medical insights you propose.

I am writing to congratulate you for the amazing work you did on “Why does God Allow Suffering?” and “Does God Still do Miracles?” I belong to a Charismatic Church (Vineyard) but I tend to align with the Conservatives in many issues. I don’t believe in general, absolute healing, all over, all the time, for anyone. I believe God has a purpose and a plan, not always revealed to us.

Your book has been particularly helpful to me as I have just lost my wife (who had a boyfriend) and a house, and the presence of my two kids, for most of the time. Apparently the only thing I did to deserve this was “preaching the gospel, and moving from work, to house, from house to church.”

At the moment God is working in my heart that I should give up all my “demands”. I tended to “demand” special treatment for being a “good boy”… I am reading “Shattered Dreams” by Larry Crabb, and I recommend you examine this book too. I think it might enrich your perception in the line you’ve already got.

Feel free to keep in touch, if you have time, I know you might be a very busy person.

God bless, brother,

M. G.

Another reader wrote:

Hi Brad!

As you can see, I have logged into your website and even entered the contest, but actually, because I am working at Harmony House, our Bible bookstore, I was very excited to hear that you were publishing four books, and we did order the books in. And my intention is to buy the set!! Dave and I and our family were away most of the summer, and the very day I got back to work, we received our (Harmony House’s) shipment of the books. I wanted to first read the book on miracles, and had set it aside. Mark, our son, was visiting, and when he came by the store, he saw it and bought it!! I think Stephanie read it when Mark took it home, and said it was excellent. You have done an excellent job on these books, and I find it very interesting reading and it is sound doctrine …. That is something which is very hard to find these days. I see a lot of books come across the counter and get ordered and there are not a lot of them that say much or that constitute Biblical truth. Congratulations on this accomplishment, no doubt with the Lord’s help.

We appreciated what you wrote to us in 2003 to try to help us with our daughter, Hannah’s abdominal illness. We appreciated very much your help in this … You probably wonder how she is doing now. The Lord has done a work of healing (a real miracle) in her life, and it was through a doctor in Hamilton … Dr. Forest. He saw her, heard about the many tests which proved unproductive and treatments which were unhelpful. He decided to treat the pain, going in through the back and freezing the celiac plexus bundle of nerves which he believed were causing much of her pain. He did a treatment in May of 2005 and then a second one in August of the same year. She has had NO PAIN since! I wrote Dr. Forrest a note of appreciation and I guess because of the effectiveness of the treatment, the health science department wished to write an article on Hannah and on her prognosis. In the interview Hannah did share how the Lord had worked in this situation and how so many were praying.

Thanks so much for your willingness to help us at that time, Brad.

Congratulations again on your wedding, marriage (Hi Erin!!) and your books. Also, great website!!

Sincerely,

Becky & Dave
(Porcupine, Ontario, Canada)

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Another Reader writes:

This particular ‘conversation’ between reader and author is also an excerpt from Brad Burke’s recently published book, “An MD Examines: Does God Still Do Miracles?”

I received the following e-mail from a reader who read a modified excerpt (taken from this book) in Focus on the Family’s magazine publication, Physician (March/April 2004)

Hello,

I would like to begin by saying that I appreciate Dr. Burke’s concern for patients who might be misled by false claims of miraculous interventions…

I would like to point out, though, what I perceive to be a wrong way of thinking about this issue found in Dr. Burke’s article.

That is, the assumption that if a great miracle had occurred it would soon be broadcast on network TV. The Scriptures often times point out a different approach to healing. We see in the Gospels that often times Jesus was motivated to keep his miracles of healing a secret. Thus, we find him sending people out of the room when he raises a child from the dead. We often see him telling people not to tell anyone what he has done. In addition, we also see Elijah, Elisha, and Peter raising the dead behind closed doors. Paul raises the dead in the middle of the night. There are, to be sure, exceptions, but it is clear that many of the miracles performed in the Bible were not witnessed by the multitudes and were intended to be kept secret…

If God chose to heal someone without the assistance of doctors, no one could verify the miracle, because it had not been diagnosed by a medical expert. Yet the person would know if he or she had been healed, and the fact that the doctor did not have the medical tests to prove that sickness had been present would not in anyway diminish the truthfulness of the claim to the miracle.

Dr. Brad Burke’s Response

Dear ______,

Thank you very much for your e-mail. You have raised some good questions.

You are right in saying that God does perform miracles of healing that are not always highly visible. You gave some examples from the N.T. that need to be examined in more detail.

The passages regarding Jesus’ healing of the blind men are interesting. In Matthew 9:27-30 Jesus told the blind men not to say anything, but they ran off and spread the news all over the region.

In Mark 7:32-35 Jesus healed a man who was deaf and then told him not to tell anyone. But he did anyway.

In John 9:1-7 Jesus healed another blind man who went out and told all the rulers.

In Luke 7:12-15 Jesus healed a man right out of his coffin (the coffin was in a funeral procession).

In Mark 2:3-12 Jesus healed a paralytic who was lowered through the roof in front of a large crowd.

You are right when you say that there were many miracles performed that were kept secret. But as evidenced above, there were many miracles that were very public. There are many more examples of spectacular miracles in the N.T. that by today’s standards would have made the headlines of major newspapers or been showcased on reputable TV networks. To my knowledge, there have never been any news stories in any credible newspaper or TV networks documenting a genuine miracle like those described above, where someone was raised from the dead, someone blind from birth had vision fully restored, or someone totally paralyzed had instantly regained normal strength.

The point I’m trying to make is not that we should expect to see highly publicized evidence for every genuine miracle of healing that God performs (I’m sorry if it came across like this in the article), but that we should be seeing more evidence of miracles of healing on major news networks if God is still performing the same miracles of healing, on a similar scale, today as he did in Bible times. When was the last time you saw on TV, or read in the newspaper, of someone having instant restoration of sight, strength, or life in someone totally blind, paralyzed, or dead? We are not seeing these miracles performed like the citizens did in Jesus’ day. [Yet every time a Virgin Mary statue "weeps" the media is all over the news event.] Not every spectacular miracle of healing will make the evening news, but why have we not seen even one?

You also remarked that doctors may not always have a chance to examine a patient before the miracle takes place. In North America, nearly everyone with a severe disease or disorder has seen at least one medical doctor who could verify a genuine miracle of healing if it later occurred. Anyone with blindness, deafness, or spinal cord paralysis has seen at least one doctor who could attest to a miracle.

I know you didn’t directly raise this issue, but a medical doctor doesn’t need to see the actual transformation before his or her eyes. Currently, I am working in one of the largest spinal cord rehab centers in Canada. If I see one of my spinal-cord injured patients one day who is completely paralyzed from the neck down, with contractures, muscle atrophy, skin ulcers, and spasticity, and the next day that patient comes in running and jumping around, with normal muscle bulk, tone, and strength, I would label this a genuine miracle. I don’t need to actually see the event to believe it is true miracle, because there is no medical explanation whatsoever for such an event. But again, no reputable news network or newspaper has ever documented such a miracle. This would be very easy to do. All it would involve is the patient going back to see his or her doctor–just like those healed of leprosy went back to the priests to confirm that they were healed. The fact that we are not seeing the same types of miracles, on the same scale as in Jesus’ day gives us a clue that something has changed. I believe that God is still performing miracles of physical healing today, but for the most part these are very rare.

It all cascades back to the question, What was the purpose of miracles in the Bible?

Again, thanks for your e-mail. If you would like to discuss the topic more, feel free to drop me another e-mail.

Sincerely,
Brad Burke, MD