Audio recording Sermon manuscript: It is not uncommon for people to think that if the Bible is true, then there should be lots of miracles. The Bible records many unusual signs and wonders that God has performed. The way the thinking goes is that if the Bible is true concerning these things, then these miracles need to keep happening. It is understandable how a person could arrive at such an opinion, but it is not right. The Bible does, indeed, record unusual things that God did. But God does not just work through unusual means. In fact, he only rarely uses unusual means. All the other times he works through ordinary means. Ordinary means would be those ways that do not appear unusual. Adam and Eve, for example, simply told their children what God had revealed to them. Abraham told Isaac about the covenant that God had made with him. We tend to think that speaking is not a big deal. We do it all the time. It can seem as though God’s not involved in it at all, because he does not come with thunder and lightning and smoke like he did at Mt. Sinai. To illustrate God’s ordinary means we should say something about how God works in the Old Testament after the time of Moses. God gave the Israelites the tabernacle / temple. He proscribed priests and sacrifices for them. This was the way that God’s holiness was communicated to them. So it is also with the New Testament. Jesus instituted and commanded baptism as a new birth in the Holy Spirit. Jesus instituted and commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper. He says that the Lord’s Supper is the New Testament in his blood for the forgiveness of sins. These, together with preaching, are the ordinary means for Christians to receive God’s grace and holiness. But, as the saying goes: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” These ordinary means that God uses to communicate his will towards us, his grace and favor towards us—they become boring. Our reason starts to think that they must not be that valuable because only rare things are valuable. The Word and the Sacraments are given out quite liberally and no bills get sent out for services rendered. And so Christians might go hankering after something a little more exotic, a little more uncommon. So when we read a portion of the New Testament like our reading today from 1 Corinthinans 12, we might think, “This should do the trick!” Paul speaks of “spiritual gifts.” Among these gifts are messages of wisdom, knowledge, and faith. He also speaks of some spicier gifts. He says, “And to another, the same Spirit gives healing gifts. Another is given powers to do miracles; another, the gift of prophecy; another, the evaluating of spirits; someone else, different kinds of tongues; and another, the interpretation of tongues.” As you well know, these gifts have not been given to me or to any of the other members of this congregation. I’m not aware of anyone who can heal. I don’t know of anyone who has performed miracles. None of us have been able to know the future. When we think we do know the future, we are often wildly wrong. No one has spoken in tongues. Since no one has spoken in tongues, there is also no need to have tongues interpreted. These were gifts that God gave to the apostolic Christian church. We hear of them not only here, but also in the book of Acts. God performed unusual signs through these earliest Christians, perhaps to confirm the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus. Since these signs were present among the Christians of the apostolic church, many people get deceived into thinking that there must be something deficient about the Christian church of today. We do not have these signs or we do not have them in like measure. This is a very dangerous and destructive deception. Although it has the appearance of being biblical, it definitely is not. There is a big difference between miracles happening and miracles being required. God is free to do miracles. The Bible tells us about them. Nowhere in the Bible do you ever hear him requiring his p