The New Testament miracles: a corrective study for application in the Brazilian Reformed Calvinist churches

Abstract

What cannot be explained by natural laws or considered unusual is called supernatural or extraordinary. These elements were always related to the human history and became part of mankind social formation, whether religious or not. Within the Judeo-Christian religion, miracles play a fundamental role in building up what has become the Christian theology and the miracle doctrine. Berkhof (1990:176) states that, "God gave us His special revelation through miracles and the verbal one in the Scriptures, as well as His supreme and tangible one in Jesus Christ". According to Calvino (2006: 423) miracles had their time, but ceased after the establishment of the biblical revelation. However, in the Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal contexts miracles are taught and maintained. Mariano (2004) shows that Brazilian Pentecostalism and Neo-Pentecostalism reached a high growth in the 20th century, using the media as their main tool to spread and the promise of a miracle as an attraction. Therefore, this work aims to examine the theological teaching of miraculous acts in the New Testament together with the concept of miracle in the Reformed, Brazilian Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal theologies. Finally, the coherence of this teaching with the New Testament and the manner in which it has been applied in the Brazilian Evangelical Church will be verified. This way it will be possible to propose a teaching of the doctrine of the miracle consistent with the Scriptures for the Brazilian Calvinist Reformed Church.