Supernatural

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

 

There has been a lot of back and forth over the notion of God acting in a supernatural way recently.  Given that the God described in scripture is a supernatural being, who's described as "Spirit and Truth", it seems like any time He interacts with humanity, the encounter is supernatural.  One question I asked is, "If God doesn't act supernaturally, then why pray?".   Yesterday, in the installation service for our senior pastor there was a lot of talk about God; calling, leading,  comforting, inspiring, blessing, etc.  To me it seems obvious that any of those requires a supernatural interaction between a God who is Spirit and humans who are flesh.  

It's often hard to look at scripture in these cases because so many people have adopted a mindset that things said by Jesus carry more weight than things said by others.  This makes it difficult to use scripture from the OT and from Paul's epistles.   Fortunately many of these folks are particularly attentive to the Sermon on the Mount, and give great credence and worth to those passages.  So, let's look at the part of the SOTM where Jesus talks about prayer.

The first and most obvious point is that Jesus is exhorting us to pray and to pray to "Our Father who art in heaven".   It seems safe to conclude that Jesus is telling us to pray to a supernatural being.    This being is to be "hallowed" which means "holy, consecrated, greatly revered, or honored",  which is a lot to unpack here.

Then we move to "thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven."

I believe that the only reasonable conclusion that we can draw from this phrase is that we should expect God to bring about His will on earth the same way He would in heaven.   That His will for what happens in our natural world is aimed at the same thing as in His supernatural world.  That when we pray, that we should expect some of the supernatural to invade and influence the natural.   I can see no possible way to reasonably conclude that Jesus is not telling His followers to expect some degree of supernatural response.

"Give us this day our daily bread."    In our 21st century, first world, lives, we probably take this phrase a little figuratively.  After all we go to work, we earn our paycheck, and we go the the grocery store to put food on the table.  Yet, anyone who's spent time with believers in the third world realizes that they literally depend on God to provide them with the ability to eat.  No one is talking manna from heaven or anything, but we are talking a sincere belief that God will help them find what they need to sustain life.  Compared to even the poorest in the US, this sort of life seems brutally hard and discouraging, yet many worldwide live this line of scripture daily with an immense amount of faith.  

"And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

There's probably several books worth of stuff to unpack here, so I'll be brief.   It's reasonable to conclude (especially in light of Jesus other teachings) that the first forgiveness is from God to us, which by definition would seem to invoke some level of supernatural activity.  If we sin against a supernatural God, and he forgives us, then it seems foolish to deny that some supernatural activity is taking place.  Further, it seems that that supernatural forgiveness is something that we model in the natural world.   

"And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil."

 The terms "lead' and "deliver" suggest that God takes an active role in directing our actions.  It seems unlikely that a supernatural God would lead or deliver us without some level of supernatural intervention.  Even if that intervention is leading someone else to help us.

 "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever."

Starting with the obvious, any being with the ability to do anything "for ever and ever", would necessarily be supernatural.  Again, if one looks more broadly at the teachings of Jesus, it's likely that He is referring to this kingdom as being supernatural in that it expands beyond time and space.

This isn't supposed to be a deep theological treatise digging into every nook and cranny of Jesus prayer.  It's simply meant to point out that it's incredibly difficult to escape that Jesus most clear teaching on prayer was filled with language that points to a supernatural God intervening in our natural world in response to the prayers of His people.

Maybe the problem is that we misunderstand what is supernatural and fail to see the supernatural in the small things.   Obviously we can look at Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, making the blind see and the lame walk.   We can look at the fate that befell Ananias and Sapphira in Acts.  We can look at Jesus feeding thousands with little.  We can look at His death and resurrection,  There are all sorts of those kinds of things that can be dissected, I'm sure that many who say that follow Christ will argue against any or all of these things actually happening, and even more who'll insist that absolutely none of these kinds of things happen today, and if that's how you want to limit God that's your choice.   Yet, we do see things that can't adequately be explained in 100% natural terms.  Am I saying that all of those are supernatural acts of God?  No.  Am I saying that they're absolutely not?  Also no.   

I think that worshiping a God that doesn't care enough to intervene in the lives of His people, or who's too impotent to, is a god that's probably not worth our worship.