Nick Norelli has been prolific for the last few days, including blogging about accounts of miracles in the early church, 3rd to 5th century AD. In this post he explains the series and links to each post in it. If he had wanted he could have added examples from succeeding centuries right through church history to the present day.

Many of these accounts focus on healing. So those who allege that Todd Bentley is doing something new by focusing on healing have simply not read their church history. Todd’s style may be new, and so is the worldwide publicity for his ministry, but the content of what he is doing is not new. Ever since Origen wrote his reply to the sceptical Celsus in the 3rd century, as quoted in Nick’s first post, indeed ever since Jesus and the apostles (and that is not to mention anything in the Old Testament), Christians have performed miracles, especially healings, and used them to convince unbelievers of the truth of the gospel. This is what Todd is still doing, in a world full of people who, even if they hold to the form of good Christian religion, mostly deny that it has any power (2 Timothy 3:5). But the true Christian faith, the true message of the kingdom of God, is not just a matter of words, it has power (1 Corinthians 4:20) to heal and perform other miracles, and above all to change lives, to bring people from sin and darkness into the God’s holiness and light. The critics may not like it because it is a threat to their powerless religion, but this is the message which Todd is proclaiming.