The Sunday School’s True Evangelism 53 The foregoing paragraph was from a help for the Inter mediate teacher. In a similar volume for the Junior teacher there appeared the following discussion of the reasonableness of miracles: “There are some scholars who find traces of this tendency to magnify the marvelous even in the Gospels themselves, which, with all their uniqueness, are human documents, writ ten by flesh and blood human beings. For example, in our story of Jairus’ daughter, Mark’s account, as we have seen, leaves us in doubt whether the little girl was really dead, or only in a swoon, or state of coma. In Matthew’s later account, however, we find that Jairus says to Jesus, ‘My daughter is even now dead.’ When they reach the house, flute players, hired for the funeral, are already on the scene. This increases the marvel of the story, but does not seem to add to its moral significance. It is possible that not a few of the accounts of miraculous deeds, attributed to Jesus, are the product of this same tendency. By this is meant the tendency to magnify the marvelous, as seen in apocryphal legends, arising from a ‘vul gar craving for signs and wonders.’ ” Junior teachers were told, in explanation of the omission of the story of Ananias and Sapphira: “This fear is explained by the story of Ananias and Sapphira, which precedes this sentence in the complete text of Acts. This story is like a number of other ancient narra tives, in that the facts are probably recorded with substantial accuracy; but the author’s own interpretation of these facts seems to us, in these days, not altogether satisfactory. There is no reason for doubting the account of the deception prac tised on the apostles by this unscrupulous couple, Ananias and Sapphira; nor the account of Peter’s rebuke; nor the state ment that they both died shortly after receiving the rebuke. In that period of the world’s history people would inevitably conclude that this death was a direct manifestation of the Divine wrath invoked by Peter. This interpretation, however, seems inconsistent with the Christian conception of God as a loving and patient Father. On account of the primitive ideas which it reflects, the story has been omitted from the Junior Bible.”
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