Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do You Believe Miracles Still Happen? | The Gospels | Luke 4:31–44

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

What if Jesus’s miracles are more than ancient stories? What do they reveal about his kingdom? And how do they help us hope for what’s still to come? In today’s episode, Keith shares how Luke 4:31–44 shows Jesus healing the sick, casting out demons, and giving us a glimpse of the day he will heal all things.Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Luke 4:31–44

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Last fall, the very popular Christian music artist, Forrest Frank, shared on social media that he'd fractured his back while skateboarding. Well, you might not know him by name, you might know Frank songs like Your Way is Better. A little side note. I don't listen to much music, but I do love to listen to Forrest Frank while grocery shopping.

You should try it. Anyway, when Frank posted the news about his fractured L3 and L4 vertebrae, he included a video of himself in a hospital bed, along with a video from the fall taken by his home security camera. The fall looked really painful. Then two weeks later, Frank posted another video telling his millions of followers that he'd woken up, forgotten to put on his back brace, and realized he wasn't in pain. He asked, did we just witness a miracle happen, or do I have the fastest healing bones of all time? He knew there'd be doubters, so he posted a screenshot of medical documentation of his diagnosis and of the x-rays showing the fractures. No one really questioned him. Maybe that's because Frank was already super well-known and wasn't in need of a publicity stunt.

But there's also more openness to the supernatural than there has been in the recent past. Consider the story of Wesley Huff. He's the Christian Apologist who was on the Joe Rogan podcast. During the three-hour-plus interview, Huff told Rogan that when he was 11 years old, he woke up from a nap to find his legs were paralyzed. He couldn't move them. Huff had been ill with the flu, and his body's immune system reacted by attacking the nerve endings at the base of his spine instead of the flu itself.

As Huff told the story to Rogan, he said, the paralysis itself was instantaneous. And they said, sorry, this is just what it's going to be. You're never going to be able to walk. However, after installing a ramp at his family home and preparing for a life of paralysis, everything changed again. Again, here's Huff on Joe Rogan. He said there wasn't one instance that I could necessarily point to where someone prayed over me and that's what felt different. I think it was much more organic than that, in that I literally woke up and couldn't feel my legs, and then I woke up and I could feel my legs. When Huff shared this story, Rogan responded very positively, not with

a doubt and skepticism you might have imagined. Interestingly, this is just one more example of greater openness to the supernatural. sets us up for our passage today at the end of Luke. Before I read, let's pray. Father, I pray that you would open our eyes so that we could see the truth in this story and open our hearts that we would receive it and that it would change us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I pick up in Luke chapter 4 verse 31. Then he went down to Copernum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. They were amazed at his teaching because his words had authority. So, Jesus stands apart from all the other teachers in his day. The crowds recognize that when Jesus

teaches, he teaches with authority. And in these next couple stories, we're going to see Jesus' authority demonstrated over the supernatural and physical world. So back to Luke. In the synagogue, there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, go away. What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Be quiet, Jesus said sternly. Come out of him. Then the demons threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to each other what words these are. With authority and power, he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out, and the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area. One of the interesting things to note in the Gospels

is how people are often confused about who Jesus is, like even his disciples, have a hard time figuring out that he is God's anointed Messiah. People are confused, but the demons aren't confused. Not at all. I mean, this demon in this story clearly understands who Jesus is, and he understands that he is no match for the power of God. And again, we read in the story that the people are amazed at his authority and his power. All right, back to Luke. Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now, Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.

At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sicknesses, and laying his hands on each one of them, he healed them. Moreover, the demons came out of many people, shouting, You are the Son of God, but he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak because they knew he was the Messiah. So what do we have in this story? Well, it's more healings. Peter's mother-in-law is healed, more people with various

kinds of sicknesses are healed, and more demons are cast out. Back to Luke. At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him, and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent. And he kept on preaching in the synagogue of Judea. So these last couple verses, they give us a great summary of Jesus' ministry and message. It says that he preached about the good news of the kingdom wherever he went. Now, I don't think it's an accident that Jesus casting out demons, healing people of their sicknesses, and preaching the kingdom of God, show up in the same place, in the same stories.

Listen to Matthew 423. It says Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. See, there are those three things again. The healings and the exorcisms were ever. evidence that Jesus is the true king, and they serve as pictures of the healing power of the kingdom. See, some people will point out to you that Jesus never directly says that he's God. And that's true as far as it goes, but Jesus does unmistakably make it clear that he is God by the things he does. Let me give you an example. Psalm 69 says that only God can still or calm the seas, and then Jesus calms the seas. So Jesus didn't say he was God, but he said he was God. But he said he was

God, right? Because he does the things only God can do. The Old Testament taught that when the Messiah came, he would rule over the supernatural and the natural. In Genesis 315 were told that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. That means that the Messiah will triumph over all dark spiritual forces. And then that's exactly what we see in the Gospels. The demons are subject to Jesus' authority. The prophets tell us that when the Messiah will come, it says, then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the death unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. That's Isaiah 35. And when Jesus comes, that's exactly what happens. Darkness is driven out. Bodies and minds are healed. Jesus's death and resurrection, it inaugurated

his kingdom, but his kingdom isn't fully here yet. One day soon, Jesus will return, and he will do for the whole world. He will do for every person what he did for Peter's mother-in-law. He will heal all things. Look, by nature, I'm a little bit of a doubter, a skeptic, a cynic. Now, I'm not proud of any of that. That's not who I necessarily want to be. It's just that I don't believe all the stories that I'm told. I want to see some evidence. I want to really think things through carefully. So if you're wired that way and you have a hard time believing that miracles happen today, can I just recommend a couple of books to you? The easiest is a book by Lee Strobel, and it's called The Case for Miracles.

Then there's two by Craig Keener. The first one is called Miracles Today, and I'd say that's for the average person. He has a bigger one, it's more academic, and it's called Miracles, the credibility of the New Testament accounts. I don't often share book suggestions on 10-minute Bible talks, but I know some of you might want to read and think more about whether the miracles that happened in the Bible are believable and whether miracles are still happening today. So if that's you, I'd recommend those books.