Episode Details

Does God Still Do Miracles? | Bible Study 101

Blue day, and it's Rachael's favorite. Blue marks the supernatural, the things only God could have done, and the test is simple: could a person have pulled this off on their own? When you mark John 6:1-15 that way, the blue doesn't spread evenly. It clusters. The longest stretch of dialogue in the whole passage, where Philip and Andrew are running the numbers, stays completely white. Green told you this passage is about Jesus. Blue tells you why. The episode closes with a story from Malawi that Rachael watched happen with her own budget in her own team.

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Chapters

0:00 Picking up where we left off

0:29 What blue marks, and why it's the favorite

0:57 One page, or a fresh page each day

1:54 Why familiarity wears the edges off these stories

3:23 What actually counts as supernatural

4:50 When two colors land on the same word

6:18 Reading John 6:1-15

8:40 Marking the passage verse by verse

9:39 Why John calls them signs and not miracles

10:37 The verse most of us read straight past

12:33 How John describes the miracle itself

13:34 As much as they wanted

14:40 Step back and look at where the blue clusters

15:31 Green told you who. Blue tells you why.

16:57 What is this sign pointing at?

17:30 Took, gave thanks, broke, gave

18:13 Prayer

18:44 The day 1,800 children showed up in Malawi

21:19 God does not change

22:12 Homework

What does blue mark in the color method?

Blue marks the supernatural. The things only God can do.

The test is one question: could a person have done this on their own? If the answer is yes, leave it alone. If the answer is no, mark it blue.

That covers the obvious things like miracles, healing, calming, raising. But it's broader than that. Mark it when God speaks. Mark it when someone knows something they could not have known unless the Holy Spirit told them. Mark it when sin is forgiven, because nobody else can do that. Mark it when angels show up, or when a dream or a vision carries a message.

Why does John call them signs instead of miracles?

Because a sign points to something past itself.

John doesn't usually call these events miracles or works of power the way the other Gospel writers do. He calls them signs, and that's deliberate. He's telling you from the start that what's happening here means something beyond the event itself.

So the feeding was never mainly about lunch. Hold that question through the rest of the week: what is this sign pointing at?

Which verse do most people miss?

Verse 6. He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

That's blue, and it's easy to skip because nothing dramatic happens in it. But Jesus knows the outcome before anything occurs. He's standing there asking Philip a question He already has the answer to. That's knowledge no person has, and John slips it in without any fanfare.

It's the kind of thing you only catch when you've slowed down enough to ask whether a human could have done it.

How does John describe the miracle?

Almost casually, which is the striking part.

Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted.

There's no visible mome