Signs, Wonders, and Power: The Working of Miracles

MOVE Series — Week 7

Last week we talked about the gift of faith — a Spirit-given confidence that God is about to act. This week we looked at what happens when He does.

Paul calls it “the working of miracles” (1 Corinthians 12:10) — in the Greek, energemata dynameon, “workings” and “powers,” both plural. Multiple operations, multiple kinds of power, distributed as the Spirit wills. Faith receives. Miracles release.

Three words, one event

When Peter preached at Pentecost, he described Jesus as attested by “miracles, wonders, and signs” (Acts 2:22) — three different Greek words for three angles of the same event. Dynamis is power in action. Teras is the astonishment it produces. Semeion is the truth it points to. A real miracle carries all three — power, wonder, and direction toward God, never toward the person He worked through.

Five ways this gift shows up in Scripture

• It often uses ordinary means stretched to an extraordinary degree — the Red Sea parted through a real east wind, sustained all night.
• It usually requires participation, not just presence — the widow poured her own oil; the servants filled their own water pots.
• It doesn’t repeat itself as spectacle — Elijah’s fire on Carmel fell once, for a named reason.
• It scales to whoever needs it — from an entire nation crossing the sea to a single coin in a fish’s mouth for a tax bill.
• It always survives the test of where it points — Paul warns of “lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9), real power aimed the wrong direction. The question is never just “did something supernatural happen,” but “what did it point me toward.”

The warning

Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8 wanted the power without the purpose — to acquire it, control it, be amazed at himself. That temptation didn’t die with Simon. Anytime this gift starts making you the center of attention rather than pointing people to God, that’s the same ground he stood on.

If God has worked a miracle in your life, tell somebody this week — not to build your own name, but to point at what you saw toward the One who did it.