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I think I came across a very big chunk of insight. I was asked by a friend why God acted so much in the Old and New Testament, but he hasn't performed showy miracles in the roughly the past 2000 years. I never thought about that before, but I think I learned something critical. Knowing that God kept Jesus a secret in the Old Testament and that Jesus was supposed to change the world by what he did, I think God didn't want to take away from Jesus' results by showy miracles.
Here are two quotes from the Bible that stages the scene of this letter I am writing:
Ephesians 3:9-10 "and of making all people see how God's secret plan is to be put into effect. God who is the Creator of all things, kept his secret hidden through all the past ages, in order that the present time, by means of the church, the angelic rulers and powers in the heavenly world might learn of his wisdom in all its different forms."
1 Peter 1:12 “God revealed to these prophets that their work was not for their own benefit, but for yours, as they spoke about those things which you have now heard from the messengers who announced the Good News by the power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. These are things even the angels would like to understand.”
God wants to explain to humans and spiritual beings that following Jesus is the right way to take. By witnessing the change that Jesus Christ evokes in a person, humans and spiritual beings can witness the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament Jesus was a secret so God acted in different ways in part to keep Jesus a secret from evil. Now that Jesus has completed his mission, we do not need people with powers granted by God like was present in Judges. If someone came along with unrestrained, super hero powers from God, he may detract from Jesus. Every day past Jesus' ascension back into Heaven is time for Jesus' influence on other people to be shown. This is the short reason why God hasn't been busy performing showy miracles in the past 2000 years. God does answer prayer, but he tries to do it subtly as to not detract from Jesus' influence.
If we take this insight further, we can see more into the cosmic purpose of the universe as we know it. Christians view reality as having Heaven and Earth. Heaven at one time had evil beings in it and possibly still does. Earth as we know it has evil beings in it. God is going to remake Heaven and Earth such that they are devoid of evil. Each day that passes brings us closer to God remaking everything new, but we really don't have a time table to know when things will happen. So the question that is brought up here is,"Why did God create man on Earth, and just not create man in Heaven?"
One of God's purposes is to defeat evil beings such that Heaven will be populated with people who claim Jesus as Lord and want to do good in their souls. In order to show how important Jesus is, reality had to take place. I think that God saw everything that was going to happen in reality, and therefore made his move by creating the Earth and having Jesus being the redeemer. I think that God knew Jesus had to be the redeemer before Adam and Eve sinned. Because the end result was that God would defeat evil, God chose that route. Some of that was speculation into God's ways so I could be wrong, but I think just a bit of speculation on my part is allowable because it doesn't affect the core of my argument, but it more sets the scene.
Instead of examining all the possible flawed routes that God could have taken to defeat evil, lets just take it as a given that he is doing the right thing. Jesus was a secret in the Old Testament, and I sincerely believe that many of the things that God did in the Old Testament was misdirection of the exactness of Jesus. In the Old Testament, God could have been wrathful on people who were being sinful. God killed children at times, and sometimes without reasons that some people can understand within the context of the Bible. Without a way to redeem sinners in the Old Testament, killing them when they exceedingly sinned may have actually been a merciful act. If God killed sinners before they committed even more sins, God would have helped the sinners out when they get to judgment and have less sins over their souls. Jesus showed that God is loving, wants to fulfill our needs, God is forgiving, and doesn't want us to suffer. Jesus showed us how much God loves us. Jesus really exemplified how awesome God is, but he seems so much different than what many people see as the God of the Old Testament. My explanation is that God may have been dealing misdirects to evil beings in Heaven such that they would not know what Jesus was going to do in his life. Jesus was a secret, and the story of Samson showed how important it can be to keep a secret. (*1) If evil beings would have known of Jesus' true purpose, they may have not willingly have been led captives to Jesus' victory procession to the cross.
The most basic thing that we as Christians need to know is: God is good so we should be good too. God defeated evil already, but the story of the Earth still needs to play out. Revelation says that Satan will deceive the world and mount up an army against God. But there are also other clues in the Bible that the world can change through Jesus. Either outcome results in evil being defeated and God welcoming his children into Heaven. We should strive to help our fellow man. There are people dying because they don't have basic nutrition. This can be solved just by money alone. And money can be had by just working harder. I feel that we should not be idle in our daily tasks because of this.
*1 Read from Judges 13.1 Onward about the story of Samson. In it, Samson is tricked twice by his woman into giving up secrets which can bring him down. The first is when he speaks to his bride to be about the answer to the riddle. The second time is when he tells Delilah that his strength comes from his hair.
- Jim Sager III
(ALL Bible quotes from Good News Bible.)