Extraordinary Events in the Scripture

In the Scriptures, extraordinary gifts appear to be limited to a few brief periods in biblical history, in which they serve as confirmatory signs of new revelation and its ambassadors, and as a means of establishing and defending the kingdom of God in epochally significant ways. Without this perspective, some biblical miracles would be trivial and almost on the level of majic tricks. Only within this kingdom context does a floating axe head (2 Kings 6:1-5) or a coin in the mouth of a fish (Matthew 17:27) make coherent sense. --Sinclair Ferguson