Joe Rogan, Matthew McConaughey, Miracles, and Art

Tonight it is a classic Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I want to talk about an interview that Joe Rogan did with Matthew McConaughey. In this section of the conversation, they are discussing Matthew McConaughey’s religious beliefs, and they talk about miracles. Here is what McConaughey says:

I don’t know what to do in my daily life with the burning bush. I don’t know what to do with that. I do know what to do with love your neighbor like yourself. I do know what to do with Matthew 6:22: “If thine eye be single, thy whole body will be full of light.” I do know what to do with some proverbs that I can take into daily practice and go, “Oh, I felt my life, I felt improvement, I felt success in my relationships and my relationship with the day, with my career, by following that, by treating others how I wanted to be treated, the Golden Rule.” So I take the practical stuff myself. I mean, try to utilize it and pick out what can work for me.

When asked what he means by not knowing what to do with the burning bush, McConaughey elaborates:

I don’t know what to do on a daily basis with the teaching of, and then he showed up as a burning bush, or the magic tricks. And I don’t know what to do with, and Jesus healed everyone, and then he couldn’t walk, and now he touched him and he can walk. I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know how to take that into my life and go, “Oh, there’s something useful and practical and healthy for you, Matthew, that you can practice there.” So the magic, that leans in towards what we would call now more fantasy. I don’t know what to do with that. There’s philosophies, there’s proverbs, and there’s teachings that I think are very valid and very helpful, that we could all be reminded of, that are in the Bible, that I do find quite useful.

So Matthew McConaughey says that he doesn’t know what to do with the miracles. I want to talk about the nature of miracles and examine some of the underlying assumptions sitting behind that perspective.

He says he does not understand how they are practical or how he fits them into his daily life. To understand that, let us look at what the Bible says about miracles. There are three main words in the Bible used for miracles. Those words provide a description of what they are; the specific vocabulary the biblical authors use tells us about the character of these events.

“Miracle” is actually not my favorite translation. It comes from the Latin Vulgate, miraculum, which is just the translation for one of those words: a wonder. Over time, “miracle” has come to take on this sense of a magic trick that breaks the laws of nature, and it carries a great deal of philosophical baggage. While there is something helpful about distinguishing this kind of event, people attach a lot of modern notions to the word “miracle.” I think it is best to put that baggage aside and look directly at the specific biblical words and what they mean.

Wonders, Acts of Power, and Signs

There are three main words that get used in the Bible whenever these kinds of actions happen. The first one is a wonder. What this means is that it is an amazing thing. You witness an event, it is astonishing, and you are struck with awe. That is one of the basic functions of a miracle: to inspire awe.

That term is closely connected conceptually to the next Greek word, dunamis, which means an act of power, a powerful deed, or a mighty deed. The idea is that these incredible, mighty things happen and inspire awe.

Now, what does that tell us about these miracles and their practical function? Well, if you knew someone who could do these things, and you had personal access to that person, I don’t think anyone would consider that impractical. This is someone to whom you can pray, someone you can ask to intervene and act. If this is the kind of person who can do amazing and powerful deeds, it seems self-evident why having a relationship with him would be eminently practical.

The third word that gets used—and this is going to be extremely helpful—is a sign. This term is used in the Old Testament, for instance with the signs and wonders in Egypt during the plagues. It also gets used throughout the New Testament for Jesus’s mighty deeds, his miracles, and his actions. In particular, this is John’s favorite description in his Gospel for the things Jesus does.

I think John deliberately uses the word “sign” so that we as readers will be crystal clear about the nature of these events. They are not merely acts of power; that is, they are not merely magical, amazing deeds. They are signs. They point to something else. They are symbols that possess an added layer of meaning. Just as giving your wife flowers is not merely a practical statement that she is a botanist or appreciates botany, but conveys your emotional and psychological state—that you love her—so these mighty actions are signs. You are supposed to read these signs, because they tell you something about the character of the person performing them.

Miracles are acts of characterization. Just like in a story where characters are defined by their dialogue and their actions, these miracles are a specific set of actions. When you look at them, they are meant to characterize the one performing them—whether God, the prophets, or Jesus. It tells us about this character, and that is eminently practical, because you are learning who this person is.

What Miracles Tell Us About God

When we look at what miracles are, there are a couple of different ways to categorize them. One way to think about them is that a miracle is a new causal injection of something into this world.

Now, this is well-worn territory, but the common objection that miracles are “violations of the laws of nature” simply is not true. What we call laws of nature are merely abstractions derived from our observations of regularities in the universe. We were never handed a textbook stating that these are inviolable rules that can never be broken. They are simply regularities that happen with consistency; they are the ordinary ways God has seen fit to govern the world. If he chooses to govern differently at certain points for specific reasons, that is entirely up to him.

Consider an analogy from human life. We are made in his image, so we act in regular patterns: we get up at the same time each day, but we also have regular time and festival time, ordinary routines and special occasions where we prepare surprises for people. We have regular patterns and irregular moments. In a similar way, God sometimes chooses to break in and inject a new piece of causation that falls outside his ordinary means of action. You can think of natural law as simply a description of the way God normally works, while miracles are an irregular, special way that God works.

Let us think about this a little further. A miracle is a new injection of energy or causation into the world. When was the first time that happened? It happened at creation. The initial miracles were God creating everything in the beginning. The later miracles in the Bible are new creational events. Typically, they involve putting the world back together in certain ways—such as healing wounds. This characterizes God by showing that he so loves his people that he is willing to act in extraordinary ways to put the broken world back together. That is eminently practical: to know that there is someone above us who cares for us so deeply that he is willing to step in and do these mighty deeds for his people.

In Exodus, for instance, we find the first major concentration of these mighty deeds after Genesis 1. The plagues in Egypt move systematically through heaven, earth, and sea. Just as those three realms formed the cosmic structure of creation in the beginning, the plagues move through each realm to de-create the world for the Egyptians. These great acts cluster around moments of judgment and redemption: the Exodus, and then the arrival of Jesus, who inaugurates the new creation.

Judgment, Restoration, and Glorification

We can also categorize miracles by their theological function. Some miracles are restorative, some are judgmental, and some are glorificatory.

Some miracles serve as judgments, like the plagues of Egypt. Others serve a restorative function, repairing what was broken: people are healed of diseases, or raised from the dead by Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus.

Then there are miracles that are glorificatory. In these cases, there is no inherent defect or tragedy being corrected; rather, something earthly is taken and glorified—made better and more exalted. A prime example is the turning of water into wine. Water is a mundane necessity, whereas wine is the great celebratory, eschatological beverage. In the Old Testament, the priests were not permitted to drink wine during their service and poured it out as a drink offering, but in God’s presence at the feast of the Lord, wine represents celebration and glorification, culminating in the marriage supper of the Lamb. Another example is the multiplication of the loaves and fish: there was no mechanical defect in the food, but Jesus provided an overwhelming superabundance.

When Jesus arrives bringing his kingdom with signs and wonders, these acts reveal what his kingdom is like: it brings judgment, it brings restoration, and it brings glorification. Things are not merely returned to an original Edenic state; as Paul explains, we will receive glorified bodies that are far more glorious, possessing incredible physical properties beyond what we currently know.

Miracles are also eschatological foretastes of what we will see in the future. When Jesus began his ministry, his core message, echoing John the Baptist, was: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” His ministry inaugurated God’s kingdom, so the things he did characterize that coming kingdom. When we ask what Jesus’s kingdom will be like when he returns to consummate it fully, the miracles give us the answer: it will be a place of complete restoration and glorification. That tells us about God’s heart—that his desire is to put back together the world that we have soiled.

It is also fascinating to consider the inverse: what would we say if there were no miracles at all? I often think about this in relation to Carl Sagan’s argument that our tiny size in a vast universe is somehow an argument against God. If the universe were only the size of our solar system or galaxy, skeptics would surely argue, “Well, if God existed, wouldn’t the universe be much grander?” It is the same with miracles. If God never performed them, people would say, “If God exists, wouldn’t he do something amazing every once in a while?” And the answer is: yes, he does.

Another helpful distinction, which I encountered in an interview between Jonathan Pageau and J.P. Marceau, is that some miracles are what I would call accelerations of nature, while others are completely unprecedented causal injections. In the multiplication of bread and fish, or turning water into wine, these are things nature already does given enough time—vines draw water from the soil and turn it into grapes, which are pressed into wine. Natural processes can multiply creatures over time according to God’s early command to multiply. While Christ’s miracle is certainly a divine causal intervention, it also accelerates and brings to fruition natural processes. This demonstrates that the new heavens and new earth will not be completely unrelated to this world; God will take the good things he has created and accelerate them to full fruition. As Paul puts it, he who began a good work will bring it to completion.

The Limit of Practicality and the Power of Story

Underneath Matthew McConaughey’s perspective sits a deeper assumption: that only direct imperatives, proverbs, and commands are helpful and practical. I recently published an essay on the Theopolis blog called “Against Practical Preaching” that fleshes out this exact argument. There is a peculiarly American obsession with pragmatism—whether derived from philosophical pragmatism or revivalism—that creates a very myopic view of what the human person actually needs.

When Matthew says he doesn’t know what to do with miracles because they aren’t practical, one could say in response: “Matthew, I don’t know what to do with Interstellar.” The point is that we are not merely utilitarian machines, and our transformation does not occur exclusively through commands or didactic lists. We are aesthetic creatures. We are formed by stories.

Consider an everyday example: if I come home and my wife tells me a sweet, lovely story about something our daughter did, and I respond, “I don’t know what to do with that; what does that have to do with me?”—that reaction is almost profane. It reveals that I have fundamentally misunderstood what is happening. What am I supposed to “do” with it? I am meant to experience delight, joy, love, and wonder. Those aesthetic, moral, and emotional responses are deeply necessary and transformative.

Matthew McConaughey’s entire vocation is narrative and aesthetic; it is non-utilitarian in that immediate sense. Somewhere along the way, our culture came to believe that the primary vehicle for human transformation is the imperative command. Yet when your grandfather tells you a story about his time in the war, or your wife shares a memory from her childhood, those stories alter you profoundly—even if they give you no immediate instructions on what to do with your hands fifteen minutes from now.

In fact, stories and aesthetic experiences often transform people far more deeply than lists of instructions. This is why the Bible is composed primarily of stories and poetry, rather than bare lists of rules. When King David sinned with Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan did not walk in and deliver a flat didactic reprimand. Instead, he told David a story about a rich man and a poor man’s ewe lamb. A direct command could not pierce David’s hardened soul; he needed the narrative to awaken his conscience before receiving the moral indictment.

Commands are necessary, but we are made in God’s image as rich, complex beings, not biological operating systems executing routine input-output scripts. Miracles are not disposable magic tricks; they are signs, wonders, and stories that reveal the character of God, cultivate wonder, and reshape who we are.

Watch the original episode.