About the Book
"Jesus Among Other Gods" by Ravi Zacharias explores the unique claims of Christianity in a world of competing religions and worldviews. Zacharias compares the teachings of Jesus with those of other religious leaders and demonstrates why Christianity stands out as the only true way to know and experience God. The book challenges readers to consider the claims of Jesus and the implications of following him in a pluralistic society.
Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory the Wonderworkerâs Early life
Gregory was born in a Pontus, a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in the modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey, around 212-13. His was a wealthy home and his parents named him Theodore (Gift of God) despite their pagan beliefs. When he was 14 years old his father died and soon after, he and his brother, Athenodorus, were anxious to study law at Beirut, Lebanon, then one of the four of five famous schools in the Hellenic world.
Influence of Origen
However, on the way, they first had to escort their sister to rejoin her husband, who was a government official assigned to Caesarea in Palestine (modern Haifa, Israel). When they arrived they learned that the celebrated scholar Origen, head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, lived there.
Inquisitiveness led them to hear and speak with the Origen and his irresistible charm quickly won their hearts. They soon dropped their desires for a life in Roman law, became Christian believers and pupils of Origen, learning philosophy and theology, for somewhere between five and eight years. Origen also baptised Gregory.
Pastor (then Bishop) of Neoceasarea
Gregory returned to his native Pontus with the intention of practicing oratory, but also to write a book proving the truth of Christianity, revealing his evangelistic heart. But his plans were disrupted when locals noticed his passion for Christ and his spiritual maturity. There were just seventeen Christians in Neoceasarea when Gregory arrived and this small group persuaded him to lead them as their bishop. (âbishopâ simply meant a local overseer). At the time, Neocaesarea was a wicked, idolatrous province.
Signs of the Spirit
By his saintly life, his direct and lively preaching, helping the needy and settling quarrels and complaints, Gregory began to see many converts to Christ. But it was the signs and wonders that particularly attracted people to Christ.
En route to Neocaesarea from Amasea, Gregory expelled demons from a pagan temple, its priest converted to Christ immediately.
Once, when he was conversing with philosophers and teachers in the city square, a notorious harlot came up to him and demanded payment for the sin he had supposedly committed with her. At first Gregory gently remonstrated with her, saying that she perhaps mistook him for someone else.
But the loose woman would not be silenced. He then asked a friend to give her the money. Just as the woman took the unjust payment, she immediately fell to the ground in a demonic fit, and the fraud became evident. Gregory prayed over her, and the devil left her. This was the beginning of Gregoryâs miracles. It was at this time he became known as âGregory Thaumaturgus,â âGregory the Miracle Workerâ (or Wonderworker).
At one point Gregory wanted to flee from the worldly affairs into which influential townsmen persistently sought to push him. He went into the desert, where by fasting and prayer he developed an intimacy with God and received gifts of knowledge, wisdom and prophecy. He loved life in the wilderness and wanted to remain in solitude with God until the end of his days, but the Lord willed otherwise.
His theological contribution
Though he was primarily an evangelist and pastor, Gregory also had a deep theological understanding.
His principal work âThe Exposition of Faithâ, was a theological apology for Trinitarian belief. It incorporated his doctrinal instructions to new believers, expressed his arguments against heretical groups and was widely influential amongst leaders in the Patristic period: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa (The Cappadocian Fathers). It was the forerunner of the Nicene Creed that was to appear in the early 4th century.
In summary
He gave himself to the task of the complete conversion of the population of his diocese. The transformation in Neocaesarea was astonishing. Persuasive preaching, numerous healings and miraculous signs had a powerful effect. Such was his success that it was said that when Gregory became bishop (c 240) he found only seventeen Christians in his diocese; when he died only seventeen remained pagan (Latourette 1953:76).
Basil the Greatâs Testimony
Basil the Great (330-379, Bishop of Caesarea, in his work âOn the Spiritâ wrote the following account of Gregory the wonder-worker.
âBut where shall I rank the great Gregory, and the words uttered by him? Shall we not place among Apostles and Prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they; who never through all his days diverged from the footprints of the saints; who maintained, as long as he lived, the exact principles of evangelical citizenship?
I am sure that we shall do the truth a wrong if we refuse to number that soul with the people of God, shining as it did like a beacon in the Church of God: for by the fellow-working of the Spirit the power which he had over demons was tremendous, and so gifted was he with the grace of the word âfor obedience to the faith among. . .the nations.â that, although only seventeen Christians were handed over to him, he brought the whole people alike in town and country through knowledge to God.
He too by Christâs mighty name commanded even rivers to change their course, and caused a lake, which afforded a ground of quarrel to some covetous brethren, to dry up. Moreover, his predictions of things to come were such as in no wise to fall short of those of the great prophets. To recount all his wonderful works in detail would be too long a task. By the superabundance of gifts, wrought in him by the Spirit, in all power and in signs and in marvels, he was styled a second Moses by the very enemies of the Church.
Thus, in all that he through grace accomplished, alike by word and deed, a light seemed ever to be shining, token of the heavenly power from the unseen which followed him. To this day he is a great object of admiration to the people of his own neighborhood, and his memory, established in the churches ever fresh and green, is not dulled by length of time. (Schaff and Wace nd., Series 2. 8:46-47).
âGregory was a great and conspicuous lamp, illuminating the church of God.â âBasil the Great.
Can Cancer Be Godâs Servant
In March, my beloved wife, Nanci, lost her four-year battle with colon cancer. All 54 years Iâve known her, Nanci loved Jesus. But from a front-row seat, I watched a wonderful â and supernatural â change in those last four years. In 2019, Nanci wrote to a friend and fellow cancer sufferer, The cancer battle has been tough. However, my time with the Ancient of Days (one of my favorite names for God) has been epic! He has met me in ways I never knew were possible. I have experienced  His sovereignty, mercy, and steadfast love in tangible ways. I now trust Him at a level I never knew I could. I saw Nanci meditate on Scripture daily, read great books about God, and journal â writing out verses, powerful quotations from Spurgeon and many others, and personal reflections. One unforgettable morning, after meditating on Psalm 119:91, âAll things are your servants,â she shared with me what sheâd just written: My cancer is Godâs servant in my life. He is using it in ways He has revealed to me and in many more I have yet to understand. I can rest knowing my cancer is under the control of a sovereign God who is  good and does  good. Brokenhearted and Thankful Nine months later, at Nanciâs request and on short notice, our daughters and their families gathered to hear her speak final words of overflowing love for us and unswerving trust in her sovereign King. As one of our grandsons sat beside her, listening to her struggling to speak and to me reading powerful words from her journals, he said, âGrams, if you can trust God in this, I know I can trust Him in whatever Iâll go through.â Another grandson told her, âI will never forget what you said to us today.â Exactly one week later, I held her hand and watched her take her last breath in this world under the curse. Every day during those four years, I witnessed Godâs sanctifying and happy-making work in my wife: âWe rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope . . . because Godâs love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spiritâ (Romans 5:3â5). Nanci and I â and thousands worldwide â prayed daily for her healing. Godâs final answer was to rescue her from suffering and bring her into his presence where itâs âbetter by farâ (Philippians 1:23). Through her afflictions, he achieved in her an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all (2 Corinthians 4:17). She praised Jesus for it, and I will forever do the same, though I miss her immensely. Why God Permits What He Does When our ministry posted Nanciâs words, âMy cancer is Godâs servant,â someone responded, âWHAT? God does NOT give people cancer. Jesus bore our sicknesses and carried our pains on the cross.â âEverything God does flows from his wisdom and ultimately serves both his holiness and love.â That reader is not alone in trying to distance God from suffering. But by saying sickness comes only from Satan and the fall, not from God, we disconnect him from our suffering and his deeper purposes. God is sovereign. He never permits or uses evil arbitrarily; everything he does flows from his wisdom and ultimately serves both his holiness and love. Joni Eareckson Tada often shares the words of her friend Steve Estes: âGod permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves.â Godâs âpermittingâ something is far stronger than it may sound. After all, whatever God permits actually happens; what he doesnât permit doesnât happen. In the final chapter of Job, God reveals that Jobâs family and friends âshowed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon himâ (Job 42:11). The author told us from the beginning that Jobâs troubles were Satanâs idea and actions. Yet the inspired wording indicates Satanâs efforts were, indirectly by sovereign permission, Godâs own doing. Many find this truth disturbing, but properly understood, it should be comforting. What should be profoundly disturbing is the notion that God stands by passively while Satan, evildoers, diseases, and random accidents ruin the lives of his beloved children. Charles Spurgeon suffered terribly from depression, gout, rheumatism, neuritis, and a burning kidney inflammation. Yet he said, âIt would be a very sharp and trying experience for me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me . . . that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.â Mercy Outstrips Hardship Nanci and I experienced many glimpses of Godâs sovereign purposes for years before her cancer diagnosis. We saw that my becoming an insulin-dependent diabetic 35 years ago was Godâs plan to increase my dependence on him. And we saw, 30 years ago, that a lawsuit by an abortion clinic for $8.2 million was his way of moving me from pastoring a church we loved into a ministry that reaches further than we ever imagined. Godâs hands were not tied by my genetic propensity for type-1 diabetes (the result of the curse), or by the vengeance of child-killers (the result of human sin and demonic strategy). He didnât merely âmake the best of bad situations.â He took bad situations and used them for his glory and our highest good. His sovereign grace far outstripped our hardships. If this were not true, anyone facing a terminal illness would have to believe they experienced bad luck, and that God is either not as powerful or not as loving as he claims to be. Parents who have lost a child would have to believe the death was a meaningless accident, and that it wouldnât have happened if only the child hadnât been at that place at that time, or if that man hadnât been driving drunk, or if a thousand other circumstances had been different. If onlys  and what ifs  can rule our lives and drive us crazy. Instead, embracing Godâs higher purposes â even when invisible to us in painful and tragic events â affirms Godâs greatness. This is not fatalism. It is trust in the character and promises of our faithful, all-wise God. My friend David OâBrien told me, with his slurred and laboring voice, that God used cerebral palsy to deepen his dependence on Christ. Was he better off? He lived convinced that his 81 years of suffering were no cosmic accident or satanic victory, but a severe mercy from the good hand of almighty God. Reasons Outside Our Sight Lines By Godâs grace, Nanci fixed her attention on his attributes. Only eight months into her cancer journey, she wrote, I honestly would not trade this cancer experience to go back to where I was. These last months have been used by God to propel me into a deeper understanding and experience of his sovereignty, wisdom, steadfast love, mercy, grace, faithfulness, immanency, trustworthiness, and omnipotence. Psalm 119:71 says, âIt was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.â If affliction was good for the psalmist, then withholding that affliction would have meant withholding good. The universe is first and foremost about the purposes, plans, and glory of God. God sees eternal purposes and plans and knows ultimate good in ways we cannot. Our sovereign God weaves millions of details into our lives. He may have one big reason, or a thousand little ones, for bringing a certain person or success or failure or disease or accident into our lives. His reasons often fall outside our present lines of sight. If God uses cancer or a car accident to conform us to himself, then regardless of the human, demonic, or natural forces involved, he will be glorified. âGod is at work behind the scenes, and one day we will understand our sufferingâs hidden purposes.â âO great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deedâ (Jeremiah 32:18â19). God is  at work behind the scenes, and one day we will  understand our sufferingâs hidden purposes. Will You See What She Saw? Without a doubt, as I saw so clearly even when my tears overflowed, cancer served Godâs purposes in Nanciâs life. I said at her service, âThe most conspicuous thing about Nanci in her cancer years was her wonderfully big view of God, which she fed from Scripture and great books. The more she contemplated Godâs love and grace and sovereignty, the more her trust in him grew.â So I said to our gathered family, friends, and church members â many of them facing their own painful trials â what I sensed God saying to me: âThat huge, beautiful, and transforming view of God is yours for the taking. So why not spend the rest of your life pursuing it?â
