When God sent salvation to the Gentiles through Paul’s ministry, one of the purposes was to provoke unbelieving Israelites into getting saved. This explains why Paul performed miracles in the early part of his ministry.

In Acts 13, you read about how the Jews blasphemed and contradicted Paul at Antioch when he went out proclaiming to the Gentiles, “Hey, guys, God’s now set Israel aside and is sending salvation to you.”

The Jews, of course, had passage after passage in their Bible—Genesis 12 and 17, Leviticus 20, etc.—pointing out how the Gentiles couldn’t gain any acceptable standing before God except through Israel.

So, in order for Paul to demonstrate that God truly had changed the program, and had entrusted him with the big news that Israel had fallen—and that Israel’s God was now among the Gentiles—he used miracles.

Throughout their history, the Jews were accustomed to God providing miracles, or “mighty signs and wonders,” to confirm His Word to them.

As Jordan explains, “God took Israel’s signs that demonstrated confirmation of His presence, and of His working in their midst, and temporarily placed them in Paul’s ministry to be carried out on the Gentiles. The signs said to the Gentiles, ‘Israel’s God has come over here to us.’

“God had left Israel and gone to the Gentiles and He did it in such a way as to provoke the Jews—‘Hey, that’s our stuff over there; that’s our God!’—and that’s some of what Paul’s preaching.

“Just look at chapters 12, 13 and 14 in I Corinthians. Paul says, ‘Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. . .’

“Chapter 13, rather than this being ‘the great love chapter of the bible,’ as people like to call it—it does give a lot of information about love and charity that’s very valuable—is really an explanation about why the ‘sign gifts,’ or spiritual gifts, are going to pass away.

“And the reason is, ‘Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies (that’s the gift of prophecies back in chapter 12), they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.’ (I Cor. 13:8)

“The gifts of prophecy are not going to continue on forever. The gift of tongues is going to cease. The gift of knowledge is going to vanish away. Why? Paul answers, ‘For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ (I Cor. 13:9 -12)

“Well, what is ‘that which is perfect is come’? People say, ‘Well, that’s heaven. You know, when we’re face-to-face we shall behold Him.’

“Don’t you ever think God is satisfied to let you wait until you get to heaven to grow up. It just ain’t so McGee. You’re to grow up now.

“Paul says, ‘Now I see through a glass darkly, now I know in part.’ Well, we just read that back in verse 9—‘For we know in part.’ The context tells me what it is! ‘I know in part, prophecy in part, but when that which is perfect is come that which is in part shall be done away with.’

“What does away with the partial is the perfect. But what’s ‘in part’? What I know. Knowledge. The only thing that does away with partial knowledge is full knowledge. And when the Word of God was completed, full knowledge arrived.

“That’s why Paul says, ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto every good work.’ So that which is perfect is the completed Word of God.

“Once the Word of God is completed, you don’t need a miracle performed by God to show someone something’s for real. I don’t need to perform miracles today to prove I’m a man of God. I don’t need to perform miracles today to prove to you that what I’m saying is a message that came from God.

“What do I need to do? Show you verses in a Bible rightly divided. It’s the Bible that shows you! Before they had a Bible, they had a mechanism to accomplish this same thing, but once the Bible was completed, they didn’t need all that extra-biblical stuff; they had a completed Book.

“And how much better that is, you know? How much more wonderful that is. Paul said in Ephesians 3, about ‘the revelation of the mystery’ given to him, ‘Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.’

“You know how you understand it? You read about it. And, you know, if you don’t understand it the first time, you read it again. You ever had to read something two or three times to get it? I do.

“I’ll read something three to four times sometimes, and every time I’ll come at it a little different way—get a little bit more out of it. That’s good! You’re able to STUDY! Paul tells Timothy, ‘Consider what I say, and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.’ Understanding comes from considering what God says in His word rightly divided.”