Snakehandling

That title got your attention, didn't it? Our men's Bible discussion group talked about something today that I think is worthy of repeating here in this space. We were going through Acts 28 where Paul the Apostle is on the island of Malta. As he is throwing wood on the fire a snake comes out and bites him. The islanders think that Justice (with a capital "J") has not let Paul get away with murder so sent a snake to bite him. When nothing happens they suddenly change their minds and think he is a god instead. How fickle the human heart.

But what we talked about was how this verse dovetails with Mark 16:18 "They will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them..."

I know that verse doesn't appear in the earliest manuscripts, and I'm not here to debate whether it should or shouldn't be in the Bible. But some people believe it should be there and, in fact, use that verse along with Acts 28 to justify the practice of picking up deadly snakes to "prove" this verse accurate.

Some of you may have seen a news show segment some years ago that showed a snake handlers meeting where a guy picks up a snake, it bites him, then we watch as the guy swells up and dies. It's an image that still haunts me.

It is troubling to watch someone die and for such a useless cause. It also seems to give Christianity a bad name as well. So the guys were talking about it and one guy mentioned that it is a matter of the heart.

Basically, Paul was going about doing God's business for God's glory. It wasn't time for him to go home (tradition says he was beheaded later on) so until then God protected him from the snake and everything else (though he sure got beat up a lot. Hmmm). When someone purposefully picks up something like a snake, or puts themselves into a situation where bad will happen without divine intervention who is the focus? Isn't it on the person, not on God? And if nothing happens who gets the glory? The person, not the Lord.

Now in Paul's case they tried to make him out to be a god. Paul just ignored that and went about letting the Lord show his power by healing the islanders. The word to us is not to test God (like Lucifer tried to get Jesus to do by throwing himself off the pinnacle of the Temple) but to trust that God will take us where we need to be and protect us until it is time for us to go home.

Watch out for testing God's goodness or protection. Just know that it is there when you need it as long as you are focusing the glory on Him and doing what he tells you to do.

Pastor Tom