So I have stated a couple of times before in my post that I grew up in Southwestern West Virginia and my family attended a Pentecostal church. Well for many years my grandfather was the pastor of our church and he had some really awesome stories about things that had happened to him over the course of his life. One of the stories was a conversation that he had with a man that went to a snake handling church. For the sake of the article I will call him Brother Smith.
Brother Smith: well you know Brother Davis the Bible tells us plainly in Mark 16:18 that we are to take up serpents.
Grandpa: well if that's the way you interpret it I'm not going to argue about it but that's not the way I interpret it.
Brother Smith: now Brother Davis it's not hard to interpret it is plain as day. All Christians should take up serpents.
Grandpa: Not this Christian. I ain't about to handle no snake.
Brother Smith: Brother Davis you've been a Christian since your early 20's and a pastor for almost 40 years. Now you mean to tell me that if there was a snake laying right here in front of us and God told you plainly to pick it up you wouldn't have enough faith in Him to do it.
Grandpa: No sir that's not what I said that's not what I said at all. If there was a snake laying right here in front of us and God told me to go pick it up then without a shadow of a doubt I would have enough faith in Him to go pick it up........ But He didn't and I ain't gonna.😂🤣😂
Today more then ever it is of extreme importance that we rightly divide the Word. When reading the Bible we need to take into account the culture, the customs and the traditions of the Jewish people at the time that the Bible was written.
Mark 16:18 KJV
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
This scripture isn't saying that we should incorporate snake handling, drinking poison, and holding flames of fire to our body into our worship and praise. When you understand the times this was written you understand that the disciples would mostly travel on foot from town to town spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many times on their journeys they would have to pass over mountains with treacherous pathways that was the only route they could follow to get to their destination. Very often they would run across poisonous snakes on these pathways and they had only two choices of action to take. They could either turn around and hope that after some time the snake would leave on its own or the could remove the snake from their path. That's exactly what this scripture is saying. Its giving them the authority and insurance from God to remove the snakes from their paths so they can continue to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I want to end by giving honor where honor is due. Thank you Abba Father for keeping your hand upon me and my life. Thank you Jesus for being my Lord and Savior and for dying on the cross so that I could have eternal life. Thank you Holy Spirit for giving me guidance, discipline, comfort, and for being so much more to me than just a tongue talker.
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