Religious Snakes

Jesus commissioned the seventy and gave them power to tread on serpents, and yes even scorpions.  Mark’s gospel closes out with a mandate from the Lord himself, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel” …, then among other admonishment, he hinted that we would in the process, “take up serpents”.

Those last few words in the Gospel of Mark have thrown the doubting Baptists and many overly enthusiastic Charismatics into tail spins for years.  But never fear, help is here! Some professing themselves to be wise have distorted what Jesus was saying in Mark Chapter 16 concerning serpents, and preach the false gospel of “20th Century snake handling”. Literally.  These Bible ignorant so-called Christians handle deadly vipers in their so-called worship services in a vain attempt to gain favor with God.

To get the intended meaning of “take up serpents”, in the gospel of Mark we must first compare scripture with scripture and then go to the Koine English for the true and intended meaning of the words serpent and scorpion.  Lets look first to Mathew 23:33 to understand the use of the word serpent in the New Testament.  Mathew chapter 23 is filled with “Woes” directed toward the religious lost of that day.  Midway through this open-air discourse our Lord uses the term serpents and vipers to warn obstinate sinners of his day.  No Greek or Hebrew needed here or anywhere to understand this passage or any other.  We can simply look to the “Koine” English as found in a readily available facsimile of the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary to find out the Biblical meaning of the word serpent.

SER’PENT  4. Figuratively, a subtle of malicious person

The 1828 Dictionary works just as well for the words viper and scorpion!

SCOR’PION  2. In scripture…Malicious and crafty men, who delight in injuring others, are compared to scorpions.

VI’PER  2. A person or thing mischievous or malignant.

Brothers and sisters the above is a great example of how to clear up what Protestant and Baptist tradition, plus Charismatic ignorance have muddied up.  The above example shows  you do not need a Greek or Hebrew lexicon to find out what the Bible means.  All you need to understand the Scripture is a copy of it, (1611 KJB), a good 1828 dictionary and the Holy Ghost who came to lead you into all truth.

When we take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the streets of this country as open-air evangelists we encounter vipers, scorpions, and serpents masquerading as “angels of light”.  The religious snakes we reprove, rebuke and exhort include those from churches that preach works to get and/or keep salvation.  The list of church vipers include, but are not limited to Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Roman Catholics, many Protestants, Muslims, lazy puke warm Christians, so-called “carnal christians”, stillborn christians, compromising Christians, ecumenical minded Christians, christian rockers, christian rappers, and the list goes on and on. 

The vipers are plentiful and the handlers are few.

Published 8/18/12