​I just had this discussion in our breakfast Bible study so I will recapitulate it while it’s fresh on my mind. Mark 16:16-18 says that certain signs will accompany believers – namely, they will cast out demons, be protected from snakebite and poison and heal the sick. I believe all of Scripture. So – why do we not handle snakes in our congregation? Why do we not conduct specific healing services? Just as a side note: I have long observed that many more congregations elect to handle snakes than to gulp down cyanide. But hey – name your poison, I guess.

1. Jesus was tempted to take advantage of God’s promised protection by leaping from the temple. He responded that it was a mistake to test God in such a way. The point of the temptation was to ruin Jesus’ ministry. Paul was bitten by a snake on the Island of Malta. It happened while he was gathering wood and throwing it on a fire to keep a drenched shipwrecked company warm. Much to the surprise of the onlookers, Paul suffered no harm. One of these instances showed the wisdom of Jesus (and what should be wisdom for any who wish to minister in His name) in refusing to test God to prove a point or in pursuit of personal glory and power. The other instance showed a faithful saint who was bitten by a snake in the midst of doing non-snake related ministry – and suffered no harm. It seems to me that snake handling as a religious practice fits into neither category. It actually looks more like someone falling prey to the temptation Jesus resisted by misunderstanding/misusing the promised protection of which Paul was a beneficiary.
2. Since Mark 16 also speaks of healing and since Paul followed up the snakebite incident with a healing campaign on Malta, let me just note that the ‘healing service’ is alien to the New Testament. Almost all the healings of Jesus and the Apostles took place in the public square or in the homes of the afflicted. There were a few overlaps of healing and preaching services. Eutychus fell asleep during a long sermon and fell to his death. The service was disrupted by this sad event and a miraculous healing took place – then – right back to preaching. Jesus healed the paralytic in the midst of a teaching service but it was because some people TORE A HOLE IN THE ROOF under which Jesus was preaching and let the paralytic down into the midst of things. The service was disrupted, a miraculous healing occurred and was used as an aide to launch into to more preaching and teaching. Healing was never THE THING. Preaching the gospel was always THE THING. Efforts to make that which is not THE THING into THE THING will always be counterproductive. Paul’s healing campaign on Malta stands as a sidebar/footnote in parentheses to his real ministry – preaching the gospel.
3. The promise of Mark 16:16-18 is not, I believe, either permanent or universal. I mean by this that Paul suffered snake bite and took no harm. But when the executioner’s ax fell at last, Paul took (bodily) harm. So did Steven and James via rocks and sword. These men did not have permanent protection against harm. And not every believer has been protected even against snakebite. These signs ‘accompanied’ believers (as a group) as they preached the gospel. But not every believer is protected from every instance of harm (lots of Christians have had occasion to dial up the poison control center) and no one Christian is protected from all harm on all occasions. Believers who have been the beneficiaries of the promised protection were protected at specific moments – or allowed to heal at specific moments – for the sake of the preaching of the gospel.

These, at least, are my thoughts on the matter. I’d be glad to hear yours. 

I recently had a very civil online conversation with a fellow who describes himself as a quasi-atheist. I could say that many of my online conversations with atheists have been less than civil but would quickly have to add that many of my online conversations with believers have also been non-civil. It’s apparently a human thing. Anyway – among other things, this fellow sees himself as ‘not a sinner’ because he feels that ‘sin’ requires an offense against a divine law and he cannot see why he should trust that the Bible (or any other holy book) contains an actual law communicated from God. From his point of view I think breaking human laws would qualify one to be a ‘criminal’ rather than a ‘sinner’. I understand this point – Jesus was convicted as a criminal but the Bible says and I believe – was not a sinner. I spoke to him of how the Bible describes the law of God written in our very being and so the man who knows right and wrong and does wrong is convicted by his own conscience as a sinner quite apart from his status as a criminal/non-criminal. I allowed that some call this ‘natural law’ rather than ‘divine law’ but it seems to me that the universal nature of basic moral precepts can’t be fit into a godless universe. He replied that, to the contrary, there are far too many disagreements and divisions to believe in a universal divine law as part of our creation. He cited disagreements among believers on matters like Sabbath observance and dietary matters (eat pork or not eat pork as a religious issue.)
While I understand what he is saying I think he’s missing a few key points.

1. The examples he cited were all from the ceremonial rather than moral side of the Mosaic covenant. These ceremonial regulations are specific to the covenant with the Jews and regard ceremonial purity for worship rather than morality. On moral precepts, there is nearly complete agreement over time and cultures that murder, theft, rape, etc. are wrong. The variations generally hang on definitions (in our setting distinguishing between murder and manslaughter, qualifiers like self-defense, and so forth). Jesus busted the Pharisees chops for (among other things) failing to make this distinction between the moral and ceremonial aspects of the law that did apply specifically to God’s covenant with them.
2. Any serious reading of either Testament makes it clear that the Mosaic Covenant was a temporary measure – a bandage on a gaping moral wound – because we had strayed so far from the law written in our being. As Jesus would have it – the whole of the law and the prophets is contained in two propositions – love God and love your fellow man. The more we cultivate the love of God in our hearts, the less we need a system of external rules.
3. Jesus, Paul and John and the whole of the New Testament make it clear that it has to be one or the other. You can’t have the covenant of grace and love AND the covenant of the law. We must choose. And if we choose the covenant of the law, we end up condemned by the law because as much as our conscience informs us that murder, theft, et al are wrong (even if we manage to dull our sense of guilt over doing such things we almost never dull our sense of outrage when they are done to us) we do them anyway and stand convicted!
4. Further, the law always divides us. As we are unable to keep it we become aggressors and victims, holders of grievances, plaintiffs and defendants, judges and judged – until ultimately we are all united as judged. This situation is complicated as we repeat and magnify mistakes like the one referenced above – turning ceremonial purity regulations into the same kind of civil and moral considerations as murder and theft, expanding laws meant for a specific context into separate contexts, etc.
5. But I have already made the main point – the law divides us until it unites us by condemning us all. Only the grace and love of God can bring us together on the other side of the divide. The point of my rambling is this. My online acquaintance sees the moral divisions among mankind as evidence against the message of the Bible. I see it as evidence for that same message – exactly what we should expect if the Bible is true. 

First, let me apologize for a few typos I failed to catch in my Daniel 11 post. The number oriented typos were probably easy enough to figure out – like saying to read 11:29-25.  Oops, make that 11:29-35. I also misspelled Seleucus as ‘Seleucuc’ at least once. The more important typo was at the end of the section on 11:7-9.  I wrote ‘Seleucus Callinicus contented himself…’ Obviously it should have read ‘Ptolemy III contented himself…’ Sorry about that.
All that said, Happy Labor Day! The holiday was created to honor the achievements and spirit of the American worker – and to give those workers a day off – with a parade! We often skip the parade these days. But the spirit of the American worker is still worth celebrating. We sometimes mistakenly think that paradise (Eden) was a long running opportunity to loaf. If we carefully read the early chapters of Genesis we understand that man was intended to tend and shape God’s creation. I believe the garden of Eden was a model for us to follow in transforming the wider ‘wild’ earth. The curse (our own fault) introduced more difficulties into our task but we always had a task. We used to understand this better. There is a reason the American culture was reckoned to be shaped by the ‘Protestant Work Ethic’. Even God’s insistence on a day of rest was for a DAY of rest which as I understand it had two purposes: 1. To institute a time for more careful meditation on God and His will. 2. To better prepare us for the next six days of work – for which a break not only made us stronger but which labors should be shaped by our meditations on God and His will. When we understand our labors as part of His will and a necessary and fulfilling part of our nature – things just go better.
I recognize, of course, how in the fallen world there will always be those who exploit – CRUELLY exploit – workers. I do not justify unsafe working conditions, slave or poverty wages, or requirements that turn a vocation into soul stealing spirit crushing drudgery. But such developments come from the sinful earthy side of things – not the heavenly godly side. I also do not justify – or even understand – calls for the twenty-hour work week or requiring ‘living wages’ to be attached to obviously part time efforts. This isn’t good for our spirits either. As to recent political efforts I have seen to pay criminals for – not breaking the law, or, paying people to protest – sorry, I just can’t seem to get there.
If anyone cares to try the old line about how a guy with a ‘cushy preaching gig’ couldn’t possibly understand about the real work world, I invite you to come spend a week working along side me. Then we’ll talk.
In the meantime – I hope you enjoy a nice break for Labor Day. Then, I hope you can come (if you don’t already) to see your capacity for work as a God given gift and your vocation as another way both to find fulfillment and give glory to our gracious creator.