Insufficient faith or stupidity?

[billwald]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...5/31/gJQA3fRP5U_story.html?wpisrc=nl_most_Fri

I'll vote for stupidity. I have no sympathy for people who intentionally and voluntarily go into harm's way.

 

[matt wade]

We agree for once billwald. He was an idiot.

 

[Scarlett O.]

I won't go so far as to call it stupidity because this didn't make me angry - it made me sad. I'll call it grotesque ignorance of the Biblical teachings of faith. Faith is in Jesus Christ, alone, - not in a rattlesnake.

This proves concretely that one can "know" the Bible and have portions of it memorized and have man-made doctrines based on isolated passages and STILL know NOTHING about what God is trying to say through His Word.

We should all plead with God that WE do not have any such ignorance in our own "knowledge" of the Bible. And if we do - for Him to reveal it to us and deliver us from it.

This is just tragic.

One family member said, "His faith took him home." I want to just meet and shake the ignorance out of her and tell her that it was the snake venom and poison that sent him to his death.

His faith was not in God. It was in his foolish and unfruitful works.

 

[Jon-Marc]

The act of snake handling is not faith but foolishness, and we were never commanded to do such a foolish thing. The words of Jesus have been taken out of context when He told the disciples that if they handled any deadly snake that they wouldn't be harmed. That was because of the possibility of them coming across them in the wilderness as they traveled and preached the gospel.

Taking that to mean that we can handle deadly snakes and not be bitten is foolishness and not faith. Deliberately handling deadly snakes to prove one's faith is tempting God, and that preacher found the consequences of tempting God. Of course, others in his church will say he lacked faith.

 

[Fred's Wife]

The act of snake handling is not faith but foolishness, and we were never commanded to do such a foolish thing. The words of Jesus have been taken out of context when He told the disciples that if they handled any deadly snake that they wouldn't be harmed. That was because of the possibility of them coming across them in the wilderness as they traveled and preached the gospel.

Taking that to mean that we can handle deadly snakes and not be bitten is foolishness and not faith. Deliberately handling deadly snakes to prove one's faith is tempting God, and that preacher found the consequences of tempting God. Of course, others in his church will say he lacked faith.

I agree...it was foolishness. The command to "take up serpents" and all the things listed in Mark 16:17-18 were never given to the church. They were given to the Apostles to confirm their authority. You would have thought that this man would have known better since he saw his own father die of a rattlesnake bite (while taking up serpents) 30 years ago. This is definitely not faith and definitely "testing" God.

 

[Jon-Marc]

Paul was bitten by a poisonous snake and wasn't affected by it after being shipwrecked. The other prisoners then thought he was a god. I don't believe the disciples were ever COMMANDED to handle snakes, but they were told that they wouldn't be harmed by them if they did handle them.