How Did Paul Survive A Snakebite?

Tom:This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in the Book of Acts.We are actually in the last chapter, Dave; we’re beginning with Acts 28, verse 1:“And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Militia.And the barbarous people showed us no little kindness:for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand.And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm.”Dave, growing up in Southern Ohio, right behind our house we had a creek, which they would call a river out here, but across the river was a church of some kind.Now I wasn’t a Christian then, and these are like the hallelujah guys and they were into snake handling, this is what I’m getting at.And I used to watch them, I never got any closer than one side of the river or the other, but it was close enough that I could see what was going on some days, and this used to really freak me out.What about snake handling within some Christian circles, so called?

Dave:

Well, the Bible does say that He will take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it will not harm them, but I don’t think it’s telling you to do this as a ritual.Paul did not pick up the serpent to show off, it grabbed him and hung on.He shook it off into the fire and it came from some wood, some sticks that he had gathered.So this was not some kind of a demonstration.

Tom:

Although the Lord used it that way, didn’t he?

Dave:

Right, but the demonstration was in what happened in the next verse:“Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly:but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.Of course they didn’t know the true God.So something miraculous was going on here, but I never read in the Bible that any Christians ever picked up serpents just to show that the promise in the Bible was true.No, let me just read it from Mark:16:15And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
See All...:“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”Back to that debate, for a second if I can, Richard Dawkins says:Oh, there was nothing to indicate that Jesus ever said that the gospel should go out all over the world, Paul made that up, and so and so, he quotes, some authorities said Jesus would have turned over in His grave.Well, He’s not in his grave, but anyway, if he knew what Paul had done—wait a minute!Jesus said, Go into all the world.These guys do not know the Bible; they make all kinds of mistakes like that.But anyway, going on, Jesus says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.By the way, we are getting into something else here, but there’s not a verse in all the Bible that says if you’re not baptized you won’t get saved.You believe, and of course you get baptized after you believe and you’re saved, but it’s not through baptism, the Bible makes that clear.He that believeth not—it doesn’t say that he who isn’t baptized shall be damned, but “He that believeth not shall be damned.”“These signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.”It sounds like they’re speaking foreign languages they never learned.“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.”

Tom:

Dave, it doesn’t sound like a practice, or they are being taught to do this.It says it will happen, and it did happen to Paul.

Dave:

Of course he didn’t take it up.But anyway, apparently if there was some need to take up the serpent and throw it out, or whatever.But “if they drink and deadly thing” now I don’t think these people are practicing that, are they?

Tom:

I don’t remember, I remember them carrying the bodies away.Although many people have died from this, this snake handling.

Dave:

Oh, yeah, but these guys that are handling the snakes are hoping it won’t bite them.In this case Paul was not trying to handle the snake, it came out of the wood that he had gathered and it bit him, and pumped this poison into him and nothing happened.Also it said, “They drink any deadly thing it will not hurt them” and so forth.Well, it impressed these people on the island, and they’re now like the men on the ship, ready to believe whatever Paul says.The next verse Acts:28:7In the same quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously.
See All..., the chief man of the island—

Tom:

Dave, before you go there—“But after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.Dave, it’s amazing how men react.Anyway, Verse 7:“In the same quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously.And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux:to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came and were healed:Who also honored us with many honors: and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary.”

Dave:

Well, there’s a lot of gratitude here, Tom, of course.They don’t yet know the true God, and we don’t know what Paul—I’m sure he preached the gospel to them, he must have explained, but it doesn’t give us those details.But these people are just loading them down with gifts because of their gratitude, and then they send them on their way.Well, it’s going to take a little while to get another ship, and so forth.

Tom:

Verse 11:“And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux.”Now Dave, this is an interesting event here, because some people would say they can’t go aboard that ship, it has gods on the bowsprit, you know, god Castor and god Pollux, and so on.It didn’t seem to put Paul off.

Dave:

No, he’s not concerned for these fake gods; they have no power, either to bless or to harm.

Tom:

But Dave, some deliverance ministries would say hey wait, we have to go aboard and we have to deliver this ship from—

Dave:

Right, it’s not biblical.

Tom:

No, but it’s also another form of the mysticism, the occultism that we talked about earlier, that somehow there are powers in these elements themselves.

Dave:

Attached to physical objects, they must be cast out. That’s not biblical, but I have known some people who really felt they had to do that.They wouldn’t walk into—every time they came back to their house, after being gone even for a few hours, and they plead the blood and they’ve got to cast the demons out.You remember the revival in Brownsville Assembly of God there in Pensacola, Florida….The deliverers—before anyone came in—they would walk through there and deliver every chair from demons.Amazing that demons would hang out in a place like that, and they had to be cast out over and over.It simply isn’t biblical, and we don’t find Paul doing anything like that.

Tom:

Because it plays right into Satan’s hands, and if he can divert, if he can confuse, delude Christians, then how fruitful can they be?They can’t be.

Dave:

Absolutely.