For at least forty-five of my years on earth, I have lived a fairly short distance away from churches where the faithful show their "faith" by handling snakes in church. According to their wrong interpretation of the last chapter of Mark, they believe that if their trust is truly in the Lord, and their heart is right, that they will be unharmed by the venomous creatures. In college several of "the boys" planned to attend such a service with a professor, of world religions. We were snowed out and never got to see the serpents in church, though I can tell you by experience that "the serpent" is frequently active there.
I t is interesting that my first experience of seeing snake-handling in church was thousands of miles away from Appalachia and in a congregation of a very conservative--some would say staid--fellowship of churches.
As I said, I'm leaving Kathy's name out of this, but if I did mention her name, she would want me to point out that it's not what it sounds like.
The Island of Guam has been afflicted with an invasive species of snake. The Brown Tree Snake has decimated the bird population and caused other grief in the far-west US territory. A group of teens was using a talent show to help raise funds for an upcoming mission trip. A young man who works for the United States Department of Agriculture is in Guam to help deal with the snake-problem. So his "talent" is handling snakes.
In this case, having a snake in church actually made sense. Genesis1:28 indicates dealing with snakes that are out of hand--though on this occasion they were in someone's hand.
OK, I've had enough fun with this, so let me finish with a serious word. God's people ought to be good citizens of the world. We should do our best to take care of the place where the Lord lets us live.It's STTA (Something To Think About).
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