Snake Handling Churches

[BrotherTony]

I have many relatives who are AoG/Pentecostal, including my birth father, who at one time was an AoG evangelist. Most of his side of the family are Pentecostal, as are some of my mothers cousins. I probably won't be going to any more Pentecostal or AoG services...as Happy Christian posted, I've had enough of these for a lifetime, including the ones that had the snake handlers. Just a side note: two of the churches I attended DID practice taking in poision, but after checking into it, the amount was so small, it wouldn't have had any major affect on the persons system.

[Disciple.Luke]

I have a question that I'd love to hear some of you opine on. 

So the snake handling part of their services have been made illegal in every state except West Virginia I believe. From the snake handlers view they believe they have right to practice their religion as they are fit, and even where it's illegal they do it anyway believing it's better to obey "God rather than men". On the flip side the authorities make the argument that it's not about religious rights but as a crime to have poisonous snakes without the proper permits or security standards of how they are caged.

I don't believe snake handling in church is biblical, but I do understand how someone could read verses in Mark and convince themselves they are obeying God.

If a Jehovah's witness has a protected religious right to refuse blood transfusions for themselves and children in life threatening situations then I don't see how that is much different than grown adults handling snakes at their own risk?

Is snake handling religious freedom or a crime?

[Pastor Matt]

On 1/20/2022 at 1:25 PM, Disciple.Luke said:

I have a question that I'd love to hear some of you opine on. 

So the snake handling part of their services have been made illegal in every state except West Virginia I believe. From the snake handlers view they believe they have right to practice their religion as they are fit, and even where it's illegal they do it anyway believing it's better to obey "God rather than men". On the flip side the authorities make the argument that it's not about religious rights but as a crime to have poisonous snakes without the proper permits or security standards of how they are caged.

You bring up a valid question. Even though I believe that snake handling is unbiblical, I do believe they have the right to practice their religion. If a government takes away their right to practice religion, what is stopping them from taking away some of mine as they see fit? 

[Razor]

On 1/21/2022 at 8:03 PM, PastorMatt said:

You bring up a valid question. Even though I believe that snake handling is unbiblical, I do believe they have the right to practice their religion. If a government takes away their right to practice religion, what is stopping them from taking away some of mine as they see fit? 

You point is a valid one. The only difference I see is that I am sure you do not have a practice in your ministry that puts either your life or others lives in danger.

[Jerry]

On 1/17/2022 at 6:33 AM, Razor said:

There are scholars who say the last verses of Mark were on in the original texts, but added later. Each person has to decided what they believe. 

This is an unbelieving statement. This passage is part of the Word of God. We need to study out the context to determine whether it applies to us today, not explain it away.

By the way, it does not apply to us but was applicable to Jesus and His 12 apostles as they gave the Word of God and started new churches, as shown in the book of Acts.

[Jerry]

On 1/19/2022 at 11:08 PM, Mark C said:

I do wonder whether handling snakes in such a way crosses the boundary into tempting and testing God?

Yes - the same way Jesus throwing Himself down from the top of the temple would have been tempting God (by presuming God has to protect us when we take His Word out of context).

[Razor]

8 minutes ago, Jerry said:

This is an unbelieving statement. This passage is part of the Word of God. We need to study out the context to determine whether it applies to us today, not explain it away.

By the way, it does not apply to us but was applicable to Jesus and His 12 apostles as they gave the Word of God and started new churches, as shown in the book of Acts.

I simply said "Some scholars.............." 

I am not a scholar in that I cannot read Greek, ancient or modern. I am not an expert on ancient manuscripts. I can only report on what I find in research. Here is an example:

Evidence For Mark 16:9–20

Evidence for including these verses is staggering. When we look at the manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel that survive today, more than 99 percent contain Mark 16:9–20. This includes not only 1,600-plus Greek manuscripts, but most manuscripts of early translations of Mark as well.

Moreover, by around AD 180, Irenaeus unambiguously quoted Mark 16:19 as Scripture in Against Heresies (3.10.6). Justin Martyr and Tatian likely knew the verses earlier in the second century as well. Undeniably, Mark 16:9–20 was considered by many Christians early on to be a part of Mark’s Gospel.

In light of all the evidence in support of Mark 16:9–20, why would anyone question its authenticity?

Evidence Against Mark 16:9–20

There are effectively just two Greek manuscripts that lack Mark 16:9–20. These are codices Sinaiticus (ℵ01) and Vaticanus (B03), two important manuscripts from the fourth century. It’s almost unimaginable that the copyists who made them were unaware of Mark 16:9–20, but at the end of the day, they left it out of their Bibles.

Once we look beyond the question of ℵ01 and B03 against the other 1,600-plus Greek manuscripts of Mark, the picture becomes more complicated. At least 23 Greek manuscripts that include Mark 16:9–20 also have anomalies like extra endings or notes that express doubts concerning the authenticity of these verses. One important fourth-century Old Latin manuscript has a short addition after verse 8 and then ends without verses 9 to 20. A valuable Old Syriac manuscript from the fourth century also ends Mark at 16:8. A Sahidic Coptic manuscript (probably from the fifth century) ends Mark’s Gospel at 16:8 as well. In 1937, E. C. Colwell identified 99 Armenian manuscripts of Mark (of 220 surveyed) ending at 16:8, and a further 33 containing 16:9–20 but with notes expressing doubt about the verses’ authenticity.

Further, though more than 99 percent of manuscripts available to us now contain Mark 16:9–20, it may not always have been this way. A Christian named Marinus wrote to Eusebius (c. AD 265–339) to ask for help resolving a perceived contradiction between Matthew and Mark. Marinus asked why Matthew (28:1) says Jesus appeared “late on the Sabbath,” but Mark (16:9) says Jesus appeared “early on the first day of the week.” Eusebius responded that one possible solution to this problem was simply to reject Mark 16:9 as not part of Mark’s Gospel. “[T]he accurate ones of the copies define the end of the history according to Mark [at 16:8] . . . in this way the ending of the Gospel according to Mark is defined in nearly all the copies.”

Think about that. Eusebius told a Christian whose Bible contained Mark 16:9–20 that “nearly all the copies” of Mark, including “the accurate ones” lacked these verses, so they might not be inspired Scripture. And Eusebius didn’t have a problem saying that! This was just life as a Christian in an age when copies of infallible Scripture were made by fallible hands. This was pastoral textual criticism, not some empty academic exercise.

Eusebius’s work was repeated both by Jerome (c. AD 347–419) and also Severus of Antioch (c. AD 465–534). Even though Jerome and Severus were clearly drawing from Eusebius’s work, nothing in their experience with manuscripts prevented them from repeating Eusebius’s claims that the majority of manuscripts (Jerome), or at least the most accurate ones (Jerome and Severus), lacked those verses. Independent of Eusebius, fifth-century father Hesychius of Jerusalem affirmed that “the more accurate copies” of Mark ended at 16:8 as well.

Scribes: More Likely to Add or Omit These Verses?

In the copying process, omissions were more likely than additions, but omissions are often short, often accidental, and there are many qualifications to this tendency. One such qualification is that material could be added when the change involved a harmonization to a parallel passage. In a broad sense, Mark 16:9–20 does just that; it takes the lone Gospel that lacks a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus and makes it like the other three.

More than that, we know that at least once, someone added Mark 16:9–20 to a text that lacked it. The compiler of a commentary from the 500s, attributed to Victor of Antioch, admitted that most copies he knew of didn’t contain Mark 16:9–20. However, in his opinion (unlike Eusebius), the “more carefully edited” ones did contain these verses, and as a result, he added 16:9–20 to his Gospel. Here is a place where one Christian didn’t accept the text he received—he added to it something he thought missing.

In short, it’s hard to explain why Mark 16:9–20 would ever be removed. Yet we find it missing in early manuscripts in multiple languages and absent in the majority of Greek manuscripts according to Eusebius, whose remarks were repeated by Jerome. It’s much easier to explain why 16:9–20 would be added to the only Gospel that seems like it’s missing something, which is precisely what the compiler of one sixth-century commentary did. Without 16:9–20, there’s an empty tomb, but where is Jesus? It seems to me the women leaving the tomb weren’t the only ones afraid to be left hanging.

Trusting God in the Face of Uncertainty

Because Mark 16:9–20 is undeniably early, is present in 99 percent of manuscripts, and has traditionally been considered canonical, I recommend keeping it in the text.

But it’s probably not from Mark.

Some have suggested that the verses might be apostolic, but not from Mark himself. The best solution in my judgment is that of Ephraim: include the verses, but with a word of caution explaining they may not be original. That keeps us honest about ancient Christians whose Bibles ended Mark at 16:8.

The verses are undeniably early and have been considered part of Scripture throughout the church since at least the second century. Still, a German monk banging on a Wittenberg door in 1517 might remind us that tradition isn’t always correct. The same group of Greek-speaking Christians who accepted Mark 16:9–20 as canon also accepted Psalm 151 as a canonical part of the Psalter, but I don’t know of any Protestants suggesting we should add that to our Bibles.

In his providence, God allowed many Christians to have copies of Mark that ended at 16:8. Not many of them have survived, but as far as we can tell, they were real Bibles used by real Christians in real churches where Christ was worshiped. If God’s promise to preserve his Word means he’ll make all of it available to us, and if that promise extends to Mark 16:9–20, did God fail these believers? May it never be! These Christians understood that God gave us the treasure of his gospel in jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7), and part of that stewardship included making sense of divergent copies of Scripture. They trusted God to give them everything they needed—just as we should—even when his whole purposes remained unseen.

Mark 16:9–20 wouldn’t be the only account of Jesus’s bodily resurrection in Scripture, nor would it even be the earliest (Paul probably wrote 1 Cor. 15 in the mid-50s). Luke includes Jesus’s ascension in Luke and Acts. Even snake-handlers have nothing to lose if Mark ends at 16:8, because they could still interpret Paul’s encounter with the viper at Acts 28:3 as normative. (Not that they should!)

Uncertainty here makes us uncomfortable, but we lose nothing of our faith if Mark ends at 16:8, and God often calls us to trust him in the face of uncertainty. Without faith it’s impossible to please him, after all. Since faith is the assurance of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1), and seen hope is not real hope (Rom. 8:24), it wouldn’t be walking by faith if God answered all of our questions. That would be walking by sight. With or without Mark 16:9–20, the tomb is empty, Jesus has purchased our pardon, and we can be certain of that.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/was-mark-16-9-20-originally-mark-gospel/

[Jerry]

You don't need critical evidence for or against those verses - there is either the Holy Spirit in you testifying it is the Word of God or you are missing the boat. Also, the context shows that it is part of the passage/part of the Gospel of Mark. God would not leave the believers in fear and in doubt of the resurrection.

[Pastor Matt]

1 hour ago, Razor said:

You point is a valid one. The only difference I see is that I am sure you do not have a practice in your ministry that puts either your life or others lives in danger.

The issue I see with that is who is the one that decides what puts peoples life in danger? In Ct here, properly spanking children is seen as putting kids in danger.

[Disciple.Luke]

On 1/23/2022 at 3:51 PM, PastorMatt said:

The issue I see with that is who is the one that decides what puts peoples life in danger? In Ct here, properly spanking children is seen as putting kids in danger.

I believe they have every right to worship how they believe - under the conditions that the act is done by consenting adults who can mentally comprehend the danger, and they aren't teaching that Salvation is jeopardized by not participating. 

 

This whole belief system is a result misinterpreting scripture. This movement started out of the false beliefs of Pentecostalism and just became more distorted. I have heard several people interviewed from these churches and the common belief seems to be how they follow the "ENTIRE" bible and don't pick and choose what to believe. When they make that statement it is direct reference to Pentecostals who speak in tongues and the other "Signs" but avoid the serpent handling comment in Mark.

 

Error begets error and in this case the Pentecostal - Holiness bible interpretation has evolved into a deadly misunderstanding of the bible. My criticism to these churches would be to caution them about holding a belief based on a single verse and not reading it in context of the entire Bible like they insist they are doing.

[Jerry]

2 hours ago, Disciple.Luke said:

I believe they have every right to worship how they believe - under the conditions that the act is done by consenting adults who can mentally comprehend the danger, and they aren't teaching that Salvation is jeopardized by not participating. 

Not according to the Bible. The New Testament gives churches instructions on what they are to believe and how they are to conduct themselves. This activity/belief/practice twists the Word of God, places people in danger, and gives the lost reasons to speak against the Lord and His Word.

A church having autonomy means no other church has authority over them - it does not mean they have complete freedom to make things up as they go along. Other believers and churches have the right and responsibility to expose them and warn against what they are doing.

[Disciple.Luke]

40 minutes ago, Jerry said:

Not according to the Bible. The New Testament gives churches instructions on what they are to believe and how they are to conduct themselves. This activity/belief/practice twists the Word of God, places people in danger, and gives the lost reasons to speak against the Lord and His Word.

A church having autonomy means no other church has authority over them - it does not mean they have complete freedom to make things up as they go along. Other believers and churches have the right and responsibility to expose them and warn against what they are doing.

I'm not in disagreement with you. In both posts I stated that their worship and beliefs are unbiblical.

My opinion is only in reference to the right to worship in the United States of America.

[BrotherTony]

4 hours ago, Disciple.Luke said:

I'm not in disagreement with you. In both posts I stated that their worship and beliefs are unbiblical.

My opinion is only in reference to the right to worship in the United States of America.

Agreed. As long as their "worship" doesn't violate the Constitution of this country, they have the right to worship as they see fit.