Have you ever been to a Snake Handelling Pentecostal Church?

[JEREMY O'ROURKE]

I have seen some people on TV who were claiming to be Pentecostals and would play with snakes during the services. I have also had a friend that has been to them. To me this sounds like a cult or a group that is really far out there some where. I was just curious as if any one on this forum goes to one or has ever been to one. I have been in the Pentecostal Church for all my life and have never expirienced anything like this. If I were to walk into a Church like that some time I am afraid I would make them a new door where there was not one before.

 

[CanD]

Hi Jeremy,
We don't have or allow snakes here so I don't think there's any chance of me getting along to see a show like this (not here anyway).

God gave us common sense. Common sense tells me that if you handle poisonous snakes too often, you're going to get bitten. I cannot speak for God, but I would think that He wouldn't condone this kind of 'play and display'. It has no biblical foundations. Sure, the Bible says we can tread on snakes and scorpions but this isn't exactly treading on them is it?

My uncle is a wild life ranger in Australia. He's trained to handle snakes and deal with Crocodiles. Has he been bitten by both? Of course he has. Why would anyone be any different if they're exposed to them frequently?

I think you're right too. I think it is a cult, or at least it's a cult practice. It's used as a test/show of faith, but our faith is tested in many different areas of our life. Do we really need to test it some more?

 

[Hands&Feet]

God can protect someone from getting involved with drugs, but He can't stop them from getting addicted if they choose to play with them. Same principle.

 

[Lee]

God can protect someone from getting involved with drugs, but He can't stop them from getting addicted if they choose to play with them. Same principle.

That is true. We should not seek death or trouble. It is good for us to encounter trouble and ask for divine help.

But I would like to see a church that is a snake handler.

(Not all Pentecostals are into that stuff.)

 

[Jenndiggy]

Its the rare church that is. If you want to read more about this, Foxfire book 7 has some on it. Quite interstring.

There's a church about an hour from here that handles snakes. A friend of mine has been to it, but I never have. I'd kind of like to go to observe, but not participate.

Usually the churches that do this are in Appalachia (WV, TN, GA, KY) and are really small and back in the hills. I think it may even be illegal in some states but I'm not sure.

 

[CanD]

It would seem odd that the church would deliberately put their congregation at risk. As far as I'm aware, no churches deliberately seek to harm someone so they can say they won't die...I mean essentially this is what they're setting out to do - correct?

 

[Bruce S]

Use Garter snakes. They are sort of cute in a reptillian sort of way.

And you can take them home with you afterwards, the kids love to have them to eat the mice that come into the house in the winter.

Grin.

PS: The section of the Bible, dealing with snakes and poisions, is CLEARLY marked as being NOT in earliest manuscripts we have. Mark 16 on is questionable.

Mark 16 :: New International Version (NIV)


Mark 16



((The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.))

15He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. 16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

 

[Follower of Christ too]

I have seen some people on TV who were claiming to be Pentecostals and would play with snakes during the services. I have also had a friend that has been to them. To me this sounds like a cult or a group that is really far out there some where. I was just curious as if any one on this forum goes to one or has ever been to one. I have been in the Pentecostal Church for all my life and have never expirienced anything like this. If I were to walk into a Church like that some time I am afraid I would make them a new door where there was not one before.

I have visited a Jesus Only church. I wasn't aware of the rattlers until the service had started. I also observed them handling fire. I know they believe they are comanded to do this......... I was offered the torch, but I declined! Not to say God isn't capable, but I felt that it wasn't needful for me to put myself in a position of danger. To me it would have been like tempting God....

 

[SpiritPsalmist]

I have seen some people on TV who were claiming to be Pentecostals and would play with snakes during the services. I have also had a friend that has been to them. To me this sounds like a cult or a group that is really far out there some where. I was just curious as if any one on this forum goes to one or has ever been to one. I have been in the Pentecostal Church for all my life and have never expirienced anything like this. If I were to walk into a Church like that some time I am afraid I would make them a new door where there was not one before.

I've heard of them but I personally have never been and plan to never go.

 

[IslandBreeze]

I visited one of those churches as a child. My dad ended up taking my sister and I outside. It was pretty freaky.

 

[TheScottsMen]

Haha. I'm getting a kick out of this thread. Reminds me of my wife. When I met her (She is from Brazil, Rio De Janeiro) and I told her I was Pentecostal/WOF she just about freaked out on me. Hah. I learned why after I went to Brazil for 3 months. Just about every Pentecostal Church I attended (none huge) hand some sort of snake handlers or other forms of "testing" God. Of course I explained to her why this was not biblical.

Mar 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them..

Now the principal of this was showed when Paul was bitten by the snake. But Paul wasn't jumping around trying to find snakes to pick up on the Island but bitten by accident, shook it off and went on his way.

Funny thing is, I have been to many churches where they handle tongues, but I never see them drinking poison

 

[Jenndiggy]

There are some churches that do drink poison.

I live in a small town in WV. A friend came home with me one weekend in college, and I casually said on the way to church Sunday morning "Which Sunday is this -- the third or the fourth?" He said it was the third, and I said, "Oh, good. This is the Sunday we get out the snakes." He fell for it, too! I was laughing so hard and he didn't find it funny.

 

[Follower of Christ too]

Haha. I'm getting a kick out of this thread. Reminds me of my wife. When I met her (She is from Brazil, Rio De Janeiro) and I told her I was Pentecostal/WOF she just about freaked out on me. Hah. I learned why after I went to Brazil for 3 months. Just about every Pentecostal Church I attended (none huge) hand some sort of snake handlers or other forms of "testing" God. Of course I explained to her why this was not biblical.

Mar 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them..

Now the principal of this was showed when Paul was bitten by the snake. But Paul wasn't jumping around trying to find snakes to pick up on the Island but bitten by accident, shook it off and went on his way.

Funny thing is, I have been to many churches where they handle tongues, but I never see them drinking poison

This church I visited they did also drink poison. I went with my friends who believed this to be the true way...I was told some had died when being bit and when they drank poison. My friends didn't find this unusual as they said people have died while fasting

 

[BarbB]

When I lived in Virginia, the Washington Post about once a year would do a feature article on a congregation in WV which handled snakes. It sounded sympathetic, but of course was just another way to say "look at those stupid hillbillies". Also, a pretty good documentary on PBS (yeah, I know ) on the same congregation, was very sympathetic. The result - I have a lot of compassion for those people and admire their faith in God.

Would I handle a snake - NO! Not even one of Bruce's garter snakes!

 

[BarbB]

Haha. I'm getting a kick out of this thread. Reminds me of my wife. When I met her (She is from Brazil, Rio De Janeiro) and I told her I was Pentecostal/WOF she just about freaked out on me. Hah. I learned why after I went to Brazil for 3 months. Just about every Pentecostal Church I attended (none huge) hand some sort of snake handlers or other forms of "testing" God.

What kind of snakes do they handle in Brazil - anacondas?

 

[hal]

Mark 16:15-20 is the proof text for our teaching on how to heal the sick. [see our websire]
Therefore it is necessary for us to have some explanation of verse 18.
We refer to the case where Paul was bitten by a poisonous snake on the island of Malta and he shook it in the in the fire without harm and it led to the natives being converted.
In the case of drinking poison there are testimonies [see "Like a Mighty Wind, Mel Torry" (sp)] where missionries have gone to primitative tribes to minister and were given something containing poison to drink. When nothing happened to them it became a testimony that led to conversion.
Some question the reliability of this Scripture but the rest of it can also be established by experience.

 

[look]

PS: The section of the Bible, dealing with snakes and poisions, is CLEARLY marked as being NOT in earliest manuscripts we have. Mark 16 on is questionable.

Bruce, I don't intend to start an arguement here, but this statement is in error. The NIV, NASB, The Modern-day Greek New Testament and 99% of today's translations are in error.

I Read your post the day before and I knew I had to say something...Well, I think this article explains this issue in a general way. I have no problem checking out other translations to get another angle in my viewpoint, however, I have found that the Holy Spirit generally directs me to use the KJV with the AMP as my secondary translation. There is nothing wrong (to a point) with reading other translations, but relying on what someone says is or is not in the original autographs will get you in trouble. Why? You shut out the Holy Spirit and open the door for other voices to speak to you. They will "tickle your ears" for you to get you to look away from the Truth. Anyway, here is the article;

There has been much controversy over the final 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark. Behind this dispute lies some astonishing discoveries of profound significance.

The oldest existing manuscripts of the Greek New Testament text are three that had their origins in Alexandria in the 4th and 5th centuries.1 Since they are the oldest (in our present possession), many regard them as having an eclipsing authority. There are a number of passages that do not appear in these Alexandrian manuscripts, and therein lies an intense ecclesiastical debate.

Textus Receptus

At the end of the 3rd century, Lucian of Antioch compiled a Greek text that achieved considerable popularity and became the dominant text throughout Christendom. It was produced prior to the Diocletain persecution (~303), during which many copies of the New Testament were confiscated and destroyed.

After Constantine came to power, the Lucian text was propagated by bishops going out from the Antiochan school throughout the eastern world, and it soon became the standard text of the Eastern church, forming the basis of the Byzantine text.

From the 6th to the 14th century, the great majority of New Testament manuscripts were produced in Byzantium, in Greek. It was in 1525 that Erasmus, using five or six Byzantine manuscripts dating from the 10th to the 13th centuries, compiled the first Greek text to be produced on a printing press, subsequently known as Textus Receptus ("Received Text").

The translators of the King James Version had over 5,000 manuscripts available to them, but they leaned most heavily on the major Byzantine manuscripts, particularly Textus Receptus.

Textus Receptus Dethroned

Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort were Anglican churchmen who had contempt for the Textus Receptus and began a work in 1853 that resulted, after 28 years, in a Greek New Testament based on the earlier Alexandrian manuscripts.

Both men were strongly influenced by Origen and others who denied the deity of Jesus Christ and embraced the prevalent Gnostic heresies of the period. There are over 3,000 contradictions in the four gospels alone between these manuscripts. They deviated from the traditional Greek text in 8,413 places.

They conspired to influence the committee that produced The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881 revision), and, thus, their work has been a major influence in most modern translations, dethroning the Textus Receptus.

Detractors of the traditional King James Version regard the Westcott and Hort as a more academically acceptable literary source for guidance than the venerated Textus Receptus. They argue that the disputed passages were added later as scribal errors or amendments.

Defenders of the Textus Receptus attack Westcott and Hort (and the Alexandrian manuscripts) as having expurgated these many passages, noting that these disputed passages underscore the deity of Christ, His atonement, His resurrection, and other key doctrines. They note that Alexandria was a major headquarters for the Gnostics, heretical sects that had begun to emerge even while John was still alive.(2)

(It is also evident that Westcott and Hort were not believers and opposed taking the Bible literally concerning the Atonement, Salvation, etc. If you read their personal writings you wouldn't dream of letting them lead your Sunday School class!)

The Last 12 Verses of Mark

Among the disputed passages are the final verses of the Gospel of Mark (16:9-20). (Look in your own Bible: you are likely to find an annotation that these were "added later.")

The insistence that Mark's Gospel ends at 16:8 leaves the women afraid and fails to record the resurrection, Christ's final instructions, and the Ascension. It is understandable why these verses are an embarrassment to the Gnostics, and why Westcott and Hort would advocate their exclusion, and insist that they were "added later."

However, it seems that Irenaeus in 150 A.D., and also Hypolytus in the 2nd century, each quote from these disputed verses, so the documentary evidence is that they were deleted later in the Alexandrian texts, not added subsequently.

http://khouse.org/articles/biblestudy/20000201-201.html#resources
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FOOTNOTES:
(2)-# 1 John 1:1, 4:2,3; et al.
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Bruce S, if you want to discuss the merits of today's Bible, fell free to start another thread.

 

[Jenndiggy]

New Lamb -- let me guess -- Jollo. Its the most famous in our state.

 

[Andrew]

PS: The section of the Bible, dealing with snakes and poisions, is CLEARLY marked as being NOT in earliest manuscripts we have. Mark 16 on is questionable.

So I guess God or the Holy Spirit made a big boo boo when compiling the Bible for billions of Christians to read down thru the past decades.

 

[hal]

I have had this thought. The fact that a few of the oldest manuscripts are withough part of Mark is that they exixt because they were damaged and laid aside. Being a scroll, the end would have been on the outside which is where the damage would most likely ocurr. It seems to me that the reason there are so many questions about this is because what it says has not been experienced. Even allowing it was added later, it must have been the experience of whoever added it.
I just inquired of the Holy Spirit and my impression is that it was in the original.
In any case, I just speak in tongues, cast out demons, lay hands on the sick and see them recover. As to snakes and poison, I have never needed either.