Re: Any Christian care to prove the authority of the bible?
by
predicto
07/15/2008, 12:08 AM #
Who are the "they" of that context would be nice to study. If I find out that it means me, I will do it IF it will convince anyone.
Furthermore, you might find that that pasage didn't exist in Scripture until the 8th century. It could be one of those Apostate 'add ons' like the Appocrypha that the Protestant translators didn't expunge. So now they annotate it as a late comming passage.
Now, just because one dude got bitten when others didn't should indicate that maybe the fault lies with the dude and not the others "called" to snake handle.
And furthermore, we find that Paul was bitten by a viper and it never hurt him. It bit him while he was picking wood for the fire. People like Paul, then are obviously part of the "they".
Furthermore, when the Devil tempted Jesus to throw Himself from a cliff by quoting Scripture that God would command His angels to protect him so he wouldn't even dash a foot against a stone, Jesus didn't argue, but He quoted Scripture back to him, "You will not tempt the Lord Your God." In this passage we have evidence of Christs Sonship with God and Jesus commanding the Devil as God in case anyone is interested in a scripture where Jesus is directly claiming to be God.
I don't think this passage means a Christian is supposed to poison himself publicly all the time or even handle snakes deliberately, but that Paul would simoply shake the serpent off into the fire.
As an aside, but on the subject. Early in my citical time of being open yto witness before I fully believed like God has brought me to belive, I met up with this hard core Canadian hard Rock Miner. Now these are the toughest breed of men in Canada. The guy was little but you could sense his dynamite. He was full blown gonzo ont he The Lord and I was giving him some trouble like I liked to do to anyone committd to God, probably hoping they'd have that magic Word that would do it for me. While taling to jim out n the farmyard, my eye caught a black dot in the distance against the whitish sky. It came closer and closer and in a meandering way showed itself as a Big Wasp, Yellow and Black, and it landed on the guy's neck and sunk in the stinger. My eyes were sharp and I moved to brush the bee off. The guy spun away. I told him about the bee, he brushed it off and he went onwitnessing. I said, man, you had better get some help, your neck will swell up. The bees up here had been mixing it up with those aggressive bees and their venom would swell up a knee like you wouldn't believe. "It won't bothere me at all" he said (Now this was aBilly Graham guy not a Name and Claim it guy). I knew better, but it didn't bother him at all. A little white spot manifested and we pulled out the stinger, but his neck never even got red or swelled up. I promptly looked into the sky and said, "Okay. Okay. Don't hurt him for my sake." The kid's neck never even gave him a moment's concern. I stopped harrassing and began asking sincere questions which he couldn't answer so he gave me his NT & Psalms that he'd gotten from Billy.
Well, a couple days later I was broke and had to go to PT to keep my disability pay coming. I had enough gas for a one-way trip, probably. I had been reading the booklet Paul had given me most of the night as I couldn't sleep because of the pain, anyway. So, the sky was overcast and the sun was stillin the est and our white, metal garage door faced north. My car was parked in front of it. I was in pain and worried about all kinds of things when, at my car driver door, as a joke to myself, I quoted, "The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want."
Immediately the big white door glowed in white bright sunlight and then faded away. I chuckled at the coincidence of the hole in the clouds, only later realizing the sun doesn't hit the doorway from the north (interestingly, from where in Canada the man had met billy Graham at his Vancouve Crusade - heavy, huh) even in the summer after 9 AM or so. On my way to the appointment a little old lady Bible Sunday School Teacher ran a stop sign and bashed by beater Olds and got me 2,500 bucks cash and I could still drive the car! Set my neck injury back a bit, but heck, the pain kept me awake at night reading the Bible.
Dd
