Half-Life

There is a verse in the Bible that says believers will be able to drink deadly poison without it harming them.

I talked with a few Christians on this one and they all told me that you are not supposed to drink poison on purpose because that is tempting the Lord to save you, which Jesus said not to tempt.

Now, if you were to accidentally swallow poison or an enemy gave you poison by forcing it down your throat, then God will not let it harm you. They then pointed me to the verse where Paul was bit by a snake, but he remained alive. He didn't taunt the snake to bite him, which would be tempting. He just got bit and God didn't allow the venom to harm him.

Does this response make any sense to you guys or does it seem like more smoke and mirrors to avoid what Jesus actually said?

mrunicycler

It's more of the same obfuscations and apologetics.

There is plenty of evidence showing believers not tempting their god but ending up suffering tremendous torment.

Hell, use their own book against them and just ask them about Job. What did he do to tempt 'his lord'? Here he is living his life, being as good a guy as he can, and being the epitome of a worshiper, and what does god do? He allows the poor man's family to be killed, etc, by Satan, just so the two can play out their little wager.

EmpiricalGod

the apologetics i've heard was that it only applied to the apostles at the time, ei the first generation..

I should really ask how they know that. remember you can't add to the bible.

PyramidHead

Please provide evidence of one example where a Christian has been poisoned by an enemy and not been harmed by it. The Nobel Prize committee is eagerly waiting to hear about this thusfar unknown principle of toxic chemistry.

TheRealityOfMan

I was in a rather extreme church which had a very strong interpretation of the 16th chapter of Mark. We paid particular attention to the part where it says "they shall speak in other tongues" ie. you're not saved unless you speak in tongues (we were less concerned with some of the other signs of the believer such as casting out devils. As for immunity from deadly drinks... well we assumed this was true as well after all none of us had died had we? There were hearsays about believers surviving having their tea spiked.

At other times we were often a little more shakey than at first we appeared. Lots of our members were actually very cautious about using water from the mains because they said they didn't trust Thames Water (actually pretty good quality water). Also I doubt if I'd have turned up drunk for a meeting they would have accepted my excuse that I assumed the poisonous alcohol would not intoxicate me.

After a while I noticed that some people were offering an alternative interpretation ... that "drinking" refered to taking in doctrines - so all true believers will not be corrupted by deadly doctrines. They would say this is the original conveyance in the Greek and all that despite having no scholarly qualifications at all.

Anyway... I left.

JLK

Unless you lived before Constantine. The oldest existing versions of Mark end at 16:8. Just an empty tomb. Added in later versions were appearances of risen Jesus and the departing message with the drinkingpoison/handlingsnake/healing guarantees, etc. Mark frequently attacked the need of the faithless to experience signs proving Jesus’ power/authority, so some wiseguy adds a final passage where Jesus authorizes disciples to work signs like cheap magicians.
Of course discrediting the authority of these "promises" by bringing all that up is a bit dangerous for Bible belief.

TheRealityOfMan

In the church I was in we sold all kinds of tracts supporting the last chapter of Mark and suggesting that it's questionability is down to a Catholic conspiracy. Wehay!

Underseer

Where in the Bible does it state that this verse applies only those alive during the time of Christ? I'd be willing to bet the answer is nowhere.

trendkill

I've heard that the part about drinking poison is widely considered to have been added later by somone other than the original author of the book. Edit: Oh, JLK beat me to it.

PyramidHead

Me too, but the same is often said of the brutal verses in the Old Testament. Funny how those people most likely to come down on moral relativism argue in this way, no?

And let's say they're right. Is God really that much better of a person if, instead of recommending to everybody that they be stoned to death for some minor infraction, he just says it to a few hundred thousand people and lets them run with it for a millenium or so?

[/derail]