The Deadly Poison Verse

[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]

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?

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]

remember you can't add to the bible. 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]

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.

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]

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.

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.

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]

[Jehanne]

Moving to BC&H.

[Decypher]

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?

I think the verses at the end of Mark may not be genuine?

[Toto]

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?

They are not trying to avoid "what Jesus actually said." They are trying to reconcile the unreconcilable - the Bible with various parts of itself, and the Biblical statements with reality, where good people who drink poison die. I think they should be applauded for at least avoiding the perils of the sects that handle snakes, where people routinely die from snake bites.

Note that Paul was said to be bitten by a snake on the island of Malta - which does not have, and never has had, poisonous snakes.

We haven't discussed the ending of Mark here in some time, it seems. There is an old thread here (http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=119828) which tries to reconstruct a different ending.

It is generally agreed by most sober Biblical scholars that Mark 16 and beyond seems to have been tacked on, due to differences in language and viewpoint. There has been some discussion of an original ending that was lost, since the story ends abruptly with the women going away and not telling anyone that Jesus had risen, making the subsequent growth of Christianity hard to explain, but the literary critics point out that the ending fits the entire theme of the gospel.

[Apostate1970]

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?

I think that this is pretty clearly the intended message of Mark 6:17-18. The verse doesn't say "they will drink poison", it says "if they drink poision". Of course on the other hand it does say "they will pick up serpents" not "they will accidentally step on serpents" or whatever. However, in light of the conditional wording of the immediately following passage about drinking, and in good common sense, it seems reasonable to think that what was intended was something like "if they have to pick up serpents then..."... as if they had to move them for some reason or whatever.

Similarly, the immediately preceding passage which says "they will speak new languages" can only refer to a sudden, unexplained, miraculous ability to do so, not an imperative to do so in circumstances that don't call for it... that would just be absurd.

Finally, as you said, there's the "thou shalt not test" issue of Matthew 4:7 and Luke 4:12, not to mention Deuteronomy 6:16, legislate against the reading of Mark as a command to pick up serpents.

But the real issue is this: Is it true? Will believers be immune to poison or even exhibit significantly less vulnerability to it at all? The answer is just very clearly "No, and anyone who thinks so is a lunatic.".