Quote:
Originally Posted by Sister Phyllis
You have to be careful how you interpret that verse of Scripture .It does not mean thatyou go out there and deliverably take of a serpent or drink poison to see if God will heal you .That would be putting God to the test What it is saying I feel is that if someone lets say like our missionaries get bit by a snake or drink by accident some poison drink the Lord can heal them if he so desires He is all sufficient but we dontgo around trying or testing ourLord It does not mean that if you are not healed from this you are not a christian mercy The Lord will do what is best for each of us and according to His will okay but He is able to deliver and heal and save when we ask Him . The bible tells us that with HIS stripes we are healed and I look at this verse in this way we are healed whether that takes place here or when we get to heaven one way or another we ill be healed and so I claim healing in Jesus name and have faith in Him to accomplish His will in my life
God bless
sister phyllis
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Thanks, Sister Phyllis. I agree with some of what you say. My point was that Bruce has twisted this scripture (IMO) to say it
requires Christians to speak in tongues, without also taking the rest of this list as requirements. The part that says "if" (the poison drinking) could be left off and dealt with in the way you talk about (accident), but the rest of the items, using "shall", are on the same footing as tongues.
If Bruce is correct, then a Christian must speak in tongues. Then presumably, he
must also take up serpents,
must cast out devils,
must lay hands on the sick (who
must then recover). Otherwise he is not a Christian. Also,
if someone does die from poison, by Bruce's reasoning, he was not a Christian.
Haven't seen a reply from Bruce yet, and perhaps he does all these things. If so, he must be one of the very few real Christians there are in the world. (Remember, every single sick person must recover, or he's not a Christian, by his reasoning. And he must take up serpents, and I don't think harmless garden snakes count!)
Here's my take (FWIW). This is a list of signs that will follow. Not a list of requirements, and that includes tongues! Further, I think the signs (true signs) have fallen off since NT times a great deal, perhaps to zero. I've seen enough fakes and frauds that pretty much every story of miraculous signs are now suspect.
Note: I said
perhaps to zero, and
pretty much every story! I am open-minded about this, but very skeptical. For that, blame the frauds, if you folks really do have the real thing! I myself have experienced what I thought were healings, and perhaps they were. But I think today, God's work is done in the vast majority of cases through the hands of man: caring for and helping each other in love, charities, medicine, etc.