Snake Games in The Seam

Appalachian Mountains from Google Images

 Yesterday at the Denver Firehouse, Rich showed us a video (linked in the blog previous to this) about a church in West Virginia where the congregation handles snakes among other things as proof that they know Jesus. 


I giggled in my head while thinking, "Wow! That's District 12's area called The Seam!" because that's what the region is called in The Hunger Games and I'm a fan of those books hehehe! 


Anyway, at first I thought, "Haaa haaaa haaaa - oh, the crazy Seam people!!" but then I thought, "Whoa - hey, that's not too compassionate :P" 


Was I thinking I was so intellectually awesome because I read the ESV and I have a Bachelor's degree and these people probably only had a high-school degree at the most and so that's why they still took those verses in Mark 16 literally and didn't think critically about it? Or was I thinking: I hope that these people understand that they are saved by grace through faith and not of any performance of some death-defying miracle involving snakes or poison? 

I had to admit that my first reaction was, I'm so much more intellectually awesome than they are! Whoops! But the miraculous thing is that God changed the way my brain worked. Figuratively, I had been drinking the poison of pride in my intellect / knowledge for as long as I could remember when I became Chrisitian. The fact that God reminded me to have compassion on that congregation in West Virginia instead of intellectually sticking my little nose up at them is miraculous and a sign of true transformation by my Savior :) 


When I realized that God had to change my way of thinking to see this group of people rightly, I began praying for them: God, I pray the people in that congregation in West Virginia truly understand the Gospel - not so that their church will stop being a circus and source of ridicule of Christians by to non-Christians - but so they can truly know Christ and eternal life! I pray that they are transformed by the Gospel and their sign of Christ isn't holding a snake, but showing compassion by holding a neighbor's hand in need and holding out the Gospel to their little region of Appalachia. Amen