Snakes & the Gospel

I have recently become the owner of two wonderful little snakes.  Ranger, a fiery red and orange Brooks Kingsnake, and Nathaira, a beautiful green Checkered Garter Snake with a 
yellow dorsal stripe, have become very welcome members of my life.  

As a happy pet owner, I take every opportunity to show them off to people.  Some love it, and they regularly ask me about them.  Others are interested and watch the videos.  Several are genuinely scared of snakes. I completely understand this, though.  Irrational fears are exactly that, irrational.  I have one myself, so I do my best to remember who and not show them pictures or videos.  They are likely to block me on Facebook, too.  The group I find fascinating are the ones who are repulsed by them.  There is really nothing to this.  Snakes aren't slimy or gross.  They are very interesting creatures.  In fact, I would say that snakes, more than any other creature on this earth, understand the predicament of humanity.

Genesis 3 begins by talking about the snake.  It calls the snake "crafty."  It seems that this "craftiness" made the snake the ideal tool in the hands of the Enemy.  "Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.  He said to the woman, 'Did God actually say, "You shall not eat of any tree in the garden"?'" (Genesis 3:1).  

Now, anyone who owns a snake knows that snakes are super stealthy.  I was convinced I had lost Nathaira at one point.  She must have escaped while I was cleaning the tank because I tore that tank apart looking for her to no avail.  I put down hides and tape on the floor as well as heat to attract her.  One morning as I was checking my traps, I saw her slither up and over her tree IN THE TANK!!!  That snake had managed to hide in that tank the whole time...  crafty indeed.  However, no snake has the desire or mental capability to try to deceive mankind.  After all, snakes were created by God and He called them good.  "And God said, 'Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.'  So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:20-21).  If the snake was created good without any reason to deceive mankind, who does want to deceive mankind?  Satan does, and he used that snake for exactly that purpose.

The Fall of Man proceeded in this manner.  Satan possessed the snake and used its natural craftiness (probably just a shadow of his own craftiness) to deceive mankind.  He planted the seed of doubt, and they doubted the goodness of God.  They made the choice not to trust their Creator and rebelled against His one command.  They sinned and were no longer innocent.  This climactic event sent ripples throughout time that have swollen into waves that crash on the shores of our daily lives.  Mankind fell, and in the falling there are four guilty parties.  Satan is obviously guilty for starting this problem and deceiving mankind.  God pronounced his punishment here:

 "I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15).

This is the first mention of the Good News we see in Scripture.  It is  referred to as the protoevangelium or "first Gospel."  I will talk about this a bit later as it deals with man, not Satan.

God will also deal with Satan at the end of days, "And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them,  and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Revelation 20:9-10).  Mankind is guilty for rebelling against God.  God gave them their punishment:


"To the woman He said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
    and he shall rule over you.”

And to Adam He said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
  thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
 By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return'" (Genesis 3:17-19).

For listening to the snake instead of God, women's pain in childbearing is increased, and she will desire to rule over her husband.  However, God will give that authority to the man.  For listening to the woman instead of God, the ground will be cursed and man will labor hard to provide for himself and his family.  

However, God did not give punishment without hope.  God will punish evil.  Don't make the asinine assumption that "good" = "let's me get away with what I want."  God will punish wrongdoing, and He does not play favorites.  That means you will bear the penalty for the wrong you do.  Doing something good later does not take that wrong away.  However, He also desire reconciliation with you.  This is where the evangelium or "Gospel" comes in again.   The only way reconciliation can happen is if your wrongdoing is punished.  He wants reconciliation with you so much that He decided He would pay the penalty Himself.  He became man and paid that penalty by being tortured to death on a cross.  That is a good God.  That is Jesus Christ.

That brings us to the last guilty party, the snake.  Obviously, the snake let Satan use him.  God would not have specifically punished an innocent creature for the work of Satan, so the the snake bears guilt in this debacle as well:

"The Lord God said to the serpent,

'Because you have done this,
    cursed are you above all livestock
    and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life'" (Genesis 3:14).

So God takes the snake's legs away from him.  Now, instead of walking, he will slither on his belly.  Even though slithering on their bellies is all the snakes of today have ever known, the absence of legs is still an inconvenience.  As fast as snakes are, legs would certainly increase that speed, and with the increased speed, they may very well feel more comfortable out in the open as opposed to the amount of time they spend hiding.  Maybe not.  That's just a thought.

God also said that the snake will "eat dust."  Now, does a snake actually eat dust particles other than accidentally?  Well, it does use its tongue to taste the particles of dust or anything else by quickly flicking out its tongue and then inserting the forked end into the openings of the Jacobson's organ at the roof of its mouth.  This allows the snake to sense its surroundings, escape from threats, and hunt prey.  Once the particles are sensed, the tongue is cleaned.  I do not know for sure, but it does seem likely that the snake would just swallow the particles to cleanse the tongue, making it ready to sense the particles coming in from the next tongue flick.  Is this part of the curse God laid upon the snake?  Maybe.  The term, "eat dust" is also symbolic of being brought low, abhorrent, despised, and degraded.  God uses the comparison in Micah 7:16-17.  The phrase "eat dust" may just mean that the snake has been brought low, and having just lost his legs, that is certainly true.  The feelings of many toward snakes today would also testify to that truth.

The snake is the only creature in all of creation that had a part with us at the Fall.  We got deceived, and he got used.  We both bear guilt, and we both got duped by Satan, so the snake, more than any other creature, can relate to us on having been fooled by the Enemy.  He lives with the consequence of it everyday, as we do.

With that connection, certainly we can get along.

Madison's First Snake

The Scarlet Letter

I had to read The Scarlet Letter in high school, and like most books I was forced to read, I didn’t like it.  It was drama, and I don’t like dramas.  Give me good comedy or action, and I’ll come back for more every time… but not drama.  My life has plenty of that.  The story followed Hester Prynn, a woman who was found out in adultery after giving birth to a child, Pearl, while her husband was not yet in the Puritan colony of Boston.  It was sad to see that she was forced to mark herself with a red “A” that showed all who saw her that she was an adulteress.  The story continues into the vengeful scheme of her husband and the pain of the minister who committed the sin with her.  The acts of the characters are certainly not in keeping with the love and desire for reconciliation found in Scripture, but the story does show the pain that can be caused by just one act fueled by lust. Dealing with the subject of lust can be uncomfortable for some, but it is part of our life here in this world.  God is interested in dealing with real life, not some sugarcoated facsimile, so the Bible deals with lust.  So must we.

What is lust?  Lust is the improper viewing of another person in a sexual connotation. How do we act against lust?  I can think of no better picture of how to do this than the story God gives us of Joseph and Potifar’s wife in Genesis 39.  After Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, he was taken to Egypt.  He found his way into the service of the Egyptian captain of the guard, Potifar.  Joseph was a righteous man, and God was not only blessing him for it, He was blessing Potifar’s entire household for it.  It was a great situation until Potifar’s wife decided get a little too much Joseph for herself.  She tried to seduce him multiple times.  On the final attempt she even got grabby and found herself holding Joseph’s clothes while he scampered away.  “Flee from sexual immorality.  Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18).  We are told to run away from lust!  That should clue us in on the danger of it!  God knows that we cannot stand in a situation of sexual sin forever and be victorious.  So get out of there!  Remove yourself from the temptation, or you will be consumed by it.  That is why you must end a relationship if you are sexually sinning in it.  If pornography is a problem, get software to block it on the computer and/or only use it in a public place.

Sexual sin consumes.  It will literally become a chemical addiction in your brain.  Phenylethylamine releases dopamine during sexual activity and gives you feelings of bliss, excitement, and attraction.  That plus the release of adrenaline and endorphins cause sexual activity to become addictive, even if it is harmful.  It has been compared to the addiction level of opiates like heroine.  That is why Scripture says, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases” (Song of Solomon 8:4).  This, of course, applies to guys as well.

Lust does not just exist in the physical realm, however.  It is pervasive in the realm of the mind.  Jesus said, ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).  That means that we must control our thoughts in this area as well.  “I never actually did anything with her” or “I was only thinking about him like that” are not excuses.  Merely thinking about a person who is not your spouse sexually is deadly sin.

You might be tempted to ignore what I’m saying because I’m not a teenager, and I don’t know your life or what you’re going through.  The truth is that I was a teenager, and I made some of mistakes in this area.  The consequences remain to this day.  What is the good of staying pure?  Your love life is saved for your spouse.  You are all familiar with Velcro.  What happens when Velcro is stuck together and pulled apart too much?  It stops sticking well.  The same is true with people who have had a lot of different relationships.  They have given away their heart too many times.  It does not connect with another very well anymore.  When you do decide to get married, your past relationships will not just fade from your mind.  They will always be there.  You will have to tell your spouse about your past, and that is not a fun experience.  Do not give your heart away so cheaply; it is way too precious for that.  Also, your risk of STDs and pregnancy outside of marriage drops to a staggering 0%!  If you don’t have sex, there is no risk!

 So, how do we deal with the opposite sex?
Dating, as we know it today, is a relatively new concept.  It used to be a slang term referring to prostitution, and the modern concept is not far from the origin.  A man takes a woman out, spends some money on her, and at some level eventually expects her to “put out.”

What a Godly man and woman should be doing is called courting.  If you want more details about this I would direct you to a great book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris.  The major difference between dating and courting is that courting is looking toward one goal, marriage.  That’s it!  If a Christian man and woman are “going out,” they should be able to see marriage somewhere in the future.  If either of them cannot, they shouldn’t be in that relationship.

Why is it important for a Christian to only court another Christian?
For a believer in Jesus, who is your first love?  The answer is unapologically JESUS!  How can you be in a close romantic relationship with someone who does not share that love?  I could never court an unbeliever.  They would dump me by the end of the first month because they’d be sick and tired of me witnessing to them and talking about Jesus!  “You might be tempted to ignore what I’m saying because I’m not a teenager, and I don’t know your life or what you’re going through.  The truth is that I was a teenager, and I made some of these mistakes.  The consequences remain to this day.  When you do decide to get married, your past relationships will not just fade from your mind.  They will always be there.  You will have to tell your spouse about your past, and that is not a fun experience.  What is the good of staying pure?  First, your relationship with God is put first.  In every sin, He is the one chiefly offended.  Remember the woman caught in adultery?  Jesus did not go to her husband or deal with the guy she was sleeping with.  He looked into her eyes and said, “Your sins are forgiven.  Go and sin no more.”  Reconciliation must first come with Him.  Second, your love life is saved for your spouse.  You are all familiar with Velcro.  What happens when Velcro is stuck together and pulled apart too much?  It stops sticking well.  The same is true with people who have had a lot of different relationships.  They have given away their heart too many times.  It does not connect with another very well anymore.  Do not give your heart away so cheaply; it is way too precious for that.  Last, your risk of STDs and pregnancy outside of marriage drops to a staggering 0%!  If you don’t have sex, there is no risk.

So, how do we deal with the opposite sex? Dating, as we know it today, is a relatively new concept.  It used to be a slang term referring to prostitution, and the modern concept is not far from the origin.  A man takes a woman out, spends some money on her, and at some level eventually expects her to “put out.”

What a Godly man and woman should be doing is called courting.  If you want more details about this I would direct you to a great book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris.  The major difference between dating and courting is that courting is looking toward one goal, marriage.  That’s it!  If a Christian man and woman are “going out,” they should be able to see marriage somewhere in the future.  If either of them cannot, they shouldn’t be in that relationship.

Why is it important for a Christian to only court another Christian? For a believer in Jesus, who is your first love?  The answer is unapologically JESUS!  How can you be in a close romantic relationship with someone who does not share that love?  I could never court an unbeliever.  They would dump me by the end of the first month because they’d be sick and tired of me witnessing to them and talking about Jesus!  “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14b-15).  I am in Christ, and those in light have nothing to do with darkness except bringing light to it!  Darkness flees from the light of Christ within me.  If you are involved romantically with an unbeliever and they are not fleeing from you, you should ask yourself if you really are a light.

Be careful with your heart, Christian.  Don’t give it away cheap to bare scars that may never fully heal.  It is precious to your King.  Give it to Him completely.  Trust in Him.  Follow Him.  Obey Him, and He will show you the one person to give it to here.

Pride & Lust

The other day I got onto Facebook, and a wonderful friend of mine had this written this on her wall:

“Guys, if you're out driving and see a woman jogging, DON'T turn your head to look at her! She does see you, and she thinks you're a creeper.”

Then I looked at a comment made on it by another friend:

“Girls, if you’re out driving and see a man jogging, DO turn your head to look at him!  Make sure he sees you so that he thinks he’s AWESOME!”

It does not take much to get me thinking on a particular subject, and this comment is all it took to get me thinking again.  Why is it that the same act can promote such a different response from male and female?  I started thinking about my own response.  How have I taken it when I’m out on a run and a woman driving by takes a look at me?  Well, I have to say, I consider it a compliment.

I started thinking about my own response to this, and I started wondering how righteous this response was.  Is it in agreement with the standard of righteousness and holiness that God lays down for us in Scripture.  Some of you might be thinking, “It is just a little look!  Is it really necessary to bring in God?”  Well, YES!  God is the center of ever part of our life.  He is the God of the big things and the God of the small things.  Every thought, every emotion, every second in this world is part of the spiritual war waged between light and darkness.  Whether you think about it or not, this war is always a part of your life, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.  We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete” (2 Corinthians 10:4-6).

If every thought is part of the war waged, and we are to take every thought captive to Christ, where does it leave the thoughts occurring when we take a look out the window at the jogger?  What about the person at the beach or just that person walking down the street that catches your eye?  I am not willing to say that it is evil to look.  However, you have to know what is happening when you are looking.  Is lust going on?  “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).  I know that I have looked at a woman before and admired her beauty and strength apart from any lustful intent, but that is not always the case for people, guys or girls.  It is not always the case for any particular person either.  At some point or another, everyone lusts.  It ultimately comes down to the responsibility of the individual to regulate and take responsibility not to look if lust is there.

Let’s go even further.  It would be naïve of us to believe that this is just a one-way interaction.  As Lauren said, “She does see you, and she thinks you're a creeper.”  The feelings of the person being looked at must be taken into account.  Even if the look of the first is entirely pure, admiration free of any lustful intent, it does not mean it is perceived in that light by the receiver.  If it is not, the looker offends against charity, for it is uncharitable to make another feel uncomfortable by your actions, and I know that I don’t want to make anyone feel that way.

If we are to err on the side of safety and charity, it is just better never to look.  That would make it simple.  However, life is not that simple.  God has made women to be beautiful to men and men to be attractive to women.  Looks are not inherently bad.  If we never looked, it is hard to believe anyone would ever be in a relationship at all, and God instituted marriage from the beginning.  The context of the look is important.  There is a big difference between being drawn to a person you meet at work or church versus hanging your tongue out the window as your drive by.  A look from a car will never amount to anything.  I have heard a lot of love stories, marriage stories, etc., and never have any of them started with, “I was out on my jog, and this person came driving by looking at me…”

So, why do some people like the looks from the people driving by if they will never come to anything?  Honestly, it may be pride.  I may have to call myself out here because I do like the looks.  I also do not think it is just guys who like the looks.  I think there are some women who like being checked out as well, whether they will admit it or not.  I think it just has to do with the person.  


Why do you run?  I don’t run because I enjoy it, though I enjoy it now much more than when I started running.  I run because I have never found anything else that will keep the fat off me like running coupled with eating right.  I run because I want to be healthy, feel good, and look good. If I am honest with myself, looking good is at the top of that list.  Enter pride.  When a woman looks at me, from the car or anywhere else, I do like it.  The only situation which changes that is if she is married, then it makes me sick to my stomach.  If she is single, though, it really does feel like a compliment, but it can also be an occasion for pride, “Make sure he sees you so that he thinks he’s AWESOME!”  Once again, I am not willing to say that any positively received look is fully enflaming the pride of the receiver.  If that was the case, every relationship would include a big side of pride.  I think, once again, it becomes the responsibility of the individual person to make sure it does not become a pride issue.

That is probably a lot to come from two little comments.  As I said, it does not take much to get me thinking on things.

And They Shall Become One Flesh

At the beginning of recorded history, God created Adam, but He knew that it was not good for Adam to be alone, so He created Eve.  At this point, God instituted marriage, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).

The culture we live in today and many other cultures in the past have looked upon this holy institution as a contract between people.  It has become almost laughable when some people go to the altar and promise before God that they will bind themselves together until death.  Many of them do not believe in God at all.  What weight does a promise hold when they do not believe in the one to whom they are promising?  So they promise to each other.  Do they really mean it?  Will they go through sickness, poverty, and worse?  Our divorce rate says they won't.  Even within the church, the divorce rate in comparable to the divorce rate outside.  I spoke last night about how Christians are to live a life that honors God before an unbelieving world, and we cannot even keep a promise to God or the one we say we love!  Pathetic!  It makes me wonder if I ever want to get married.

What is the main reason for divorce in this country?  Money.  Money!  Did the vows not say "for richer or for poorer?"  God gives one acceptable excuse for divorce, infidelity.  Even in this case, the desire is that there would be reconciliation, forgiveness, and preservation of the marriage rather than divorce.  If there is no repentance or continuation of the infidelity, then it can be grounds for divorce.  Ultimately, the goal is to be like Jesus.  Through Him we have been forgiven of our infidelity to God, "When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, 'Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD'" (Hosea 1:2).  We need to be seeking to love and forgive, even in cases of infidelity.  If you desire to see how much God loves and forgives, read chapters one through three in Hosea.

Marriage is a covenant, not a contract.  It is not meant to be dissolved when either party is dissatisfied with the arrangement.  It is meant to persist as long as both parties are still living.  This is what Jesus said about divorce, "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.'  But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" (Matthew 5:31-32).


What about those famous kings in the Old Testament who had a ton of wives?  I'm thinking specifically of Solomon who had many, "He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines" (1 Kings 11:3a).  Dude!  Seriously?!?  How on earth do you deal with that many?  Why was God fine with that if marriage is supposed to be only one man and one woman?  Even David, who is referred to as "a man after His [God's] own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14) had many wives and concubines, "And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron, and more sons and daughters were born to David" (2 Samuel 5:13).  The answer is that God is not fine with it. 

The Bible is not a list of people without flaws from whom we can model our lives.  The Bible shows us people, men and women with faults.  It is history.  Abraham, David, and Solomon lived and breathed just like we do today, and they sinned just like we do today.  Their actions are not somehow acceptable to God merely because they were written down in the Bible.  The verse that speaks of Solomon's many wives and the following verse tell us that, "His wives turned away his heart.  For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father" (1 Kings 11:3b-4).  David desired God and wanted Him, but he made mistakes, too.  The most famous of these mistakes has to be with Uriah and Bathsheba.  David murdered him in order to have her.  That is all kinds of evil!  In fact, how would you view even your best friend if you suddenly found out that they murdered someone in order to marry that person's spouse?  It would be hard to continue that friendship in exactly the same way, right?  You might wonder what they would be capable of doing to you if they suddenly decided your spouse was looking particularly nice one day.

I do not know of any "thou shalt not" verse in Scripture that specifically prohibits polygamy (either polygyny or polyandry), but Scripture as a whole has a negative view of the practice.  The original establishment of the institution was one man and one woman.  In Genesis 16, the marriage between Abram and Sarai is defiled when Sarai brings Abram to Hagar to conceive a child, "But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise" (Galatians 4:23).  It was not God's will for Hagar to be brought into the marriage bed, and we feel the repercussions of that mistake even today as the children of Ishmael spread their beliefs by oppression and murder.  Men with more than one wife are prohibited from holding the office of pastor or deacon in the church, "This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.  For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach" (Titus 1:5-7a), and "The saying is trustworthy:  If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.  Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach" (1 Timothy 3:1-2).  If God was fine with multiple wives, this prohibition would not have been one of the first prohibitions on both of these lists.  God is not fine with polygamy.  He never has been.  Chalk another one up to the freewill of sinful people.


The Scripture only gives us one person to model our behavior after in all ways, and that person is Jesus, God Himself.  He is the only one who is good.  Men and women throughout Scripture can be looked at as "heroes of the faith," but they all fall short somewhere.  Having multiple spouses is where several of them did sin.  Having multiple spouses even drew Solomon away from God and damaged that relationship.  God is not for that.  He loves us and wants the best for us, that includes any marriage to be only one man and one woman.  That is how He set it up, and that is how it should remain.