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How to Prove You Have Christian Faith

DOES it require handling a poisonous snake for a Christian to prove his faith? Some people think it does. At regular intervals from spring to fall a group of religious people gather at a remote place in the hills of Kentucky to pick up and hold poisonous snakes or to put them about their necks like garlands.

They point to Mark 16:18 (AV) as their reason for performing this strange rite. It says: “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” This passage is not found in the oldest and most reliable Bible manuscripts. It was added long after the book of Mark was written and is therefore not a genuine part of the inspired Bible.

There is no instance in the Bible where Christ or his apostles handled poisonous snakes. On one occasion when the apostle Paul was carrying a bundle of sticks a venomous snake crawled from the bundle and coiled around his hand. He did not fondle it before the people that saw it, but he quickly shook it off into the fire. He well knew that snake handling is not the way to demonstrate Christian faith.

The way Paul demonstrated his faith was the way Christ did it—by preaching He educated people in God’s Word. He proved his faith by missionary work. When he wrote to the Christians at Rome he linked faith with public declaration of Scriptural truths by saying: “For with the heart one exercises faith for righteousness, but with the mouth one makes public declaration for salvation.”—Rom. 10:10.

James, the brother of Jesus, was another Bible writer who pointed out that faith is proved by works. He said: “Become doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with false reasoning.” “Of what benefit is it, my brothers, if a certain one says he has faith but he does not have works? That faith cannot save him, can it? Indeed, as the body without breath is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”—Jas. 1:22; 2:14, 26.

Chief among the works that make faith alive and give proof of it is preaching the good news of God’s kingdom and the many enlightening truths of his Word. Jesus set the example in this regard, and he commanded his followers to “go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.’” (Matt. 10:7) Regarding his followers who would be living in the last days, where we now are, he said: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations.” (Matt. 24:14) It is this preaching work, not snake handling, that proves Christian faith.