A Question to Ponder

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

A QUESTION TO PONDER

Mark 16:15-18

15 He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." 

NIV

Here we have one of the most well-known statements of Jesus, well at least the first part of this statement or the one which Matthew recorded, but the rest of this has certainly been put to rest by many believers. Some scholars have justified not paying attention to the rest of what Jesus said by insisting He was only talking about his disciples, and that the signs had been fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, but that would then open all scripture to the same view. The truth here surely surrounds those who believe. Now there is some concern by at least one non-denominational fellowship that uses this to make the point that one must believe and be baptized in order to be saved. But Jesus did not include “not baptized” in the condition of being condemned, in order works if one needs to believe and baptized to be save, it would make sense one needs to refuse to believe and be baptized to be condemned. There are many people who are baptized, more as infants, who never believe and are condemned, thus baptism does not save, only believing in Jesus Christ as the Savior does. We should also note that God does not condemn someone for not believing, but they condemn themselves by their disbelief. Salvation is a free gift of God and is readily available to all who would accept it, thus it is they chose to not be saved and so be condemned.  But what about all this signs that will accompany believers? Do we just ignore them? We might be alright with the driving out demons, maybe. Only a handful of denominations feel right in the speaking in a new tongue, the rest are satisfied with the explanation that it was fulfilled on Pentecost and ended there as well. But few of us would ever handle snakes or drink poison and that is sort of perplexing, almost as much as why most of us are not placing hands of sick people so they will get well. So how do we handle all this, Matthew does not include all these words of Jesus, so we are left with just Marks record, but that should be enough for all the words of the scripture are God-breathed. If these signs are not a part of our lives could or should we question whether we truly believe? Of course the signs alone do not indicate true belief, because it is possible Satan could counterfeit some of those signs in an effort to deceive people into thinking they are saved because they apparently drive out some demons, or speak in an unknown tongue or handle snakes and drink poison and even heal some sick people. So we must first insure that we believe in Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior and it is correct that in our effort to follow him we should be baptized as he was by John, then and only then, knowing in our heart we are following Jesus should we expect to see these signs in our life. But if we do not see these signs, then what do we do? What should we think? Why? A question to ponder on.