THE LIVING CHURCH
Meditations in the Acts of the Apostles
Acts 28:1-6

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IN these few verses we have the story of the viper which fastens on Paul’s arm. It is an important incident because of what it teaches us about the reality of religious belief. It is important because Christians are not immune to such religious thinking, and because such religious thinking is often so ruinous both to the one who has this thinking, and many others who are effected by such thought. What we see is how religious belief is often a product of cultural thought which we have grown up with, and not founded on the truth of God’s revealed word.

While Paul was helping to build up the fire which was warming all the shipwreck people, as he was putting brushwood on the fire, a viper in the brushwood Paul was placing on the fire, feeling threatened by the heat, managed to cling on to Paul’s arm. Paul shakes the snake off into the fire. The Islanders interpreted the incident at first as God’s justice pursuing a murderer, and by it judged Paul to be a murderer. They said to themselves that although Paul had escaped from drowning, God was not going to allow him to escape, and the viper was sent to kill him. When Paul showed no effects of snake bite, the islanders then interpreted the incident differently, and judged Paul to be a god.

We read this with modern understanding and shrug it all off as superstition. What we do not realise is that there is just as much false religion about today and caused by cultural conditioned understanding and belief just like these islanders. These islanders interpreted an event through the eyes of their cultural belief and understanding. Many people do the same today, and just as these islanders had no realisation of the falseness of their thinking, so it is the same today. All Christians must be aware of this danger, and seek to always have beliefs firmly based on a true understanding of the bible.

The trouble is that there is always truth mixed up in the error. It is true that all happenings are under the control of God, and nothing happens without his knowing it. Jesus expresses this in the sermon on the mount where he says no hair falls to the ground without our heavenly Father knowing about it. It is also true that God does express judgement from time to time in events that happen. What is at fault is that these islanders assumed that any adverse happening in a person’s life must mean that they have done something wrong and God is punishing them for it. Also it is true that God’s power was seen in protecting Paul from the bite of the viper, but to interpret Paul escaping from the bite as Paul being a god is nonsense.

Jesus made this clear so often in the Gospels. The religion of the Jews in New Testament times was full of wrong cultural conditioned belief, which had grown up due to the false teaching and interpretation handed down through time. There is the example of the Jew’s attitude to the Sabbath. Then there is the example, very similar to that of these islanders, where the Jew’s explained illness as being the result of sin, either of the person who was suffering, or someone else like the father or mother of the sick person. Jesus points out clearly how wrong these attitudes and beliefs were. We also see how destructive and cruel these cultural beliefs were. People were persecuted and cast out of society because of these beliefs, and were condemned and despised.

So much destructive judgementalism within the church today finds it source and justification in cultural conditioned belief that is not true to the word of God, but founded on a corruption of the truth, or misinterpretation of the truth.

Christians should be so careful about their attitudes and reactions to people, events and actions. We must always be questioning as to whether the stance we are taking up is biblical and true to the Lord Jesus. We must always be humble, realising that we are prone to getting things wrong, and so need to be always ready to be corrected if we are shown error in our thinking. Further we need very much to take to heart the words of Jesus when he tells us not to judge others, and to realise that often, for every fault we may see in someone else, there are usually greater and more serious faults in ourselves that we are unable to see, or unwilling to see.

This is all so important, because the image we portray to society around us reflects well or badly on Christ whom we follow and serve. We bring dishonour upon Jesus when we act out of tune with his truth. We also turn people away from the love of Christ when our words and actions are false to Christ’s love.