You said: "he said and i quote.....if you believe in me....in my name you will drive out demons and of course the rest . he commanded it!
WALTER: Who was Jesus specifically talking to and making this promise to? The Apostles. Context and Grammar are very important. If we are not careful with the Grammar then we can end up believing in something that is not true or not applicable to us today and be carried away with every wind of doctrine. Let's examine Mark 16.
Mar 16:15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
The Grammar in verse 16 above[he who believes] is a general application to anyone in the future. The Grammar then in verse 17 below changes.
17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;
18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
Now below in verses 19-20 we have a shift again to the Apostles.
19 So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, [ the Apostles] He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
20 And they [the Apostles]went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them [ the Apostles] and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen. NKJV
I want to point out a few things here. First when the scripture here refers to "these signs will follow those that believe" and they will take up serpents, etc.,...this is talking about those who received the word of God FROM the Apostles and had hands laid upon them BY the Apostles. That as we have seen above is the normal method that a person received a spiritual gift. This is the proper interpretation of this passage. Now what is the "application" of this so far? Can we apply this for Christians today? I don't believe so because if that were true then Christians claiming to have received supernatural gifts would have these exact same powers as those above. They/ WE would be able to handle serpents and not be harmed... and also we could drink poisons and not be harmed. So I do not see any Biblical evidence to support the gifts being for today.
its ok walter....its nice to hear your opinion here.
however jesus wants us all to be free in him without a death signature on our lives and thats why when a christian person gets a sickness that the world says that theres no cure.
we as christians say.
there is no condemnation for those who love jesus christ so sicknesses like cancer etc,,,,dont rain in our bodys any more because we were healed of all those things because sin has died as we put our sin at the foot of the cross .
jesus said that it is done ....meaning he took the sickneeses himself so as we might live a wholesome life in him.
a true believer wont practice a sinful life anymore and any sins that do occure now will only be by pure accident.
because we died to the old self and we are alive in christ now.
thats what jesus meant when he said they will drink posion and it wont hurt them etc, ,,,,meaning sicknesses were taken at the cross.
we are alive in christ now.....no longer dead men and women walking like the world does
a person of faith will not except an illness.
infact they will demand it to leave them in jesus name.
thats what faith is .....knowing and believeing something without having the eveidence of it.
also jesus commanded us to go into the world and search for lost souls so they wont go to hell.
our hearts will cry out for those who havnt found salvation as yet.
because we want heaven to be full christians.
we all have a very important job to do on earth before jesus comes back.
Sorry but your opinion of Mark 16 is not supported by the scriptures. What Jesus said is to be taken literally. Please demonstrate in the passage in question in Mark 16 where Jesus was not being literal.
Please demonstrate where my exegesis was in error. I didn't give you my opinion, I simply laid out the proper interpretation of the passage based upon the established method of Biblical interpretation.
Here is a verse that demonstrates that what Jesus meant about taking up serpents and not harming that person with those special supernatural gifts in Mark16.
Look what happened to Paul.
Act 28:3 But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.
4 So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, "No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow to live."
5 But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.
6 However, they were expecting that he would swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had looked for a long time and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god. NKJV
It is obvious that the local natives saw the type of viper it was and expected Paul to be severely injured of die quickly. Yet Paul was unharmed. Why? See below.
Mark 16:17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;
18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
If these gifts applied to Christians for today then it would have to include ALL Christians without exception. But the grammar does not allow for that interpretation.
then if its for the disiples why did jesus say go preach the word over all the earth.
then we wouldnt need to tell people about jesus and how did we get to know about him in the first place if walter says this was only meant for the disiples and no one else.
i think common sence is your answer here.
the new testament is for us believers ....the whole of it for us today.
we are the saints after the disiples to spread the word of God.
and do as jesus says.
in the boat on the water the disiples had no faith and wouldnt step out of the boat.
thats why jesus spoke in parables.
because they couldnt understand him....forever seeing and not learning and forever hearing and not learning.
so was faith and everything else jesus spoke about just for the disiples.
no.
its for us to do today!
mark 16 is the great commision and jesus commmanded it!
When we examine the scriptures it is very important to pay close attention to the historical setting as to whom the subject is about, the context, the person(s) being spoken to and those being spoken about and the grammar. When you break Mark16 down as I did in my long post, (Please study it carefully) you will see how the text reads and what is applicable to whom. The Great Commission is directed to the Apostles first and they were commanded to teach all things Jesus taught them directly, not what He talked to the crowds about or the Pharisees, but the Apostles. That commandment is then directed to us as such. We are entrusted to carry out that mission until His 2nd coming. The next verse then gives a general application concerning Salvation and the two requirements, Faith and water Baptism. (I will not debate the baptism issue on this thread.) haha. Then Jesus shifts the Grammar regarding the "GIFTS" and who would receive them. The Greek grammar makes this more than clear. Then in the next section it is noted that the Lord worked with the Apostles through the accompanying signs. This was to demonstrate that the Apostles had the God given authority to establish the Churches and lay out Christ's doctrines in the local churches.
You see Marion, everything written in the New Testament is not necessarily applicable for us as Christians. There are times when Jesus was addressing Jews who were under the law like the Pharisees and the rich man who wanted to inherit eternal life. If we apply those teachings to us then we would be under the Law. See my point?
all christians today should be living there lives in the SUP-PER-NAT-ER-AL.....otherwise they will be too logic and religious to hear the holy spirit speck to them.
jesus sent the counciller .....the holy spirit to gilde us a day at a time.
without the holy spirit leading in your life you will be following your own logic or religion.
true believers believe in the full gospel of jesus christ,,,,any other gospel is a different jesus preached.
the road to heaven is very narrow and only a few find it.
jesus said to follow him ....he is the way the truth and the life.
he told demons to go and they did.
he spoke about faith .
he spoke about love.
we wear.
W.W.J.D.
we do what he did.
we follow in his footsteps.
actions speck louder than words.
joel 2:28,29,30
in the book of mark it talks about a boy with a evel spirit and you can read foryourself about what jesus said.
