I used to keep snakes. When I started, they were just a couple of harmless garter snakes I picked up for a buck 99 at Martin’s Aquarium, a local pet shot in Jenkintown, PA, one of my favorite places to hang out and kill time in my early youth. Moving back to the farm in Brazil, as an adult, I still wanted to keep snakes. I even got some training done so I could become a handler. I also tried to make a few videos. Wanting to look like and talk like Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter… (oh Boy!)
At times, I kept inside aquariums, or terrariums, in my tool shed, some of the most dangerous snakes know to the South American soil. Lanceheads, crossheads, rattlers and coral snakes, I’ve played with them all. In order to feed the serpents, I kept mice, as pets for my son. Funny thing, he named them Bernard and Miss Bianca, from Disney’s The Rescuers. What he didn’t know is that the snakes ate his two little pet mice over and over… (Oh Boy!!)
I wasn’t ever really scared of the snakes. It was a different type of relationship. The feeling seemed to be more one of respect, awe, and astonishment. But the bottom line, when the lights went out, what I really, really enjoyed was the image it caused on others. Rather than reckless, I thought I was being a cool badass! And that was really important for me.
One time, while driving to Sao Paulo, wanting to make a delivery to the Butantã Institute. I had a fully mature male crotalus durissus (black rattlesnake for the laymen). It was almost 5 feet long. And all of a sudden it dawned on me: what if the snake broke loose in my car? As I mentioned many times in my previous articles, there are only a few things that frighten me. And snakes aren’t one of those things. However, when I realized what could have happened, had the snake broken loose from its box? I decided to put an end to my snake-handling career. At age thirty-three, I needed to grow up a little bit. It was time to shun my image, and do something to preserve my life! Sort of like adapting what Jesus said in Mark 8:36 – just changing the words “life” to “image”, but keeping the thought: For whoever wants to save their IMAGE will lose it, but whoever loses their IMAGE for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? So I kindly donated all of the snakes I had to the research institute, and haven’t played with them since.
Sometimes for me (as I believe for many people too), keeping an image seems to be more important than keeping life itself. First of all, the image we want to portray is not the actual image people see in us. In order to produce an image that would impress others, I’ve had long hair, Elvis-style hair, no hair, earrings and different styles of clothing (no tattoos though—too permanent). I often tried to show off something I was not. I thought that by creating a “tough guy” persona that I would profit on the impression I caused people to have. So like playing with snakes, the dangers of living as to show off whatever we think will add value to us, may end up biting our behind! This attitude will often send people into their downward spiral, plunging to their deaths. I learned from the book of Acts, that our image should be what God wants us to be. That his grace should be seen in our lives and that his deliverance should speak louder than our acting.
After Paul shipwrecked (Acts 28:1-6), and safely made his way to shore on the island of Malta, he helped the kind natives build a fire. Little did he know that a poisonous snake was nestled in the firewood (what was he, blind? – probably…) he picked up, and “driven out by the heat, the snake bit him on the hand.” It didn’t just bite and let go; it hung on, the islanders thought, by that image, that Paul must have been a murderer and he was getting his just punishments from the gods. Even though Paul seemed unharmed after shaking off the snake, they still expected him to drop dead at any moment—and when he didn’t, the superstitious people “changed their minds and decided he was a god.”
Interesting thing about Paul, is that he wasn`t trying to make an image for himself. As a matter of fact, his teaching is the opposite of that:
“I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say,” (2 Corinthians 12.5,6)
“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you”. (Romans 12.3)
In the episode on the Isle of Malta, the islanders showed the power of a worldview for interpreting experience--and how a non-Christian worldview often won't "get it right." Those who have a non-Christian attitude will try to make an image of themselves, either reaffirming their foolishness and self learned knowledge of the world, or they will try to re invent themselves, in order to impress others and influence people for their own gain. Like the middle aged man in crisis who buys a sports car or a motorcycle in order to show how youthful he is. Being bit by this kind of serpent will really injure your spiritual health. And most of the times send off the wrong image that you had in mind.
Unless the Lord opens our hearts to understand the true image of Christ, no witness, and no shape-shift, no miraculous sign may serve to show Christ. The Maltese are not alone in misinterpreting an image (see Acts 2:12-13; 3:12; 8:18-21; 14:11-18; 19:13-16). And today, if we seek to show something that we are not, or if we try to misinterpret someone else’s image, we fall under that same category as the Maltese did. Luke in writing the Acts of the apostles, points to our idolatry as he describes the "signs and wonders" movement only to bear witness to the greatness of God in Jesus. Not for us to be thought as a gods, but for us to shine the glory of God.
If we keep snakes, jump off bridges tied to a rubber band, eat an expensive hamburger, or advocate for the sand dunes of the Kalahari; has more to do with likes or shares on the social media then to the enjoyment we reap from these activities; we are doing it for the wrong reasons. Whatever is not prescribed in the bible as a sin becomes sinful when we do it to impress people and ourselves. In 1Corinthians 10.31 Paul says: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Weather we get tattoos or wear an expensive suit and tie, write our posts; die our hair or give money to the poor, we must be sure that we do it for the right reason.
Other then that, what is the right reason, well I don’t know. —But the wrong reason is to try to show off something you are not.
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