The Snake on the Fire: Not Even That

“But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to them, they changed their minds and said he was a god.” – Acts 28:5-6 (NIV)

The shipwreck should have been enough. Two weeks of storm, a voyage of terror, a run aground off the coast of Malta, all of them swimming and clinging to planks to reach shore. Paul and the 276 people on the ship had survived something that by any natural measure should not have been survivable. They arrived on shore cold and wet and exhausted. The islanders showed them unusual kindness and built a fire for them. And then, as Paul was gathering wood for the fire, a viper came out of the heat and fastened itself on his hand.

The islanders had no framework for Paul, but they had a framework for snakes and for what happens when one fastens itself on a person. They said to one another: this man must be a murderer; though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live. They waited for him to swell up or fall dead. Paul shook the snake into the fire and felt no ill effects. They waited a long time. Nothing happened. And they changed their minds.

Sometimes the miracle is not a dramatic intervention. Sometimes the miracle is simply that the thing that should have destroyed you did not. The viper fastened. The poison entered. And the Spirit held it at bay with such completeness that Paul was unaware of having been in danger. He did not make a speech about it. He shook the snake off and presumably went back to helping with the fire. The supernatural protection was so matter-of-fact in his experience that it required no special acknowledgment beyond its own simple fact.

Jesus promised in Mark 16:17-18 that signs would accompany those who believe, including that they would pick up snakes with their hands and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all. This passage in Acts 28 is the fulfilment of that promise in the most literal and undramatic possible way: a viper, a hand, a fire, and a man who suffered no ill effects. The watching world’s readiness to declare him a murderer or a god reveals how ill-equipped human observation alone is to interpret supernatural reality. It requires the Spirit to see accurately what the Spirit is doing.

Paul’s survival of the shipwreck, the snake, and the entire sequence of trials that preceded his arrival in Rome was not accidental. God had told him in Acts 23:11 that just as you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome. The Spirit who gives a person an assignment does not allow them to be destroyed before that assignment is complete. This is not a blanket promise against suffering; Paul suffered enormously throughout Acts. It is a promise of completion: what God purposes through a surrendered life will reach its conclusion, regardless of what the enemy throws in the way.

Today, if you are in the aftermath of a storm and something has just fastened itself to your hand, the Spirit’s protection is as available to you as it was to Paul. Shake it off. Return to the work of building the fire. And trust that if God has an assignment that requires your arrival in Rome, neither the sea nor the snake will prevent the journey.

Prayer

Father, thank you that the Spirit who protected Paul from the viper is the same Spirit who lives in me. Where the enemy has attached something to my hand in the aftermath of a storm, give me the composure to shake it off and return to your work. You are not done with me until the assignment is complete. I trust you with the rest of the journey. In Jesus’ name, amen.