“I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”
Jesus prepared his disciples for the difficult road ahead of them. He did not send them out defenseless, but armed them with the understanding that would be their protection from the resistance and hatred they would encounter. Below are some interesting notes from Bible commentaries on this passage:
“The wisdom of the serpent is to escape notice…the prudence of the serpent is specially apparent in the quickness of its perception of danger and the rapidity with which it escapes from it…They were to imitate the serpent's wariness, but not his wiliness…Probably the thing in which Christ directed his followers to imitate the serpent was in its caution in avoiding danger. No animal equals them in the rapidity and skill which they evince in escaping danger.
“Harmless: unmixed, unadulterated…He directs them, also, to be harmless, not to provoke danger, not to do injury, and thus make their fellow-men justly enraged against them. Doves are, and always have been, a striking emblem of innocence. Most people would foolishly destroy a serpent, be it ever so harmless, yet few are so hard-hearted as to kill a dove.”
What stands out to me here is understanding that we need to be quick in seeing through evil’s claims of being a person or situation and recognize it as animal magnetism. If we attached the evil to a person or thing, we would be in danger for we would be making a reality of evil. Instead we handle animal magnetism--the nothing calling itself something. We keep our thought about man pure and unadulterated/unmixed with any claim of evil. By aligning our thought with God we remain as innocent as doves (our safety) and are able to bless our fellow man.
MaryBeth
795 posts
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Editor
08/06/2015 18:15
Re: Wise as serpents
Thank you - well said! I never thought about how quickly a serpent detects and escapes from danger. Very important point.
