by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
On the Isle of Malta, Paul found some friendly natives. When a viper bit Paul, these people read that as a sign. They were wrong, and people who try to read events as signs today are borrowing from paganism.<\/p>\n
In Acts 28:1-4, the natives read the viper event as a sign that Paul was a murderer and justice was catching up with him. That is a problem with trying to figure out what God or the gods are trying to show you or tell you. It is all subjective guesswork subject to error.<\/p>\n
When the viper bite did not harm Paul, they read that as a sign that Paul was a god. (Acts 28:5,6) They were wrong both times. That is the problem with training yourself to look for signs and events mixed with guesswork and imagination to figure out what God is “trying to tell you.” God does not operate that way, and when a Christian operates that way, he is playing into the devil’s hands. He is borrowing the pagan mentality!<\/p>\n
The devil would love for us to forget that God’s written Scriptures “completely furnish the man of God<\/em>” (II Timothy 3:16-17). Satan loves for us to think we get some guidance apart from the written word. When feelings and imagination become a more convincing guide to us than the Scriptures, they will prevail over the Scriptures every time. However, the Scriptures will be right every time, and feelings and imaginations will be wrong every time.<\/p>\n The Scriptures will safely guide us to heaven, while guesswork and imagination will justify themselves all the way to hell, and then these people will be shocked when they get there. (Matthew 7:21-23). Either the scriptures “completely furnish<\/em>” us, or they don’t! Since God <\/b>says they do, I trust God on this matter! What about you?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Terry Wane Benton On the Isle of Malta, Paul found some friendly natives. When a viper bit Paul, these people read that as a sign. They were wrong, and people who try to read events as signs today are borrowing from paganism. In Acts 28:1-4, the natives read the viper event as a sign…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[78,304,891,340],"class_list":["post-83119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-authority","tag-idolatry","tag-paganism","tag-signs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":62260,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-signs-of-an-apostle\/","url_meta":{"origin":83119,"position":0},"title":"The Signs of an Apostle","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 21, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton The apostles of Jesus were eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus (Acts 1:13f). They had to have personally seen Jesus alive from the dead. Nobody today meets that criterion. But those Jesus chose to be sent out by Him as His personal eyewitnesses were also equipped by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3344,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-recent-natural-disasters-signs\/","url_meta":{"origin":83119,"position":1},"title":"Are recent natural disasters signs?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What about the sign that is happening in recent times where natural disasters become such a frequent thing? What is your view toward it? Answer: There is built within your question an assumption that frequent natural disasters are a sign. A sign of what, I'm not told, but it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51011,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-is-god-giving-me-signs-but-not-my-former-boyfriend\/","url_meta":{"origin":83119,"position":2},"title":"Why is God giving me signs but not my former boyfriend?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have been with a man for six years whom I care deeply for, we split up by his choice. I have been distraught and praying to God to show me signs specific signs.\u00a0 I said, \"God if I am supposed to be with him please let me win\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49836,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-proper-to-ask-for-non-miraculous-signs\/","url_meta":{"origin":83119,"position":3},"title":"Is it proper to ask for non-miraculous signs?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I had a question regarding asking God for a sign in the Bible. I was reading an article on your site about it (Should we ask for signs like Gideon did?). I'm curious about signs of a non-miraculous nature. Does God communicate with people like Jonathan in I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92199,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-charismatic-movement-in-the-first-century\/","url_meta":{"origin":83119,"position":4},"title":"The Charismatic Movement in the First Century","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Floyd Chappelear via\u00a0Sentry Magazine, Vol 18 No. 4, December 1992 One must be impressed with the miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit in the first-century church.. The apostles, for instance, were told they did not need to plan ahead with respect to what they were to speak, for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":63873,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-apostles\/","url_meta":{"origin":83119,"position":5},"title":"The Apostles (Sermon)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: II Corinthians 11:1-15 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I Corinthians 12:28-29; Ephesians 4:11-13 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The world contains many strange ideas regarding apostles. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Mormons and some other denominations claim their organization is more truly like the first century church because they have apostles. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0C.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I have had some strong discussions with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}