Paul had survived a shipwreck when a viper fastened onto his hand as he added sticks to a fire on Malta. The islanders decided he must be a murderer whom justice would not allow to live. He shook the snake into the fire and suffered no harm. After waiting for him to collapse, they changed their minds and called him a god. Their confidence had survived two opposite conclusions without making either one true. We can be just as quick to turn someone’s troubles into evidence against them, then mistake their success for proof that everything they do is right. God had preserved Paul, but the crowd had misunderstood both his danger and his deliverance. Before passing judgment on another person’s life, we should remember how much we do not know. A snakebite did not make Paul a murderer, and surviving it did not make him a god.
“Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.” —Acts 28:6
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