After Jesus Christ sacrificed His Body on the Cross He Visited the disciples in his resurrected body and gave them the following instructions:
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16: 15-18 KJV).
The preceding scriptural passage constitutes what is known as The Great Commission. It is a commandment (not a suggestion) for The Body Of Christ (The Church) — as to what He expects Her to do.
There is some serious confusion regarding part of verse 18 (in bold above). Many seem to just leave it out or fly past when teaching the Great Commission from the Book of Mark. The Great Commission is rendered to some extent in all four Gospels.
It is my desire to learn and share all that I can in favor of accomplishing the mandate of The Great Commission. For this reason, I think it beneficial to take a look with you at possible and likely meanings of the original text specifically pertaining to the words/phrases they shall take up, serpents, drink and deadly thing. Do keep in mind that oftentimes in the Bible distinguishing between the metaphor and literal is important. So is it when doing this study.
One of the meanings from the Greek for “they shall take up” is “to take and apply to any use”. It is from the word airō. The word serpent (which literally means serpent) is from the Greek word ophis and likely refers metaphorically to wisdom. In Matthew 10:16 the Lord refers to serpents as being wise. So, taking up serpents is “laying hold of wisdom”. Not withstanding the likely metaphorical meaning of taking up a serpent and not being harmed, we see in Acts 28: 3-6 how that Paul was bitten by a deadly serpent with no harmful affect.
Lastly, drinking any deadly thing without being harmed. The word translated drink is pinō in Strong’s Concordance. It is defined: figuratively, to receive into the soul what serves to refresh strengthen, nourish it unto life eternal. Basically, deadly is deadly as defined by Strong’s. The Greek word is thanasimos. It is likely that the message here is that if a Saint were to inadvertently ingest some poison that they would be protected from danger by Holy Spirit.