Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 100C — How to be "Wise as Serpents"
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Would you explain what it means in the Bible when it says, "Be wise as serpents"?
HC: Yes. In the Bible the serpent is a figure of Satan, and the serpent in the Garden of Eden is spoken of as being the most prudent of the animals. He was the wisest of the animals before the fall of man. And it is this animal that is used here. In other words, we have to be as wise as Satan himself. We have to be as wise as anything in this creation is wise, and yet we have to be as innocent as a dove. The dove represents the Holy Spirit Himself. We have to be holy in our wisdom. We may not be wise as serpents in the sense of having deceit, or having a conniving mind of some kind. Our wisdom has to be straight prudence, straight wisdom.
CALLER: When you're being wise, do you have to study about Satan, or do you just study about Christ?
HC: Under no circumstances would the Bible teach us that we are to study Satan in order to emulate him. The Bible says in another place, "Be babes in evil." The less we know about wickedness, the better it is. We can know about serpents, however, if we go back to Genesis 1 or Genesis 3, where it speaks about the fall of Adam, that the serpent was the most wise, the most prudent, which is actually the word that is used there, of all of the animals. We are to be exemplary in our wisdom, in other words.
It also comes to mind this statement of Luke 16, where we have the parable of the dishonest steward. And the dishonest steward in this parable is a very sinful man, and yet he is a very wise man in his own generation, that is, in his generation of evil. And the conclusion of Jesus is, in verse 8: "The master commended the dishonest steward for his prudence. For the sons of this world are wiser in their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations."
In other words, God here is using an example of someone who is wicked, and who has a deep concern for the future, and makes provision for the future, and likewise He wants believers to have concern for the future.