The Great Snipe Hunt and a Case of "Versitus"

This morning I sat watching a little doe follow her mama through the woods. You could tell she hadn't been on this earth very long. Every few steps she'd stumble over those long legs like they hadn't quite figured out they belonged to her yet. She'd regain her balance, look around like nothing happened, and keep following mama.

While I watched, a squirrel came bouncing down an oak tree. Both deer instantly threw their heads up. Their ears stood straight out like little satellite dishes trying to pick up every sound in Buchanan County.

I couldn't help but grin.

"A squirrel startles you... but you've got a full-grown man sitting twenty yards away drinking coffee and watching the whole show."

I guess that's just another reminder that sometimes we notice the wrong things.

Watching those deer carried me back several years to our old hunting cabin.

Now, that cabin didn't have television. It didn't have Wi-Fi or even electricity. Our evening entertainment consisted of family stories, laughter, an occasional Jerry Clower Cassette Tape, and enough tall tales to keep a logging crew entertained until daylight.

One evening my younger cousin Aaron had spent nearly two days turning over every rock in the branch looking for waterdogs. If there was a salamander within three counties, Aaron was determined to introduce himself to it.

The rest of us were mowing and weed eating around the cabin while he always disappeared into the creek every few minutes on another expedition.

Well... somebody spotted an opportunity to teach a lesson about helping others work.

My uncle casually mentioned that while weed eating we'd jumped up a couple of snipe.

Aaron's ears perked up immediately. "What are snipe?"

That was all the invitation the family needed.

For the next three hours we built the greatest hunting story ever told.

It started simple.

"They're mostly nocturnal."

Then...

"You catch them with a pillowcase."

A little later...

"You've got to use an apple for bait."

About an hour after that...

"You have to learn a special snipe call."

By the end of the evening, those birds had become legend.

We explained that if several charged him at once, he needed the proper stance with the pillowcase so they wouldn't knock him over while fighting to get inside.

Then somebody added my favorite detail.

"The males have little antlers... about the size of turkey spurs. Dry them out and they make beautiful keychains."

Nobody laughed.

Nobody cracked a smile.

Everyone was completely committed.

About ten that night we handed Aaron a flashlight, an apple, and a pillowcase.

We marched him to a nice flat field.

"Give us about five minutes to get out of here so we don't scare them off."

We quietly slipped up the hill behind him and waited.

A few minutes later...

"Whoooop... whoooop..."

The legendary snipe call echoed through the night.

We all had our hands over our mouths trying not to laugh.

My uncle even gave a return call back.

After a few minutes somebody tossed a rock off into the woods to create the sound of movement.

Silence.

Then...

"Whoooop... whoooop..."

Another rock.

Another call.

For nearly fifteen minutes this poor fellow stood out there convinced he was moments away from filling a pillowcase with trophy snipe.

Finally somebody whispered, "Let's go."

We slipped back to the cabin.

About thirty minutes later we heard footsteps coming up the trail.

Aaron stormed onto the porch.

The look on his face told us he'd finally figured it out.

We laughed until our sides hurt.

He didn't.

Not that night anyway.

The next morning...

He mysteriously volunteered to help weed eat instead of wandering off.

Funny how experience can rearrange your priorities.

As I laughed about that memory this morning, another thought came to mind.

Sometimes Christians can go on a "snipe hunt" too.

Not because the Bible isn't true.

It is.

But because we become so fascinated with one verse that we quit reading everything around it.

I call that condition "Versitus."

Versitus is when we build an entire belief system around one favorite verse while ignoring the context, chapter, the book, the author, the audience, and the rest of Scripture.

A true symptom of Versitus is before long, every conversation somehow circles back to that one subject.

No matter where you begin...

...that's where you end up.

Mark 16:18 talking about taking up serpents and Acts talks about Paul being bitten by a snake in Malta is a perfect example. Some have used these accounts to justify handling venomous snakes as a demonstration of faith.

But when you read the passage carefully, Paul wasn't looking for a snake. He wasn't trying to prove anything. He didn't have good eyesight and he was simply gathering firewood when he was bitten, and God protected him to confirm the Gospel among unbelievers. That is a description of what God did, not a command for believers to repeat it (Acts 28:3-6).

The Bible wasn't inviting Christians to go hunting rattlesnakes any more than Aaron was actually hunting birds with antlers.

Context matters.

Paul reminded Timothy, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved... rightly handling the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)

He didn't simply say to just read the Bible.

He said to rightly handle it.

Peter also warned that some people twist Scripture to support ideas God never intended.

"...There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures." (2 Peter 3:16)

Then there's my favorite preacher story.

A church member finally approached his pastor.

"Preacher... for three straight months every sermon has been about baptism. We understand baptism. Can we study something else?"

The pastor smiled.

The next Sunday he preached from the story of Elisha and the floating axe head.

He talked about the miracle...

the borrowed axe...

the stick...

and the iron floating.

Then he closed by saying,

"And the reason God made that axe head float was so they could cut enough trees down to dam up the creek for a good baptism."

Some folks can find their favorite subject anywhere.

The Bible isn't a collection of disconnected verses for us to use like fishing lures.

It's one glorious story pointing us to Jesus Christ.

Paul reminded us,

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16)

Not just our favorite verses.

All Scripture.

The more we understand the whole counsel of God, the less likely we'll spend our lives chasing theological snipe.

A Tribute to Aaron

This story is dedicated to my cousin, Aaron Davis.

Aaron eventually laughed about that famous snipe hunt, but the greatest thing about his life wasn't that he could be fooled into standing in a field with a pillowcase and an apple.

It was that God called him to stand behind a pulpit and faithfully preach His Word.

Aaron began preaching while he was still a young man, and though the Lord called him home as a young man, far earlier than any of us would have chosen after an epileptic seizure. His testimony still reminds me that a life doesn't have to be long to be faithful.