 Hensley was initially content following his experience at the Church of God , but he began to question whether he was living a sufficiently righteous life . He became fixated on a passage in the Gospel of Mark ( Mark 16 : 17 – 18 , KJV : " And these signs shall follow them that believe ; In my name ... They shall take up serpents " which suggested that Christians might take up " serpents " without injury . Psychologists Ralph W. Hood and W. Paul Williamson , as well as one of Hensley 's children , have proposed that his preoccupation with this verse arose from a childhood memory of witnessing snake handling in Virginia . Hensley later recalled that he began to doubt his salvation and withdrew to a nearby hill to pray and seek God 's will . In a 1947 newspaper interview , he claimed to have seen a snake while walking on the hill . He said that he knelt in prayer , took hold of it , then brought it to his church and told the congregation to also prove their salvation by holding the snake . 
