George W. Hensley (c. 1880–1955)

George Went Hensley was an Appalachian preacher whose ministry helped popularize Pentecostal snake handling in parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and neighboring mountain communities. He read Mark 16:17–18 as a direct mandate for present-day worship and treated physical risk as a public testimony of God’s protection. Admirers remembered his boldness, plainspoken preaching, and willingness to go wherever small churches would receive him.

Hensley’s life also illustrates a familiar pattern in revival history: sincere zeal mixed with practices that can drift from gospel witness into spiritual bravado. Even when motives are earnest, the line between courage and presumption can blur, especially when a congregation begins to measure “faith” by outward danger rather than inward holiness.

July 24, 1955: The Fatal Bite

On July 24, 1955, during a church service in rural north Florida (commonly reported near Altha in the Panhandle), Hensley handled a venomous snake and was bitten. As he had after previous bites, he refused medical care, insisting that believers should embrace the promise recorded in Mark’s closing verses: “And these signs will accompany those who believe… they will pick up snakes with their hands… and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them” (Mark 16:17–18).

He died the next day at age seventy-five. The event marked a sobering milestone for a movement that often presented itself as proof of divine power. Whatever one concludes about the practice, the outcome forced many to ask whether the pursuit of signs had overshadowed the call to sober-minded devotion.

Faith, Humility, and the Whole Counsel of Scripture

Hensley’s story can be read with both charity and caution: charity, because courage is not nothing, and a trembling world needs believers who trust God; caution, because Scripture also forbids testing God. Jesus answered temptation with a boundary for all disciples: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:7).

True faith clings to God’s power without demanding dramatic proofs, and true heroism is often quieter—endurance, repentance, sacrificial love, and steady obedience. The lasting lesson is not that God is weak, but that discipleship is strongest when it is marked by humility, wisdom, and a reverent refusal to turn worship into spectacle.