3:41 KJV) “I fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my God and prayed.” (Ezra 9:5-6) “Solomon knelt down before the whole assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven.” (2 Chron. 8:6) “Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.” (Lam. 134:2) “Ezra praised the Lord, the great God and all the people lifted their hands and responded, ’Amen! Amen!’” (Neh.

88:9) “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.” (Ps. 63:4) “I call to you, O Lord, everyday I spread out my hands to you.” (Ps. “I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.” (Ps. And what makes this contradiction more odd is that the people who often pride themselves in being a people of the book, who “speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent”, don’t practice something that the Bible says a lot about. I have even heard folks say, “It makes us look like the Pentecostals”, as if that were a bad thing. In fact in some circles people are thought to be strange or weird if they do. I know of no verse in scripture where we are told that we should raise our hand, nor do I find an example where this practice is described, yet this tradition has crossed oceans and cultures as it has traveled around the world, especially among our tribe.Īs I reflected on this tradition we practice at baptism I thought how it has not been a tradition among us to raise our hands when we I was just looking at a picture of a recent baptisms that took place in Africa and there it was again, hand raised before the In artist renderings of the baptism of Jesus, John the baptizer is often shown with his hand raised as he prepares to baptize Jesus. But in all of them I remember seeing the person doing the baptizing raise his hand as he spoke before baptizing the candidate in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I don’t know how many baptisms I have witnessed in my life.

Lds clean hands pure heart