Acts 16:15

Yesterday my entire family entered the Mikvah Bath for a T’Vylah, or immersion, or baptism.

My husband and I were baptized over 10 years ago (I was baptized at 13 and then again when I rededicated my life to the Lord after a very intense time in my life). We’d always intended to have our children baptized as part of their Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s if they hadn’t asked to be baptized before then. The Lord had been challenging me for awhile about this, though, and about when I’d be comfortable doing it so I have been researching this and talking to people from lots of beliefs on this issue.

A little over a month ago our dear friends’ oldest daughter was baptized and my children overheard me talking with another friend about the upcoming event. The questions began. What is baptism? Where do you do it? Do you have to be a certain age? How many times does it happen? So I offered answers. “It’s where you go into the water and go under and come back up–” “OH like Jesus did with his cousin John!” “Yes. And it means, for us, that we believe in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and tells the world that we are saved by Him and He is Lord of our lives and we love Him.” “You do it in a Mikvah bath or Baptismal that they have at our church–or in any place of water, but that’s where we would do it.” “Nope–you just have to understand what it means.” “It happens once, but it’s like marriage. Daddy and I were married once only but we can renew our vows as many times as we want to remind ourselves and others of how much we love and are committed to each other.”

Then the question that melted my heart. “Can I be baptized?” Asked by my oldest, Liam, and a very quick on its heels, “Me too?” from my daughter, Fiona. My answer? “Absolutely!” So we set a date, made the arrangements, invited friends and family.

Yesterday morning, on the appointed day, my son Aidan came to me to ask what they were doing. We’d talked about it before and he wasn’t interested but yesterday as I explained and asked and answered questions he said he wanted to be baptized too.

Yes–I was in heaven.

Then on the way to services I felt uneasy–would our babies be the only unbaptized members of our household? They are unable to verbally profess faith but their love of the Lord is evident! Then the Lord put very heavily on my heart that individuals and their whole households were baptized in Scripture. So I talked to my husband and then to our Rabbi and we adjusted our plans.

I was doing the baptism and the congregation, friends and family were all invited so we had a very crowded room. We all entered the water and I shared that on Pesach/Passover the blood of the Passover Lamb covered and protected a man and his children. I then shared that we believe that salvation through Yeshua is a covenant and that the blood of Yeshua, our perfect Passover Lamb, covers a man and his household. And that Rabbi Sha’ul, Paul, spoke in Scripture that the children of even one believer are sanctified. Our older three children have made a profession of faith and our preverbal children have a clear love of the Lord. I shared the progression of events that brought us there, and then I asked each child:

“Liam, do you want to put yourself underwater or me to?”
“Myself.”
“Liam, why do you come today to be immersed?”
“To bless the Lord and to be blessed by Him.” (Mikvah means blessing and we’d talked about this–that it’s a blessing to be immersed.)
“Liam, I immerse you in the name of the Father, and the Son, Yeshua, and the Holy Spirit, the Ruach Ha’Kodesh.”

“Fiona, you want to put yourself under, right?”
“Yes”
“Fiona, why do you come today to be immersed?”
“To bless the Lord and to let everyone know that I love Jesus so much!”
“Fiona, I immerse you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

“Aidan, do you want to put yourself under?”
“Yes.”
“Aidan, why do you come today to be immersed.”
“To love God.”
“Aidan, I immerse you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Then with Bill holding Dugan and myself holding Ronan I explained that their immersion is symbolic of the covenant of their father and mother that they are under, yet as part of the Body we did not want to deny them immersion, and so, “Ronan and Dugan, we immerse you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” And they were put almost totally into the water and then we poured water over their heads with our hands.

It was really quite beautiful and I will upload video as soon as I get it from my mother. I wish you all could have been there with us. It was truly a Mikvah–truly a blessing.

Proverbs 23:14
Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

nakah shebet natsal nephes sh@’owl

reads from the pictures of the letters: You shall reveal the activity of life allowed by surrounding what destroys the household, taking authority over the activities of desire to consume the acitivity of life with communication, not allowing desire to set the path (which leads to death).

nakah
noon activity, life
Kaf to cover, to open, allow
Hey ‘the’, to reveal

So nakah is to reveal the activity to be allowed. (oh, you always take the last letter as the first meaning)

WOAH!

So combining this with the word pictures of shebet and muwcar we have the parent using the authorty that destroys the chaos that surrounds the house to destroy it by turning the child’s head away from the path of chaos and revealing the activity to be allowed.

THAT makes sense!

So this will work.

Correction is muwcar (pronounced moo-sawr) and it’s made of

mem liquid, massive, chaos
I think that the next letter is Dalet which would be pathway or to enter.
Samech support, twist slowly, turn
Reysh a person, the head, the highest

The idea being presented seems to be that of turning someone’s head to the pathway out of chaos. This totally fits with what I have read about it meaning “come let us reason together”.

So the rod of correction . . . this is interesting.

I’m working on Shebet and this is what I get:

sheen to consume, to destroy
bet household, in, into, family
tet to surround

this makes it very obvious where the idea of it being destructive comes from, but that is too simplistic considering what I know of how it was used outside of parenting. And another interesting thing, the shape of the shebet is that of the Lamed which means control, authority, the tongue. I can’t believe that the shape is insignificant.

It could be a staff for the purpose of destroying what surrounds the household, or surrounding what destroys the household! That would make a lot of sense.

So the point of using the rod of correction to save a child from death would mean using your authority to surround what destroys the household (which is chaos)and turning the child’s head to the path out of chaos. And the Hebraic way of doing this is to use the tongue, or reason together, or discipleship.

I made a whipped topping using coconut milk and almond milk and soybean oil (that was all I had but next time I will use sesame or sunflower) and sweetened with just a smidge of honey and a dash of homemade vanilla and it’s YUMMY! So I cut up some peaches and nectarines, throw in some grapes, add some topping and then toss on some shredded coconut, walnut bits and cashews. Can you say YUM???