GREATER THAN (A STUDY IN THE BOOK OF HEBREWS) SUBSERIES: FOUNDATIONS - WEEK 5 - LAYING ON OF HANDS, THE HOLY SPIRIT, PART 1

For a variety of reasons, I am excited about this message. Have you ever said this: I can hardly wait to get my hands on that person!  I’m pretty sure that’s NOT what the Bible means when it speaks of this “laying on of hands.”

But I also am pretty sure that this is one of those really confusing ideas we read in Scripture and don’t automatically understand what it’s talking about.

I mean - on one hand, you have pentecostal preachers out there (some on tv) who claim to have the gift of healing people by laying hands on them. You find others laying hands on folks who then break out in tongues and things get chaotic. And so on that one hand, people tend to not WANT to know about the laying on of hands - especially if it means that kind of experience. Kinda scary to many people, ya know?

But then on the other hand, you see that the Bible DOES instruct the Church to participate in the laying on of hands…and if it’s commanded in Scripture, then we know it must be important…

So what does it mean to have hands laid on you? What does that signify?

Well, this will be a journey that may take us a couple of weeks to get through - which is fine. I would rather us have a more thorough understanding, because this is one of those issues that represents, what I believe, to be the power of life-transformation that God designed us to experience. And for that reason, I don’t want us to misunderstand the source of that kind of power.