One meaning of the word “balk” is familiar in baseball, but that is not the only place where the word is used. When I was a small boy, we had a neighbor who had a mule that he used to pull a plow or cultivator between the rows to rid his garden of weeds. Sometimes the mule would balk in the middle of the garden, refusing to pull the plow any further. In some cases, additional “urging” would lead to the mule lying down in the harness and refusing to move until Carl, the owner, took the harness off the mule. I have heard a story about a farmer who had a balky mule which he hit over the head with a two-by-four “to get his attention.” I always thought the story apocryphal and a bit drastic, but perhaps it might get a really stubborn mule to work. Most of us do not deal much with mules, but we do at times have to teach or work with stubborn people who will cooperate only up to a point, then balk at going further. This is often the case with baptism; many people will believe in God and that Christ is God’s Son, but they balk at baptism. One man simply clams up and refuses to talk any more about it when I urge him to be baptized. Another man I taught for years finally said he would be baptized if he could continue to be a Methodist, but he refused