Prayers to the dead - not in the Bible

I have found myself talking, not necessarily praying loved ones that have died.

jamesbond007 said:

That is ridiculous. Nowhere does scripture teach that. Father Abraham is called such because of his great faith and being the founder of prayer. The main characters is that of a parable of the rich man and Lazarus that teaches to help the poor, especially if one is rich. It is a parable of having faith instead of believing in miracles for one's belief.

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Paul agrees.........

GALATIANS 3:6 . . . Abraham 'believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness'." 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed." 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

Lazarus and the Rich Man - Here a little, there a little - Commentary

LUKE 16:29 "Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.'

JOHN 5:45 "Do not think that I shall accuse ye to the Father; there is one who accuses ye — Moses, in whom ye trust. 46 For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. 47 But if ye do not believe his writings, how will ye believe My words?"

John 18:29 Then Pilate went forth toward them and said, "What Accusation/kathgorian <2724> do ye bring against this Man"?
30 They answered and said to him, "If He were not an evil-doer, not ever this-one to thee we have delivered Him."

Then after Jesus ascension in Acts:

Reve 12:10 And I hear great voice saying in the Heaven: "Now! became the salvation and the power and the Kingdom of the God of us, and the authority of the Christ of Him,
that was cast the Accuser /kathgoroV <2725>of the brothers of us, the one accusing//kathgorwn <2723> (5723) them in sight of the God of us day and night.

BobRyan said:

What an interesting world we live in.

...

1 Thess 5
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.​

Notice that "we who are alive" is never applied to "the dead in Christ" - rather always contrasted with them.

Isaiah 8:19 includes this " should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? "

Given this Bible detail alone -- it is probably easy for us all to see how it could be that many Christians today would prefer not to engage in "communion with the dead"

And at the same time - it is also easy to see how a great many world religions who do not have access to 1 Thess 5 or Isaiah 8:19 WOULD in fact be choosing "communion with the dead"



And yet I can see how the comments above in the OP show the reasons many Christians use for not praying to the dead.



Well the Bible provides no example of praying to the dead (outside of one parable where the "dead pray to the dead")

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Easy, I understand your argument. I also believe in sola scriptura, but can't claim it is in the Bible. The other threads on it vs non-sola scriptura threw me for a loop at first. However, if one really gets down to the nitty gritty, sola scriptura is also based on human interpretation and/or hermeneutics, i.e. fallible. Nowhere in the Bible states one must read it as such.

I was able to discern what is important by reading about hermeneutics. Thus, while scripture is key, there is room for other interpretations. Believing in one doesn't mean that others can be criticized to the point of right and wrong. My conclusion is neither system is right or wrong, but what is the truths one discerns from it. It that regard, I see common ground between all the Christian denominations.

Hermeneutics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

jamesbond007 said:

Easy, I understand your argument. I also believe in sola scriptura, but can't claim it is in the Bible. The other threads on it vs non-sola scriptura threw me for a loop at first. However, if one really gets down to the nitty gritty, sola scriptura is also based on human interpretation and/or hermeneutics, i.e. fallible. Nowhere in the Bible states one must read it as such.

I was able to discern what is important by reading about hermeneutics. Thus, while scripture is key, there is room for other interpretations. Believing in one doesn't mean that others can be criticized to the point of right and wrong. My conclusion is neither system is right or wrong, but what is the truths one discerns from it. It that regard, I see common ground between all the Christian denominations.

Hermeneutics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Good post.
I also am sola scriptura.
Speaking of hermenutics , were you aware CF has a board for that?

Christian Scriptures

This verse in 1 Corin is often used that Paul was inferring to rely on scriptures and not men.
Thoughts?

[YLT] 1 Cor 4:6 And these things, brethren, I did transfer to myself and to Apollos because of you, that in us ye may learn not to think above that which hath been written, that ye may not be puffed up one for one against the other,

Pulpit Commentary

................Than ye might learn in us. I made Apollos and myself instances of the undesirability of over exalting human teachers, that by our case you might learn the general principle. Not to think of men above that which is written. The true reading is merely, not above the things which have been written, as though the words were a sort of proverb, like Ne quid nimis or Milton's "The rule of not too much" (μηδὲν ἄγαν).
The word "to think" is omitted in the best manuscripts. The phrase, "which have been written," is of very uncertain meaning. It may refer generally to "the scriptural rule" that all boasting is wrong (Jeremiah 9:23), or to the humble estimate of teachers which he has just been writing down for them......................

BobRyan said:

ok - however a lot of Christians reading Acts 17:11 will see that as exactly what is meant by "sola scriptura" testing.

I like the exegesis of texts that lets the text speak for itself. In any case -- I notice you also did not present any text showing prayers to the dead, or prayers for the dead.

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Acts 17:11 discusses I presume, Greeks (under Roman authority) whom helped Apostle Paul and Silas. It's not about sola scriptura. What is "sola scriptura" testing and who is the one testing?

There are problems with letting the text speak for itself as explained in the Stanford Philosophy link.

There's not much point in arguing about prayers to/for the dead one way or another if it's not in the Bible. It's like arguing semantics which is usually pointless.

Original Happy Camper said:

Genesis 3:4
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

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Point?

W2L said:

So if we dont believe in praying to saints, there is no point being Christian? We deny eternal life?

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Not what I said is it? I said if you don't believe that members of the church are resurrected in death then there is no point to being a Christian. Do we not do everything for eternal salvation?

As for praying to saints, nobody who actually follows apostolic teachings prays to the actual saint. In both the RCC and EOC we are aware that saints do nothing in their own power, and rather we are asking for their intercession. For them to pray for us.

jamesbond007 said:

Easy, I understand your argument. I also believe in sola scriptura, but can't claim it is in the Bible. The other threads on it vs non-sola scriptura threw me for a loop at first. However, if one really gets down to the nitty gritty, sola scriptura is also based on human interpretation and/or hermeneutics, i.e. fallible. Nowhere in the Bible states one must read it as such.

I was able to discern what is important by reading about hermeneutics. Thus, while scripture is key, there is room for other interpretations. Believing in one doesn't mean that others can be criticized to the point of right and wrong. My conclusion is neither system is right or wrong, but what is the truths one discerns from it. It that regard, I see common ground between all the Christian denominations.

Hermeneutics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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BobRyan said:

Unicorns eating blue cheese -- an example of something not in the Bible.

The task is simpler than many people might have at first assumed.

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The hypostatic Union of Christ is not directly in the Bible either, nor single baptism, or any of the many things Christians argue over. They are nonetheless important.

This is why we rely on church councils. Where the spirit can influence a group of church members to help their fallible minds reach the correct conclusion.

Even the New Testament isn't "in the Bible."

BobRyan said:

We call it - incarnation usually and Philipians 2 has a pretty good description so also Colossians 1 and 2... particularly 2:9




Both single baptism and re-baptism are explicit in scripture.



Not true at all. In fact in most cases all disputes among Christians on the subject of doctrine uses the text of scripture alone.

Every denomination has their own church tradition saying "we are right" -- so that is not proof of it.

in Christ,

Bob

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Which is why having the original teachings of the apostles (the apostolic oral tradition), is so important. Other than that the best we can do is follow the apostles example and form church councils to decide matters of question.

2 macc 12:46
It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.

BobRyan said:

Agreed... the Bible.

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But the NT is not the sole source of apostolic teachings. Paul himself talks about letters to Churches that we don't have. He also tells us to keeps the oral traditions. Then there are sources like the didache

☦Marius☦ said:

But the NT is not the sole source of apostolic teachings. Paul himself talks about letters to Churches that we don't have. He also tells us to keeps the oral traditions. Then there are sources like the didache

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It's an innovation in "theology" that makes people demand that everything with which they disagree be proven by something in the bible but their own unbiblical theology does not need to be proven by something in the bible. For example, there is no bible passage that teaches that everything must be in the bible and no bible passage that teaches a 66 book bible but the innovative "theology" assumes these things and then demands that everybody conform to the unbiblical demand. It's all very unjustified and very self serving. It is bad theology. But good theology get no air in the stifling "theology" you're combating.

☦Marius☦ said:

...Furthermore you ignored the entire post I gave afterward.

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I actually went to sleep. Don't assume please.

GingerBeer said:

What an absurd thing to say. If you're keen on Jewish holy books then why accept the 27 canonical books of the new testament? The Jews of today reject all 27 of them as well as rejecting Jesus Christ.

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Umm, because they who wrote them, were generally Jews [Matthew, Mark, John, Paul, James, Peter, Jude] who followed God, even Jesus who is a Jew, the Lion of the tribe of Judah? [exceptions would be Luke/Acts [if one accepts Luke as a gentile], and possibly Romans [Tertius, though could still be a Jew with a Romanish name] though it was dictated by Paul under inspiration of the Holy Spirit.]

Jews of today [most of the leaders are kabalistic, and others are simply Ashkenazic] are not the Jews of then in several ways.