Praying to Saints

12volt_man said:

2 Timothy 3:16

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Ok, you claim the Bible has evrything in it to be Christian which is true, but is everything that a Church does including your in the Bible?

For instance, the wedding ceremony, is it in the Bible on how to do it? No it's based off the tradition of your Church. How about the Baptism ceremony? Again tradition. Plus the many other things that are not in the Bible. So again my point, not everyhting we do is in the Bible.

Wedding rings are actually a pagan tradition...

12volt_man said:

How does it have anything to do with confessing to a priest for absolution?

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Confess your sins to one another, doesn't sound like confessing to a Preist?

Psalm40 said:

Wedding rings are actually a pagan tradition...

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No but the prayers said to unite man and wife are not pagan, nor in the Bible.

GraceAnneWinter said:

Well, aren't you claiming to speak to someone dead when you talk to a Saint. Yes, their souls are alive in heaven, but they experienced death. So what is the difference?

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Look at the verses the other posted used to dissprove prayer to saints. They are speaking of conjuring up spirits. Praying to a Saint who is dead on earth, but alive in Christ is not the same thing.

GraceAnneWinter said:

Well, I for one question the words of my pastor, and make sure that what he says follows the Bible before I practice it. Maybe you should consider questioning the words of your pope, because like my pastor, he is not perfect. Also, if my church is a "man-made sect" then I would have to say your church is also, but I don't think either is man-made, both of course, have sadly been influenced by man and that is why it is important to question the words of other Christians and leaders of our churches.

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You've been avoiding my posts... figures..

By what standard do you judge what is "biblical"? Especially when sect has their own spin on what the Bible means!

For example, Former Fundamentalist seminarian Tim Staples relays his experience at Jimmy Swaggert Bible College: “I was amazed to find myself in two classes back to back that taught entirely different positions on the Trinity. The first taught orthodox Trinitarian theology. The second taught that God the Father has a body and God the Holy Spirit has a body. The first class taught that Jesus was the eternal Son of the Father. The second taught that he was the eternal Word who became the ‘Son’ only at the incarnation. I remember going to lunch with a young lady one day and she was very distraught. She said to me in despair, ‘I thought I knew what I believed about God, but now I’m not sure what I believe.’” (quoted from his testimony, "The Bible Made Me Do It", included in Surprised by Truth, Basilica Press, San Diego, 1994)

Jesus preserved the Church in all truth. The traditions of Fundamentalists are only about 150 years old, and of the earliest Protestants, 500 years old, whereas the teachings of the Catholic Church are 2000 years old. One good source of the works of the early Church fathers is The History of Christianity by Paul Johnson.

I ask you, who has a better interpretation of Scripture, one who was taught by an Apostle (or a disciple of an Apostle) and whose mother tongue is Greek, and lived in the context of the NT world, or someone who picks up the Bible and (having trusted whoever interpreted it for them into a modern tongue) reads whatever they want from it?

Protestant theologian David W. Bercot, in his book Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up? (Scroll Publishing Co., 1989) took, what he described as a “new look at today’s Evangelical Church in light of early Christianity.” He denounces false doctrines which “reformers” introduced such as symbolic baptism, Calvinist predestination, and salvation by faith alone.

In his book, Common Sense: A New Approach to Understanding Scripture (Scroll Publishing Co., 1992), Bercot says that it is arrogance to reject the early Church Fathers’ interpretations of the Bible in favor of our own modern-day interpretations: “Your quest is to find out how the primitive Church in general understood the New Testament. In other words, what was the ‘course of performance’ of the first generations of Christians? After you have read enough of their works to have a good feel for their culture, mindset, and overall Christian beliefs, go back and re-read the New Testament. Read it through their pattern of thinking. See what new things you will discover. When you’re through, you’re free to go back and pick up all of your former beliefs, if you like. But perhaps you never will” (p. 165-166). He talked of great Church fathers like Polycarp (A.D.69-155), a disciple of John the Apostle himself. This man, like so many other early Christian leaders, refused to renounce Jesus Christ, and became a martyr for the faith. Men willing to die for the teachings of the Apostles, Bercot argues, would not be likely to corrupt those teachings knowingly.


The Apostle Paul worte to Timothy that the CHURCH is “the pillar and bulwark of Truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). He wrote to the Ephesians (Ephesians 4:11-13) of the importance of Church leadership and structure “…to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” He did not call for “the individual interpretation of faith and knowledge,” he spoke of UNITY, coming through instructing others. This is why Acts 4:32 tells us that the Christians of the early Church “were of one heart and mind.”

Are things really like that now?

Is the "fracturation" of Christianity truly the response Jesus was hoping for when He prayed for the unity of all people who would come to believe in Him (John 17:20-23)? I don’t think so.

So how has the “Bible alone” idealogy led to a “restoration” of the “biblical Christian Church” as Fundamentalists all claim they have? How has it led to a unity of all believers? Or even the Truth?

The Bible proceeds from the Church, not the other way around.

You keep forgetting, the Bible only exists, thanks to the Catholic Church who preserved her, through whom the Holy Spirit has always worked, and will continue to work until Christ comes again in glory.

You have yet to prove your interpretation of Scripture is correct over the Catholic Church’s or the thousands of other denominations out there.

Basically, Protestant theologies are all based on personal interpretations on the Bible, which the Catholic Church produced. As Vincent of Lerins stated: “Here, perhaps, someone may ask: ‘If the canon of the scriptures be perfect and in itself more than suffices for everything, why is it necessary that the authority of ecclesiastical interpretation be joined to it?’ Because, quite plainly, sacred Scripture, by reason of its own depth, is not accepted by everyone as having one and the same meaning. . . . Thus, because of so many distortions of such various errors, it is highly necessary that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed in accord with the norm of the ecclesiastical and Catholic meaning” (The Notebooks [A.D. 434]).

repentant said:

Confess your sins to one another, doesn't sound like confessing to a Preist?

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No, it doesn't sound anything at all like going to a man for absolution.

repentant said:

Ok, you claim the Bible has evrything in it to be Christian which is true, but is everything that a Church does including your in the Bible?

For instance, the wedding ceremony, is it in the Bible on how to do it? No it's based off the tradition of your Church. How about the Baptism ceremony? Again tradition. Plus the many other things that are not in the Bible. So again my point, not everyhting we do is in the Bible.

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The difference, of course, is that a wedding ceremony isn't a point of doctrine.

For Roman Catholics, praying to the dead in the hopes that the dead will somehow pass those prayers on to God or alter events on your behalf, is.

As for the baptism ceremony, yes, we do find that taught in principle in scripture.

12volt_man said:

There's no Biblical reason to pray to anyone but God and there's certainly no reason to pray to the dead.

In fact, the Bible condemns both practices.

Very often you will hear them cite Rev 5:8, which talks about the prayers of the saints. Notice, though, that these are the prayers of the saints in Heaven to God, not an example of the living saints praying to the dead.

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Hi,

Firstly, they're not dead, they're alive in Christ. Secondly, you have to ask the question, "What do people do in Heaven?". It's reasonable to assume that they will be doing what Jesus does -- interceding for us.

12volt_man said:

No, it doesn't sound anything at all like going to a man for absolution.

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Ok, take it how you like. It's funny how you can twist words to suite yourself, but something as plain as "Confess you sins to one another" has nothing to do with confession to a Priest.

But if you want absolution in the Bible...

Matthew 16:19
"and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Matthew 18:17,18
"And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

GraceAnneWinter said:

But the works of the Bible did. And those works were followed and read for many years before the Church created the Bible. So yes, the Bible (but not called by that name) preceeded the Church but went by the name, The Word of God. John 1:1-2 says this "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning."

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The WORD is the "logos" -- God the SON, the Second Person of the Trinity.

Are you telling us you believe the BIBLE is God?!?

Jesus founded the Church and the Church wrote the Bible.

repentant said:

Ok, take it how you like. It's funny how you can twist words to suite yourself, but something as plain as "Confess you sins to one another" has nothing to do with confession to a Priest.

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Fin. Show me how you go from all believers confessing their sins to one another to one man, designated by God, whom we are to confess our sins to so that he can absolve us of them on God's behalf.

But if you want absolution in the Bible...

Matthew 16:19
"and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Matthew 18:17,18
"And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

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Neither one of these has anything to do with absolution, but church discipline.

KiwiRob said:

Hi,

Firstly, they're not dead, they're alive in Christ.

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Who do you believe the Bible is referring to when it talks about the dead in Christ?

Secondly, you have to ask the question, "What do people do in Heaven?". It's reasonable to assume that they will be doing what Jesus does -- interceding for us.

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Fine. Let's say for a moment that they are interceding for us.

That they intercede doesn't negate the Bible's condemnation of praying to the dead.

12volt_man said:

Fin. Show me how you go from all believers confessing their sins to one another to one man, designated by God, whom we are to confess our sins to so that he can absolve us of them on God's behalf.



Neither one of these has anything to do with absolution, but church discipline.

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Ok your first question, I don't understand, it seems like a jumbled bunch of words.

How does that have to do with Church discipline? Jesus gave the Apostles the authority to loose or bind people in their sins.

12volt_man said:

Who do you believe the Bible is referring to when it talks about the dead in Christ?



Fine. Let's say for a moment that they are interceding for us.

That they intercede doesn't negate the Bible's condemnation of praying to the dead.

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Do you not read? The Bible does not condemn praying to Saints. Period. The quotes you posted have to do with sorcery and conjuring of the dead. Not praying. And regardless of what the quotes mean, they are OT. We don't follow OT Law anyway. Do you make weekly sacrifices of goats? The NT supercedes the OT.

GraceAnneWinter said:

Yes, duty wasn't the word I should have used, I mean more something like ability. Do saints have the ability to listen to multiple people on Earth? Revelations 5:8 keeps getting brought up. It refers to the prayers of the Saints, but does not say that the prayers of these Saints are intercessions for people on Earth. It does not say at all that they were able to hear people's prayers/requests for intercession.

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How specific do you need it to be? Prayers, generally speaking, are intercession, are they not? I have given you biblical references which suggests that the saints are in heaven (transfiguration) and that in heaven Saints offer prayers. I don't know how much clearer it can be for you to accept it.

Michelle

repentant said:

The Bible does not condemn praying to Saints. Period. The quotes you posted have to do with sorcery and conjuring of the dead. Not praying.

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Each of these verses refers to contacting the dead.

And regardless of what the quotes mean, they are OT. We don't follow OT Law anyway. Do you make weekly sacrifices of goats? The NT supercedes the OT.

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Then why did Jesus continually quote the OT and tell us that not one jot or tittle will fall away?