Purgatory And Prayers For The Dead.

[bbbbbbb]

I continue to pray for the dead. Long after I pray for them twice. For the rest of my life, even. I disagree with Luther.

I am not at all sure which is worse - praying for the dead (saints) or praying to the dead.

 

[Fervent]

I am not at all sure which is worse - praying for the dead (saints) or praying to the dead.

Do any in Christ die? After all, Christ Himself highlighted that God is the God of the living, not the dead.

 

[RileyG]

Do any in Christ die? After all, Christ Himself highlighted that God is the God of the living, not the dead.

Exactly!

 

[RileyG]

I am not at all sure which is worse - praying for the dead (saints) or praying to the dead.

Why? Both are ancient practices.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Do any in Christ die? After all, Christ Himself highlighted that God is the God of the living, not the dead.

The point, rather, is do any deceased people hear prayers offered to them or do they need prayers offered for them?

 

[RileyG]

The point, rather, is do any deceased people hear prayers offered to them or do they need prayers offered for them?

They can pray for us and God can use our prayers to help them.

Death does not separate us from the Body of Christ.

 

[bbbbbbb]

They can pray for us and God can use our prayers to help them.

Death does not separate us from the Body of Christ.

How, specifically, do you know this to be true? Why not pray to God through Jesus Christ?

 

[Fervent]

The point, rather, is do any deceased people hear prayers offered to them or do they need prayers offered for them?

This seems like a question that can't be definitively answered. On the one hand, there is what Qoheleth said on the matter. However, that can't be taken as authoritative because Qoheleth says a lot of things that are contradicted in the rest of Scripture. Then there is the evidence in favor of prayer to the dead from the deuterocanonical books, which is sufficient to establish the practice for Catholics and Orthodox though not sufficient for protestants. So ultimately, it seems to me that the issue is one we should be able to disagree agreeably on and let each be convinced in their own mind.

Ultimately, we will all give an answer to the Master. While we can come beside each other and offer guidance, on issues that are matters of speculation we must always remain humble and recognize the limits of our own opinions.

Where it seems we make errors is when our positions effectively deny the Christian hope. Prayer requests to, and prayers for, the dead are an expectation of hope in the resurrection and that life extends beyond the borders of our every day experience. Denials of the efficacy of such prayers can easily become a denial of the reality of the resurrection and denials of the reality that we live in communion not only with those contemporaneous with us but also with those who have come before and those who will come after us.

 

[The Liturgist]

How, specifically, do you know this to be true? Why not pray to God through Jesus Christ?

Jesus Christ is God.

Asking for the intercession of the departed is not a substitute for prayers addressed to God the Father, Son or Holy Ghost, all three persons of the Trinity being proper to address in prayer (and all three of whom are addressed in the Eastern Orthodox liturgy). Rather it helps form a connection between us and the saints of the Church Triumphant who love us and who have through Theosis been glorified and made by Grace what Christ is by nature, and it is the witness of the Church for the past 2,000 years that it is pleasing to God for us to ask the Saints of the Church Triumphant to join with us, those of the Church Militant striving for sainthood, in prayer.

But we do not pray to the saints in lieu of praying to God, at least not in Orthodoxy or in Anglo-Catholicism or traditional Roman Catholicism. Consider that the Rosary consists of Hail Marys punctuated by the Pater Noster (the Lord’s Prayer).

 

[RileyG]

How, specifically, do you know this to be true? Why not pray to God through Jesus Christ?

Do you ask others to pray for you? Why or why not?

I do pray to Jesus Christ who is God.

 

[RileyG]

Jesus Christ is God.

Asking for the intercession of the departed is not a substitute for prayers addressed to God the Father, Son or Holy Ghost, all three persons of the Trinity being proper to address in prayer (and all three of whom are addressed in the Eastern Orthodox liturgy). Rather it helps form a connection between us and the saints of the Church Triumphant who love us and who have through Theosis been glorified and made by Grace what Christ is by nature, and it is the witness of the Church for the past 2,000 years that it is pleasing to God for us to ask the Saints of the Church Triumphant to join with us, those of the Church Militant striving for sainthood, in prayer.

But we do not pray to the saints in lieu of praying to God, at least not in Orthodoxy or in Anglo-Catholicism or traditional Roman Catholicism. Consider that the Rosary consists of Hail Marys punctuated by the Pater Noster (the Lord’s Prayer).

Amen. This is also what the Catholic Church teaches.

 

[The Liturgist]

though not sufficient for protestants

It is sufficient for most Anglicans and Episcopalians, like C.S. Lewis. For that matter, many Lutherans, Methodists and Protestants of the Reformed Catholic persuasion engage in prayer for the dead. It is worth noting that the Anglican Communion is the third largest communion, following the canonical Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic communion, and Anglicanism is also the third largest Christian community, following the same two groups, and ahead of the Lutherans and Calvinists.

Within Anglicanism, the majority are broad church or high church, with the low church evangelicals now constituting only a minority except in a few countries and jurisdictions (for example, Ireland was historically very low church, although my understanding is this is no longer the case, and the Archdiocese of Sydney is very low church, although even it has two Anglo Catholic parishes, albeit ones where the priests are forced to wear copes instead of chasubles.* Even if we inverted the numbers and said only a third of Anglicans prayed for the dead, which is just not true if one looks at the contents of most editions of the BCP or replacement service books currently in use, that would still be more Protestants than constitute the entire membership of most denominations.

*This is ironic considering that the Eastern equivalents to the Chasuble, such as the Greek Phelonion or the West Syriac Phayno (Chasuble and Phayno are translations of Phelonion) are basically copes, and are likely closer to the garment St. Paul sent for prior to his beheading, and the priests of the Assyrian Church of the East usually wear western copes, although sometimes they wear Phaynos made by the excellent Syriac Orthodox liturgical tailors in India, such as Pulickal Brothers.

 

[Valletta]

I am not at all sure which is worse - praying for the dead (saints) or praying to the dead.

Those in Heaven are alive, not dead. As to intercessory prayer, there have so many intercessions over the centuries.

 

[Fervent]

It is sufficient for most Anglicans and Episcopalians, like C.S. Lewis. For that matter, many Lutherans, Methodists and Protestants of the Reformed Catholic persuasion engage in prayer for the dead. It is worth noting that the Anglican Communion is the third largest communion, following the canonical Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic communion, and Anglicanism is also the third largest Christian community, following the same two groups, and ahead of the Lutherans and Calvinists.

Within Anglicanism, the majority are broad church or high church, with the low church evangelicals now constituting only a minority except in a few countries and jurisdictions (for example, Ireland was historically very low church, although my understanding is this is no longer the case, and the Archdiocese of Sydney is very low church, although even it has two Anglo Catholic parishes, albeit ones where the priests are forced to wear copes instead of chasubles.* Even if we inverted the numbers and said only a third of Anglicans prayed for the dead, which is just not true if one looks at the contents of most editions of the BCP or replacement service books currently in use, that would still be more Protestants than constitute the entire membership of most denominations.

*This is ironic considering that the Eastern equivalents to the Chasuble, such as the Greek Phelonion or the West Syriac Phayno (Chasuble and Phayno are translations of Phelonion) are basically copes, and are likely closer to the garment St. Paul sent for prior to his beheading, and the priests of the Assyrian Church of the East usually wear western copes, although sometimes they wear Phaynos made by the excellent Syriac Orthodox liturgical tailors in India, such as Pulickal Brothers.

Fair enough, though that's a bit off from my point in that statement. Which was simply meant to recognize that for a lot of protestants the deuterocanon is suspect so the fact that prayers for the dead find their strongest support in it isn't going to be convincing to someone who doesn't recognize their canonicity.

 

[The Liturgist]

Fair enough, though that's a bit off from my point in that statement. Which was simply meant to recognize that for a lot of protestants the deuterocanon is suspect so the fact that prayers for the dead find their strongest support in it isn't going to be convincing to someone who doesn't recognize their canonicity.

Indeed, but my objection is you over-generalized and in so doing ignored the largest communities (the most popular forms of what Anglicans call churchmanship) of the largest Protestant denomination in the world, a denomination which at a minimum recognizes the books referred to in the 39 Articles and the KJV as apocrypha (which was a poor choice of words, since the early church used the term apocrypha to refer to books of purported scripture deemed entirely spurious) as being useful for edification and moral instruction, and in those provinces and continuing Anglican churches such as the Episcopal Church USA and the various Anglo-Catholic communities and continuing Anglican jurisdictions, these books are also regarded as doctrinal. And even among those Anglicans who do not accept these books as having doctrinal value, prayer for the dead remains very common, with only the most low church, evangelical Anglicans rejecting it outright. Prayer for the dead is included in a great many editions of the Book of Common Prayer and other Anglican liturgies, and CS Lewis, the most influential Anglican theologian and author of the 20th century, further popularized the practice.

And we also find prayer for the dead in many other traditional liturgical Protestant churches.

Really, the only places where one is unlikely to encounter it are in Fundamentalist, non-denominational and credobaptist Evangelical churches of the aliturgical praise and worship variety, and in some Restorationist churches (and I myself believe Restorationist* churches like the SDA, the Quakers, the Stone-Campbell Movement, the Pentecostal churches and so on should be classified as a distinct group from Protestants, who in turn should be grouped into Traditional or Magisterial denominations (Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists), denominations derived from these (the Remonstrants**, Methodists, Congregationalists and various Pietist denominations) and Radical Reformation denominations (Anabaptists, Mennonites, Baptists of all varieties, and the Puritans before they settled down and became the Congregationalists we know and love, and also I suppose if any actual Puritan churches survived), and also early Protestant churches which underwent possible or confirmed doctrinal changes (the Waldensians and Moravians, respectively; there were actually three branches of the Czech movement started by Saints Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague, who are officially venerated by the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia: the Utraquists, to which Saints Jan and Jerome were most associated, who were mainly concerned with restoring those features of Orthodox / Byzantine Rite worship suppressed after the Austrian conquest and the forced conversion of the populace to Roman Rite Catholicism, such as communion in both kinds, from which they derived their name; the Taborites on the other hand were a very radical, proto-Pietist movement evocative of the Lombards and Waldensians, and finally there was a more moderate faction.

Unfortunately, most were killed, and by the 18th century the remaining members of the Unitas Fratrum took refuge on the estate of Count von Zinzendorf, who proceeded to exert his own somewhat Pietist influence on the church, and he also had a fascination with the wounds of our Lord similiar to what one encounters in the mystical theology of the Roman Catholic Church, and one or the other of these, or perhaps simply a bad experience with the Moravian colonists in America, likely contributed to St. John Wesley deciding that, as appreciative as he was of the Moravians, for it was in a Moravian chapel in Aldersgate that his heart was strangely moved while listening to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, he was called to remain a loyal curate in the Church of England, whose liturgy he regarded as the best in the world. And John Wesley, along with his Greek Orthodox contemporaries, the Kollyvades Brothers, was one of the first to advocate a return to the Patristic practice of weekly reception of the Eucharist. Perhaps this explains why he was secretly ordained by a Greek Orthodox bishop - I should look to see if Erasmus of Arcadia had any connection with the Kollyvades Brothers.

* While I greatly dislike most Restorationist churches, and the group includes some which are technically heretical, such as the Mormons and J/Ws, and the New Thought movement (which includes Christian Science and other less controversial churches, some of which are still “pay-to-pray”), I like the Quakers and I love the Stone Campbell movement, because it introduced to American Protestants the weekly celebration of the Eucharist as a central fixture, and furthermore emphasizes the importance of weekly reception by the laity, something which was still rare among the Orthodox at the time and almost unheard of among Roman Catholics, whose Eucharistic piety in the Middle Ages had shifted to seeing the elevation of the consecrated Host with only occasional reception, usually around Easter. I also like some aspects of the Plymouth Brethren, but not the whole Chiliastic premillenial dispensationalist eschatology popularized by John Nelson Darby, which was an enormous error, one which most people do not realize is a contradiction of the Nicene Creed in its 381 recension*** which continues to dominate much of Protestant Christendom.

** The Remonstrant Church comprised the followers of Jacob Arminius. It still exists today, but has shrunk to just six parishes and is among the most liberal denominations in the world, tragically. I am not even sure if it can still be regarded as Nicene; some Unitarian churches are more conservative, such as those in Hungary and Transylvania. Someone needs to establish a New Remonstrant Church to restore Arminian Orthodoxy in the Netherlands and Lower Saxony.

 

[RileyG]

It is sufficient for most Anglicans and Episcopalians, like C.S. Lewis. For that matter, many Lutherans, Methodists and Protestants of the Reformed Catholic persuasion engage in prayer for the dead. It is worth noting that the Anglican Communion is the third largest communion, following the canonical Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic communion, and Anglicanism is also the third largest Christian community, following the same two groups, and ahead of the Lutherans and Calvinists.

Within Anglicanism, the majority are broad church or high church, with the low church evangelicals now constituting only a minority except in a few countries and jurisdictions (for example, Ireland was historically very low church, although my understanding is this is no longer the case, and the Archdiocese of Sydney is very low church, although even it has two Anglo Catholic parishes, albeit ones where the priests are forced to wear copes instead of chasubles.* Even if we inverted the numbers and said only a third of Anglicans prayed for the dead, which is just not true if one looks at the contents of most editions of the BCP or replacement service books currently in use, that would still be more Protestants than constitute the entire membership of most denominations.

*This is ironic considering that the Eastern equivalents to the Chasuble, such as the Greek Phelonion or the West Syriac Phayno (Chasuble and Phayno are translations of Phelonion) are basically copes, and are likely closer to the garment St. Paul sent for prior to his beheading, and the priests of the Assyrian Church of the East usually wear western copes, although sometimes they wear Phaynos made by the excellent Syriac Orthodox liturgical tailors in India, such as Pulickal Brothers.

Thank you for your wonderful post.

 

[Fervent]

Indeed, but my objection is you over-generalized and in so doing ignored the largest communities (the most popular forms of what Anglicans call churchmanship) of the largest Protestant denomination in the world, a denomination which at a minimum recognizes the books referred to in the 39 Articles and the KJV as apocrypha (which was a poor choice of words, since the early church used the term apocrypha to refer to books of purported scripture deemed entirely spurious) as being useful for edification and moral instruction, and in those provinces and continuing Anglican churches such as the Episcopal Church USA and the various Anglo-Catholic communities and continuing Anglican jurisdictions, these books are also regarded as doctrinal. And even among those Anglicans who do not accept these books as having doctrinal value, prayer for the dead remains very common, with only the most low church, evangelical Anglicans rejecting it outright. Prayer for the dead is included in a great many editions of the Book of Common Prayer and other Anglican liturgies, and CS Lewis, the most influential Anglican theologian and author of the 20th century, further popularized the practice.

And we also find prayer for the dead in many other traditional liturgical Protestant churches.

Really, the only places where one is unlikely to encounter it are in Fundamentalist, non-denominational and credobaptist Evangelical churches of the aliturgical praise and worship variety, and in some Restorationist churches (and I myself believe Restorationist* churches like the SDA, the Quakers, the Stone-Campbell Movement, the Pentecostal churches and so on should be classified as a distinct group from Protestants, who in turn should be grouped into Traditional or Magisterial denominations (Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists), denominations derived from these (the Remonstrants**, Methodists, Congregationalists and various Pietist denominations) and Radical Reformation denominations (Anabaptists, Mennonites, Baptists of all varieties, and the Puritans before they settled down and became the Congregationalists we know and love, and also I suppose if any actual Puritan churches survived), and also early Protestant churches which underwent possible or confirmed doctrinal changes (the Waldensians and Moravians, respectively; there were actually three branches of the Czech movement started by Saints Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague, who are officially venerated by the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia: the Utraquists, to which Saints Jan and Jerome were most associated, who were mainly concerned with restoring those features of Orthodox / Byzantine Rite worship suppressed after the Austrian conquest and the forced conversion of the populace to Roman Rite Catholicism, such as communion in both kinds, from which they derived their name; the Taborites on the other hand were a very radical, proto-Pietist movement evocative of the Lombards and Waldensians, and finally there was a more moderate faction.

Unfortunately, most were killed, and by the 18th century the remaining members of the Unitas Fratrum took refuge on the estate of Count von Zinzendorf, who proceeded to exert his own somewhat Pietist influence on the church, and he also had a fascination with the wounds of our Lord similiar to what one encounters in the mystical theology of the Roman Catholic Church, and one or the other of these, or perhaps simply a bad experience with the Moravian colonists in America, likely contributed to St. John Wesley deciding that, as appreciative as he was of the Moravians, for it was in a Moravian chapel in Aldersgate that his heart was strangely moved while listening to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, he was called to remain a loyal curate in the Church of England, whose liturgy he regarded as the best in the world. And John Wesley, along with his Greek Orthodox contemporaries, the Kollyvades Brothers, was one of the first to advocate a return to the Patristic practice of weekly reception of the Eucharist. Perhaps this explains why he was secretly ordained by a Greek Orthodox bishop - I should look to see if Erasmus of Arcadia had any connection with the Kollyvades Brothers.

* While I greatly dislike most Restorationist churches, and the group includes some which are technically heretical, such as the Mormons and J/Ws, and the New Thought movement (which includes Christian Science and other less controversial churches, some of which are still “pay-to-pray”), I like the Quakers and I love the Stone Campbell movement, because it introduced to American Protestants the weekly celebration of the Eucharist as a central fixture, and furthermore emphasizes the importance of weekly reception by the laity, something which was still rare among the Orthodox at the time and almost unheard of among Roman Catholics, whose Eucharistic piety in the Middle Ages had shifted to seeing the elevation of the consecrated Host with only occasional reception, usually around Easter. I also like some aspects of the Plymouth Brethren, but not the whole Chiliastic premillenial dispensationalist eschatology popularized by John Nelson Darby, which was an enormous error, one which most people do not realize is a contradiction of the Nicene Creed in its 381 recension*** which continues to dominate much of Protestant Christendom.

** The Remonstrant Church comprised the followers of Jacob Arminius. It still exists today, but has shrunk to just six parishes and is among the most liberal denominations in the world, tragically. I am not even sure if it can still be regarded as Nicene; some Unitarian churches are more conservative, such as those in Hungary and Transylvania. Someone needs to establish a New Remonstrant Church to restore Arminian Orthodoxy in the Netherlands and Lower Saxony.

Thank you for your meticulous attention to such details, I'll try to remember to be more cautious in my wording in the future because I had no intent of painting protestants as some sort of monolith on the matter. It was more just to recognize that the deuterocanon doesn't have the same status among protestants as it does among Catholics and Orthodox, rather than to imply that all protestants take issue with prayers for and to the dead.

 

[The Liturgist]

Those in Heaven are alive, not dead. As to intercessory prayer, there have so many intercessions over the centuries.

Indeed, the saints are alive, and what is more, we know they are alive by virtue of the miracles they perform. They might even be performing those miracles from the future - in their resurrected form in the World to Come. Eternal life is timeless, after all. In this manner perhaps God affords them a well deserved rest before their Resurrection and the Last Judgement.

As I see it, to claim that praying to the saints is praying to dead people is inconsistent with the idea of eternal life. It is also contrary to Scripture, as these verses indicate:

1. Luke 23:43 (KJV): "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." This verse is often interpreted to mean that the repentant thief on the cross would be with Jesus in paradise immediately after death, suggesting an existence beyond physical death.
2. 2 Corinthians 5:8 (KJV): "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." Paul expresses a belief here that departing from the physical body means being in the presence of the Lord, indicating an ongoing existence after death.
3. Philippians 1:23 (KJV): "For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:" This verse suggests that being with Christ after death is a desirable and better state than living.
4. Revelation 6:9-11 (KJV): "And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." This passage suggests the presence of souls in heaven who are aware and awaiting final judgment.
5. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (KJV): "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." This describes the resurrection of the dead in Christ at the second coming of Jesus, suggesting a bodily resurrection.
6. John 11:25-26 (KJV): "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" This passage, spoken by Jesus, indicates a belief in life after death for those who believe in him.

Also, the SDA assertion of soul sleep, that we are dead until the General Resurrection, makes no sense, because in the SDA model time in Heaven seems to progress at the same rate as on Earth, which is why they claim our Lord has spent the past 180 years engaged in an “investigative judgement.” But we know from Scripture this is not true.

More specifically, and in contrast to numerous posts made by our Adventist friends on this issue, we have:

1. Psalm 90:4 (KJV): "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." This verse poetically expresses the idea that God perceives time differently than humans, with a thousand years being like a day or even a fleeting moment.
2. 2 Peter 3:8 (KJV): "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." This passage is often cited to illustrate the concept that God's experience and measurement of time is not the same as ours.
3. Isaiah 57:15 (KJV): "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." While this verse does not directly mention time, it speaks of God as inhabiting eternity, emphasizing His transcendent and eternal nature.
4. Revelation 1:8 (KJV): "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." Here, God is described as eternal and unchanging, existing beyond the bounds of time as humans understand it.
5. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (KJV): "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." This verse suggests that while God has ordained a perfect timing for everything, the full scope of His work from beginning to end is beyond human comprehension.

These verses from the King James Version collectively illustrate the biblical perspective of Christ our True God's experience of time as being vastly different from human perception, emphasizing His eternal nature and sovereignty over time. The only way I suppose the Adventists could argue their way out of that would be to deny the deity of Christ, which some do, but not the official SDA. However, @MarkRohfrietsch and I feel that SDA theology, while conceding the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, is not sufficiently imbued with an incarnational character.

For my part, I am inclined to believe that Ellen G White realized, with genuine prophetic inspiration, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is true, and that the Arian mainstream of Adventist thought was an error, but elated by this revelation, focused on promulgating it, and did not have enough time or influence to revise Adventist dogmatic theology to remove those pre-existing aspects of it dating back to the Millerites which were predicated upon Arian Christology. The result is an extreme Nestorianism, and also other oddities, such as the belief, shared only with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and without precedent in Judaism or Christianity, in Christ our Lord, God and Savior also being St. Michael the Archangel, which is Christologically problematic, and also not indicated by the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, in which St. Michael and the Christ are clearly two distinct persons.

 

[The Liturgist]

Thank you for your wonderful post.

Thank you for your meticulous attention to such details, I'll try to remember to be more cautious in my wording in the future because I had no intent of painting protestants as some sort of monolith on the matter. It was more just to recognize that the deuterocanon doesn't have the same status among protestants as it does among Catholics and Orthodox, rather than to imply that all protestants take issue with prayers for and to the dead.

Thank you for your kind words. Perhaps you might give it a like if you enjoyed it, because this might make my posts easier to find with the revised versions of the forum software, similiar to how the YouTube algorithm works. For my part I try to upvote as many posts as possible, even those of members who I disagree with, when they put forward eloquent arguments, indeed, better yet, to give specific ratings such as friendly, informative, useful, winner, agree, and so on as opposed to just a generic like.

For example, I regard @bbbbbbb as a good friend even though he and I obviously disagree on several doctrinal issues and I upvote his posts accordingly.

Actually i try very hard to be friends with everyone on this forum and there are only a handful of members who sadly I havent been able to connect with on some level, but this is doubtless because of my sinful proclivities, since I struggle with the passions such as pride and I need your prayer, for I am a pathetic sinner.

 

[RileyG]

Thank you for your kind words. Perhaps you might give it a like if you enjoyed it, because this might make my posts easier to find with the revised versions of the forum software, similiar to how the YouTube algorithm works. For my part I try to like as many posts as possible, indeed, better yet, to give specific ratings such as friendly, informative, useful, winner, agree, and so on as opposed to just a generic like.

Ooops! Both posts liked! Continue to rock on!