Posted on 01/18/2014 8:13:09 PM PST by Coleus
Show me in scripture where I should. >>>
why should i care what you think and what you believe, why should i show you anything. by me posting this thread, do you actually think i was trying to convert or proselytize anyone, you are sadly mistaken.
Here is my issue, and tonight my motive is not to start a war- but this is common to us Prots...
Why should we ask, in prayer, for Mary or any of the deceased saints to “pray for us sinners”?
Christ is the Intercessor, Intermediary, High Priest, etc.
His sacrifice purchased our redemption. I fail to see where prayer and homage to other lesser beings, who may or may not be in a conscious state ; ie.; “those who sleep in Christ” are in a position to help us sinners.
Why would I do that? You are not my enemy, but the Gospel leads me to question such doctrine/tradition.
You laid it out there-
I questioned the Scriptural legitimacy of his position.
I didn’t accuse you of proselytizing.
You shouldn’t care what I said or think; you will do quite well by ignoring it..
Because the Catholic belief is that those who have died still love us on earth, still care about us, and are allowed by God to exercise that charity.
I’m not aware that any Christians deny that those on earth can pray for each other. Why is this NOT in conflict with the belief that only Jesus intercedes for us with the Father, while asking those who are in heaven to do the same thing, IS?
Aside from that question, there are, quite simply, countless occasions when the love and care of the blessed in Heaven has been made known.
My aunt Eileen died in 2010. A couple of months after her death, an old beau, and lifelong friend, Johnny C., aged 92, slipped and fell on ice behind his house, taking out the trash. He was unable to get up.
At that moment, he saw Eileen. She said, “Someone will help you.”
His wife, a woman with Alzheimer’s so advanced that she know longer knew who he was, saw him on the ice from the kitchen door. She went to the telephone, dialed 911, and got help.
So? Do you see anybody adoring Mary?
Do you have a picture of your wife and children?
Do you adore them? (I mean in the proper, full sense of the word.)
I thank you for the example of prayer for one another, which is clearly encouraged by Scripture, and is powerful.
What we Protestants have difficulty with is prayer to those Saints who have clearly deceased.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
Are some saints asleep and others awake?
If so, from where does that derive in Scripture?
I’m not your enemy, I’m your brother.
When someone is dead and his body lying in a grave, it is natural to refer to him as “asleep.”
But is it justified, philosophically and theologically, to assert that their SOUL is literally “asleep”?
Was it St. Paul’s intention to make that assertion? Is there any evidence that St. Paul held to the proposition that the SOULS of the dead are as inert and inactive as their bodies?
It’s not clear to me that he indicated anything other than that they were ‘asleep”.
This is further evidenced by a complete dearth of mention that there was anything to be gained by prayer to the deceased in the Epistles of Paul.
Surely he would have exhorted Believers to do so, were there spiritual benefits to be derived...
You all can do as you wish; I don’t pray to the dead.
Or, surely he would not have bothered to mention it, if it was something they all took for granted.
I questioned the Scriptural legitimacy of his position. >>
then go ask him.
Sorry for delayed response...
Been away.
Pope Francis is a man like you or I. He needs to be redeemed just like us.
He’s not an intercessor. Christ is our Intercessor.
Don’t adulate the creature- worship the Creator.
The Veil of the Temple was rent, once and for all.
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