JamesCarvin.com

 

Let's go back to those church history books I had on either side of my "altar" and see if they have anything to say about the earliest Christians praying to saints. Starting around the latter half of the 5th Century CE there appeared some prayers to saints in the ancient records of the Christian churches. Those who defend prayers to saints have used certain Biblical texts for support of this practice. So they are able to claim that the church always prayed to the departed saints. Seeing the late start of this practice, and recognizing that the Bible prohibits going to mediums to contact the dead, Protestants rejected Roman Catholic practices during the period of history known as the Reformation. Anyone can Google Catholic defense and Protestant objections on this issue so I won't repeat all that here. Rather, I will jump to my own conclusions offering the points which I have found most integral to arriving at them.

 

First, I cannot but agree with the Protestants concerning the absence of evidence either in the Bible or in the early records of the church of anything like the prayers to the saints that we find in modern-day Catholic and Orthodox Churches. However, I am very soft on the subject of communion with the saints for a number or reasons, none of which have to do with the alleged image on my wall. I could offer endless thoughts on this but will reduce it to just a few here ...

 

1. Prohibitions against contact with the dead through mediums or necromancers pertains to the period of history in which Jews, in particular, became ritually unclean because they were coming into contact with the dead. Anyone who touched a dead animal or person was considered ritually unclean and had to be purified. Some would argue that the Law of Moses, and specifically the Levitical system of purification was never efficacious for removing sin, but was rather a teacher. This is what the Scriptures say and what the earliest records of the church indicate. But either way, if a Christian touches a dead animal or person they are already cleansed through the blood of Christ. The Law was thus fulfilled in Christ so that it can be said that the Law is perfect (Psalm 19:7).
   
   
2. According to the Torah, mediums and necromancers were to be killed (Leviticus 20:27). The Bible does not explain why. Presumably it is because God wanted to make it clear that the only person who truly had authority over the dead was Jesus Christ. Necromancers must necessarily have obtained their connection with them through demonic or unclean spirits since no pure agency existed to come into contact with them. When Saul contacted Samuel through a medium Samuel was "disturbed" rather than liberated (1 Samuel 28:15). His hope was in the resurrection of Christ. The next voice he was looking forward to hearing was that of his Maker, not of a nervous Saul or an unclean unredeemed necromancer. Some people suppose that Samuel was simply a demonic apparition, but if that is the case, the apparition did not lie to Saul. He served the cause of Christ by telling the truth so it seems to me that the apparition of Samuel to Saul was not that of a demon, but of the spirit of Samuel providing true prophecy. This true prophecy was recorded as the Word of God in Scripture without implying otherwise and what he said came to pass. The objection to going to mediums and spiritists who call up the dead seems to be that they also served as false prophets drawing the Israelites into false religions and practices, all of which were critical of the true prophecies that Israel was to receive through the prophet the Lord would send through his own countrymen (Deuteronomy 18:11-15). Christ is therefore the proper agent for both prophecy and fellowship with all the saints.
   
   
3. It is Christ who said that whoever believed in Him would never die (John 11:25-26). There is therefore no such thing as fellowship with the dead in Christ. The body may die, but the spirit of a Christian lives because Christ lives and the Christian is united to Christ through Christ's Holy Spirit as the one body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13). Christ is not unclean. We have a proper agency not to the dead, but to the living (Romans 14:9). This is why Paul said that to depart this world was to be present with Christ (Philippians 1:23-24). In fact, having our home in the body prevents us from being in the presence of the Lord (1 Corinthians 5:8). Because it is fallen it can only hinder the spirit God plants in us. Our spirit thus rises to be with the Lord at death in a way that is free from the chains of the body's carnal instincts. On the last day our bodies also rise glorified because the risen Christ descends upon the earth to renew it in glory (1 Thesallonians 4:16).
   
   
4. Paul said that the Corinthians used to baptize on behalf of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29). While some have interpreted this as Paul mocking the Corinthians for this practice, that is not what the context suggests. Rather, Paul was pointing to the futility of the faith generally, and of the rather tedious practice of baptism. That is, it is tedious and futile if there is not really any such thing as a resurrection of the dead, our hope, the central purpose and point of our faith. Because water was scarce and there was much persecution of Christians, it was hard enough to baptize the living. The Corinthians were even baptizing on behalf of their dead. If there is no resurrection, why bother? That's the context. Paul was thankful he hadn't been a baptizer but rather an evangelist. It is because of what a headache going through the trouble of the ritual was for all of the arrangements. Add the dead and you double the trouble.

 

I don't expect by saying these things to convince anyone to start agreeing with me. These are simply my views and a few of the reasons I hold them. At the core of it is my understanding of the Spirit of God which gives me my life. At no point do I expect the Lord's life in me to disappear, even when my body perishes. Quite the contrary, because my body perishes I expect to have nothing left but the knowledge of God once I am finally relieved of the cares of this world and can look forward to the glofication of my body (Philippians 3:20-21) along with the new heavens and the new earth as the Lord puts all things under His feet (1 Corinthians 15:25).

 

Having said all this I need to issue caution. I am not defending Roman Catholic practices. Quite frankly I see a number of dangers of accepting such practices wholesale. There are several issues that tend to get wrapped up into one here:

 

1. prayers for the dead
2. prayers by the dead
3. whether the dead have awareness of the living
4. lauding and reverencing the dead
5. apparitions
6. distinctions between saints and less holy Christians
7. what the purpose of canonization is
8. the role of angels and other heavenly creatures

 

Each of these issues needs to be treated individually. The word "dead" of course refers to what Jesus described as "sleep." Don't be confused. Those who are redeemed in the Lord are not dead even when their bodies stop functioning but are very much alive. By contrast, those whom the Lord said "are perishing" experience not just one but two deaths. They die both to the spirit and to the body and soul. Their spirits die while their bodies are still functioning because they reject the Light of Christ and they are already in a state of double death when they are judged and cast into the lake of fire in the outer darkness where ethey weep and gnash their teeth. They have no life in them and inwardly this weeping and gnashing already takes place. That is why the Lord said "let the dead bury their own dead." He spoke of them as being already dead. There is no need to commemorate them. Their names are not written in the Book of Life. There is nothing good to talk about except for what seems good in the eyes of those who are perishing. They already have their reward. Heaven would receive them but they reject it, refusing to put on any wedding garments and start living the good life Christ calls us to.

 

That distinction being made, let it be understood that when we speak of communion with saints we are talking about the redeemed here, and that we are referring to the temporary death of the body, not the death of the soul or the spirit. We are talking about the church in two parts - earthly and heavenly, still struggling down here, and those who have gone on to heavenly victory - one church. We speak of the "dead" and the "deceased" in Christ. But when we are referring to Christians they are not dead, but asleep, as the Lord said, as He indicated that they were alive. Now lets discuss each issue.

 

1. PRAYERS TO THE DEAD

To pray, if prayer is not directed to God, is to communicate. If we do not confuse this word with worship then we are left with the question of whether a spirit can hear a person even though their body is dead. My answer to that is that sure they do hear spiritually. Otherwise, there would be no joy in their being in the presence of the Lord. They hear the Lord. But do they hear us? I suppose if the Lord wants them to they can. I don't know. So if we were to spend our time praying to them we might be wasting a lot of time. However, to pray with those who sleep - that is to worship the Holy Trinity together with them, that probably makes very good sense and would not be a waste of time. The other danger is that if we pray to what we think is a saint, but we wind up talking to some other being, that being can mislead us. So not only do we risk wasting our time, we also risk dialoging with demons. And third, if we are weak in the faith, and don't know how to distinguish between prayer as communication, and prayer as worship, then we also risk treating saints as idols, even if we don't believe that they are God.

 

2. PRAYERS BY THE DEAD

The Lord is compassionate and has His eye on the sparrow. He has every hair on our head numbered. He asks us to be perfect like our heavenly Father is perfect. He would not ask this if we could not see and know His will. While we are limited by the body performing His will would be difficult if it were not for the fact that it is not our life, but His liife in us as grace that is eternal. It is not what we do but what we are that brings us to perform the Lord's will in our lives. What we are is forever changed when we receive Him. Then when we go to be with the Lord in that stingless death that is more accurately referred to as "sleep" we are no longer limited by the body. Why are we living yet asleep, because the body is not our life. When the body does finally rise from the dead it rises in such a fashion that it is glorified after its kind. And that is to say that it will no longer be limited as it is now because it exists in the power and life of the Lord. All of this suggests to me that those who go to be with the Lord do, in fact, have the ability to do anything that is truly good if the Lord wills. And since the Lord wills that the body of Christ be united and that the body be compassionate in the bonds of love, it seems to me to make a great deal of sense that the redeemed now in heaven do, in fact, pray for the redeemed on earth. And in fact they share much, if not all, of the compassion of Christ in the love of the Father by the agency of the Holy Spirit, each according to whatever good measure the Lord chooses. It seems to me that each person has a partial measure in the participation of divine goodness. Each has his own mansion in heaven, the perfect place according to the design of God. Now if saints are deaf that is one thing, but if they are alive to the commands of Christ in heaven, and Christ is not deaf, then it makes good sense to pray that Christ will send his holy ones, whether angels or saints, to minister His will. Such a prayer is a good and safe prayer because we know it is already His will. He has declared it (Hebrews 1:7).

 

3. WHETHER THE REPOSED HAVE AWARENESS OF THE LIVING

Given that the mansions are individual, as many as there are, I can only say that I don't know the answer to this. They may be aware of some things and not others. The Bible says there is joy in heaven at the death of the Lord's saints (Psalm 116:15). This suggests that the heavenly host has awareness of things on earth. Certainly angels have awareness of things on earth. The Bible even describes them as "watchers" (Daniel 4:13). The angels and the saints together comprise the heavenly host, a "cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1 - nephos martyron). We know that the saints are included with the angels in the heavenly host because Deuteronomy 33 prophesies concerning the return of the Lord with ten thousand holy ones and specifically defines these not as angels but as people (Deuteronomy 33:2-3). Presumably the heavenly host with the angels means the spirits of the redeemed, which Paul describes as being present with the Lord. Whereas someone like Samuel may have been disturbed from his sleep by the doings of Saul, the death of saints results in triumph. If the sanctity of these people is known at the time of their death, then perhaps also many of the other actions of grace during their lives is known, in as much as these actions also belong to the life of the Spirit, which they share in common as the body of Christ. Jesus said there was rejoicing in heaven when a sinner repents (Luke 15:7,10). This may have referred to angels only rather than saints. Perhaps it now refers to both since saints have been arriving in heaven since the time He made that point. It certainly indicates an awareness of human events that are spiritually significant either way. There is, of course, also that image we see in the book of Revelation, where those whose heads have been beheaded cry out to God for justice. Why would they cry out for justice if they were not aware that there was still injustice on the earth. They long for justice because they long for the One how Is Justice, the Lord Our Righteousness. He living in them brings them to an awareness of what takes place on earth through the sharing of His own glory with them as heirs of everything belonging to the Spirit (John 16:15), whom we know to be "many eyed" and moving from place to place throughout the four corners of the earth. (Ezekiel 10:11-13).

 

4. LAUDING AND REVERENCING THE DEAD

The first evidence I have found of the church reverencing the dead is in a letter of Cyprian of Carthiage wrtten about 250 CE. In this letter, he asks that the dates in which certain Christian prisoners die be recorded so that they may be commemorated. At that time or earlier, the church began remembering the martyrs, formally keeping record of the days they went home to be with the Lord. The memories of many of these Christians were later preserved through written statements. The form of the statement was much like an epitaph. Since the person was thought to still be alive in spirit, and epitaphs tend to be poetic, it is not hard to see how they would have quickly come to address these deceased persons as "you" rather than as "he" or "she." Along the way the church's worship turned into hymnody, if it wasn't that way from the start. Poetic license used in epitaphs was then incoporated into song. By the way, what Paul called a "hymn" may actually have been a poem. It is not known when the practice of chanting began. This may not have been an apostolic practice though some insist the Jews chanted with tones and the early Christians would have done the same. Either way, when it comes to writing hymns to the dead it was the least that a writer could do to be reverent and lauditory. Some of the later material seems to have gone overboard though, placing those commemorated on a plain that seems equal with Christ. This was especially the case with hymns to the mother of God after the Fourth Great Ecumenical Council. The term "Theotokos" won the day at the council and was then emphasized during liturgical worhsip to hammer in orthodoxy. A number of other prayers directed toward the Theotokos were added in the years which followed and the power of her prayers were thought to be particularly effective, not because of her family relationship, as if her being the mother of Jesus gave her the right to command Him, but because of her proximity to Him in love and obedience in righteousness. The effective prayer of the righteous avails much (James 5:16). Finally, if anyone has ever prayed for someone's salvation and that person came to know the Lord so that their prayer was answered, then they will testify to the power of prayer. Those who pray serve as co-laborers with Christ. They bear salvation to the world. Because this is true, much of the hymnody of the older churches represents their saints as co-saviors with the Lord. They understand that it is the Lord who saves but refuse to change their hymns to present the lowliness of the saints because they use them as an excuse to teach their views on the role of saints as co-heirs. As Mary herself, referring to herself as the "bondslave" of the Lord said, "He has exalted those who are humble." Indeed, those who are Christians become heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven and reign over the earth in as such we are made to be princes and princesses - Kings and Queens of Heaven, participating in the divine life itself. How incredible this gift is can not be exaggerated. These are theological points those who defend ancient and modern liturgies sometimes make. I would strongly suggest to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, however, in particular that they rewrite many of these hymns anyway. As I see it, Theology and ecclesiology should be taught not through unexplained hymns that are repeated week after week, but through explanations offered in books written to edify the body of Christ. In these days we are literate. In those days we were not. The risk is that many will confuse these words with worship. The common practice also acts as a barrier and a stumbling block to the many to enter Orthodox or Roman Catholic Churches. Obviously, even though historically these have been imbedded into the tradition, such things were not developed until around the sixth century. There are also those who insist that such practices go back to the first century, though they have little to support the idea. Things being the way they are, no change in practice should be expected. Anyone who disagrees will be refused leadership. To think independently of the tradition is egoism. Right or wrong, the practice perpetuates itself.

 

5. APPARITIONS

I have already mentioned that supernatural phenomenon can be explained as the work of demons. Even though I have had some incredible dreams and visions and photographs, I have never personally spoken with an apparition. The church denomination most often reporting apparitions has been the Roman Catholic. Surely there has been some demonic activity in some of the reported apparitions and manifestations, usually of the Mother of the Lord. The Catholic Church itself knows this. That is why there is always a lengthy discernment period prior to making any reported miracles a part of its official tradition. I have observed, and I think the Catholic Church officials are also sometimes aware of this, that emphasis is often taken off of Christ and onto the recipients of the visions and onto the Mother of Jesus, even where she points to Jesus. Christians ought to have faith. That faith should be based on a decision they make based on right reason - not some sign. If one's faith is based on such a thing as an apparition or supernatural occurrence, it will be very weak. When antichrist comes, or even a much lower demonic power that can imitate Christ or his mother like an angel of light, many will easily be led to destruction and lose their faith. Ecouragement concerning loved ones is another matter. I have explained the difference on my web site with some precision. Drawing near as a family and offering comfort concerning a loved one is not only healthy, it is commanded by the Scriptures. Paul said, "comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:18). The danger of apparitions should be obvious. If apparitions are demonic they will probably mislead. They may even be violent. Make no mistake, the devil comes disguised as an angel of light so that he can devour whoever he can.

 

6. DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN SAINTS AND LESS HOLY PERSONS

Excuse the length. I'm covering a lot of difficult subjects on a single page here. That Christ said that there were many mansions in heaven says much. That Christ spoke of the greateness of one's reward in heaven also suggests there is some particular measure. All those who are redeemed do not seem to be treated equally. On the other hand, clean is clean. It is not I, but Christ who lives in me who is glorified. What's more, the eye does not say to the foot you are not a part of the body. Each has a unique membership but a common Spirit. Lastly, I am neither the judge of things future nor present. I have trouble judging my own soul. Usually I underestimate my need for change. How can I judge the soul of another?

 

Perhaps an example would help. If someone were to ask whether it was worse to tell a white lie on behalf of someone who was in need of an undeserved complement, or to fire a good employee so that they could replace him with one of their own family members, most of us would agree, I think, that the white lie was the lesser of the two evils. The question, however, is asked not about degrees of evil, which we know is all unacceptible in the eyes of the Lord, but usually with the intention of discussing whether or not there is such a place as purgatory that falls between heaven and hell somehow. Others might think the purpose of the question is to determine whether one saint's prayer is more effective than another's, or whether all people deserve the title "saint." The term "saint" shifted in meaning over time. I do not personally have too much trouble adjusting when words change meaning. Some people do.

 

As to the effectiveness of prayer, James seems to indicate not all prayer is said equally when he says that the effective prayer of a righteous man avails much, and then points to the prayers of Elijah as an example. His whole point was that not all people had the same blessing. Paul also shows that spiritual gifts are not given in equal measure to every member (1 Corinthians 12:9). Thus for James, when a man is sick or in sin it is to the elders of the church that one should go. Given that all are not prophets, all are not apostles, all do not have gifts of healing on earth, and that we have different ways of participating in the one Christ here on earth, it stand to reason that in the mansions and rewards of heaven this may well also be the case. It may well even be that the prayers of the Mother of Jesus, who is God, has more effective prayers than others. It may well be.

 

Now as for purgatory, I find very little, really no evidence at all of belief in any middle place between heaven and earth existing in the teaching of the early church. Biblical passages in support of it seem to be a stretch. Purgation, however, the purging of sins, is something that absolutely must happen to every Christian. The only question is how that happens. Paul says that some will escape "but as through fire" (1 Corinthians 3:15). Here I think he is referring not to the guilt of sin as in the sense of a penalty, but to the heart's attachments to the things of this world. God does not violate the free will of man as He offers His Way. The Kingdom of heaven is reserved for those who seek the things from above. Attachments of the heart to the things of this world are quickly shed off by these.

 

Possibly the "reward" the Lord speaks of in heaven corresponds to the seeds of life planted in this life in loving obedience to the will of God, the things of God. We reap what we sow. In heaven there is nothing to purge. The works of this world that are burnt up simply do not rise with the man in the fruit of the resurrection. I do not understand what process that involves, whether it takes place over a passage of time. To answer the question about relative holiness, clearly there is a class of people that is less holy, namely those whose works are burnt up, who enter heaven as through fire. Then in heaven, there is neither any lack nor any sorrow. Each is raised after his own kind. From these passages we see that there is retained individual personhood in heaven, while the will is conformed to Christ's. In this way incorruptibility is acquired in the unity of the divine Spirit.

 

What then is the danger if we believe that one is holier than another? Well, the belief in purgatory can cause us to be lax in our faith. It can make us believe that everybody is going there and that we will all eventually come around and escape it, so we start to think that a very lax spiritual awareness is all we are called to in our lives, when that is not the case. Secondly, there is the problem of purgatorial stereotyping. That is, stereotypically, purgatory is thought of as a place where souls go after they die, which they cannot escape on their own, because their own lives were insufficient for the cause. Therefore, they stand in need of the prayers of the living in order to receive the rewards of heaven. This implies that Christ's sacrifice was not enough in itself. The problem with such thinking is that it presents a misunderstanding of the good news of the Gospel. Further, it makes the after-life out to be a form of punishment. The truth is that the punishment of "purgatory" is not applied by God. It is self-imposed by the one who refuses the remission of sins and more importantly, the love of God. To think in terms of purgation, rather than purgatory as a place, is a much more palatable concept. When Paul says we will not all die but we will all be changed, that change is the point in which we are purged of our faults and obtain a new incorruptible nature in our new glorified bodies. I cannot comprehend how this happens but it is what the Lord promises. He Himself has proven that His word is true by rising from the dead and ascending into heaven as the first fruits of all creation, taking his seat at the right hand of the Father, where even those who preceded Him in the resurrection, Enoch and Elijah and perhaps some others, worship Him and looked forward to His day.

 

Finally, I think I should bring up a statement by Paul. He said that he who sins with a prostitute sins against his own body. He finds this outrageous as he ties this notion in with the resurrection we have as Christ's body, as the church (1 Cointhians 6:12-18). It is possible that in the resurrection those who have sinned against their own bodies will have a bodily glory that fails to reflect fully the glory of that temple Christ would have for us. Saved and raised, here we find a distinction between persons in the resurrection. One has one kind of "mansion." Another a different kind of reward or mansion. The one reflects a resilient temple. The other is filled with glory, but not bodily since the works of the body have been burned up. They are raised bodily as they are saved but their body has a different kind of glory. This particular part of the story of their life is not written in the heavens, nor can their glorified body eternally declare it.

 

7. WHAT THE PURPOSE OF CANONIZATION IS

From all of my responses above it can be seen that my greatest objection to praying to saints is how the prayers sometimes get confused with worship. Secondly, I have expressed a great deal of uncertainty about whether some saints can hear prayers and about confusing the good news of the Gospel. The assumption is made that the saints can hear us but people may be wasting their time. As I understand it, the purpose of "canonizing saints" is to have spiritual experts, (usually select bishops) determine which saints are worth praying to or emulating. Now, most saints are certainly worth emulating, but certainly if some of them are deaf to prayers, it would be important to filter these off an approved list of saints it is useful for the church to pray to. That's the purpose. Now if you do not belong to the denomination - in other words if you are Protestant, but they are Catholic, or you are Catholic but they are Orthodox, then you are sure to be excluded from a list. To me it seems obvious that this mutual exclucivity shows there are limits to how effective those in authority may be to make such determinations, but that is another question. The term "canon" means "rule." It means that a valid authority has come up with a rule for everyone to follow. Scripture has a "canon" so that we know which books are to be considered inspired and viewed as belonging to the Bible and which are not. Canon has also been used to determine church policies about procedures. It has been used to declare certain people heterodox so that people who have been following their writings will understand that those writings have been looked at and are considered confusing and possibly hurtful. The purpose of most canons is to help people grow in their faith. It is a word used by the more traditional churches. In modern churches we tend to use words like "church policy" and "statement of faith" instead. Statements of faith are sometimes referred to as a "confession." There is the Westminster Confession, for instance. These are very similar to canons. They are arrived at by leaders of the church. Whether they reject the term "bishop" doesn't matter. They still consider themselves to be the authorities, or at least to look at something that a highly respected group of people prayerfully came to a conclusion about as having some particular value. In all of this the goal is pretty simple - guiding the Christian people using tools of leadership, whether perceived or real. In short, there is nothing wrong with it. The canonization of saints is only dangerous in as much as uninstructed people may fall into any of the pitfalls described above. I don't see any danger in the process of canonization itself.

 

 

8. THE ROLE OF ANGELS AND OTHER HEAVENLY CREATURES

I find in the Psalms both the addressing of angels in prayer and angels worshiping God. "Bless the Lord ye angels of the Lord" is an example (Psalm 103:20). This observation applies to other heavenly creatures, as well. "All you ministers of his, bless the Lord" (Psalm 103:21). There is no question that angels and the like do not want to be worshipped (Revelation 19:10; 22:9). The only exception is Jesus, who sometimes appears to men as an angel, hence the name sometimes given, "Angel of the Lord" (Psalm 34:7 etc.). One of the roles of angels is to worship. Now Christ, who is called "angel" at times also intercedes. Michael, we know does battle with the Prince of Persia (Daniel 10:13), a battle I imagine is probably not physical, but spiritual - which is to say that it pertains to the will and heart of the spirits God has created, the Prince of Persia being a dominion being claimed by a fallen angel whom Michael willingly assists the Lord in defeating not by the weapons of carnal warfare, but by spiritual weaponry.

 

What spiritual weapons are these? They are the practice of the virtues, not excluding intercession. Intercession is founded in trust in God and in the power of love. The Lord thus makes his angels ministers and a flaming fire. I would suggest that this is to say that the Lord's own power and might are invoked by their very powerful prayers. So a question remains whether we should pray to the angels to ask them to pray for us. Honestly, I don't think this is necessary. I think they are going to pray for us whether we ask them to or not. What we need to actually do is turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God. The angels and the saints have all the encouragement they need to pray - being commanded by the Lord in His presence, whose mercy overflows to all mankind. These know His will and are at the ready to carry it out.

 

It follows that our time is best spent in praise of our Maker and in thanksgiving instead of asking for prayer. In thanks and praise of Him, any care we have of this world is offered up to Him in faith. These offerings are then shared among His faithful and are much more likely to be carried out than if we turned to individual saints without reference to the Lord. Any thinking that supposes that we have no direct access to the ear of the Lord is surely confused. He hears and sees all things and loves us with tender mercy. The perception of the angels and saints may have limitations. It makes better sense to pray with them rather than to them. Further, when we pray we should not make our prayers a list of requests, but rather offer our needs in the context of faith. That is to say, praise and thanksgiving. Our prayers should reflect a faith-filled knowledge of the good will of the Lord - that our lives are in His hands. He knows how to make all things work together for good. Seek the kingdom and His righteousness and every good thing will be added to you that is best for you. Seek this for others as well.

 

Let me conclude with a little picture. We ask this question: is there any danger in praying to angels or saints? I imagine a conversation like this ...

 

"Will you pray for me?"

"What?"

"Will you pray for me?"

"Yes, of course. I always pray for you. Or at least I was until you started talking to me. At that point I started having a dialog with you. And from that point on I stopped praying for you."

"You are to be lauded because you have done so much good because of all of your prayers and because of your great good will and power."

"Gee thanks. Hmmm. Maybe we should talk about me some more? No Not. Of course, not. Dear Lord Jesus, help me concentrate while I pray for this person today. I am feeling so distracted. And I'm being tempted to have my prideful ego stroked to boot. I bless You and I thank You for delivering me from these temptations."

 

OK. That is more than enough of a summary of my thoughts on these things. I do realize that we could go on endlessly. I present my views so they can be known for what they are by those who might wish to support me in ministry rather than to persuade anyone with my arguments. If you have any other questions or comments feel free to contact me. Please explore the other pages of my web site and of GhostSurfers.com to learn about the mission you would be supporting.