Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ssimmons@unix.cie.rpi.edu (Stephen Simmons) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Prayer to saints, God, etc. Message-ID: Date: 29 May 90 08:35:49 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 146 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I believe that Protestants and Catholics have quite different conceptions of prayer. From what I gather from Cindy Smith's articles and articles by others, Catholics have two versions or flavors of prayer. One is prayer to God, and the other is prayer to God through a saint or an angel, preferably a chosen one. Now I certainly don't represent all or even a few Protestants when I describe what I believe to be prayer. At best, I represent some charismatics, as I guess we are called. I have many forms of prayer, not all of which are, in the strictest sense, prayer. Of those that are truly prayer fall the following categories: 1. Fellowship with God. This means communicating with any of the three of the Trinity as one would communicate with a friend. This just conversing with God, much as God conversed with Abraham, and as a result, he was the friend of God. That is the result of this type of prayer, to become God's friend, to get to know God, and to have fun. 2. Petition. This is pretty straightforward, for Jesus said, "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." (John 14:13), and "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, an it shall be done for you. (Jn 15:7)" This is what you should do if you want God to supply your physical needs, wants, and your spiritual needs and wants, you should ask Him. And if you lack wisdom, or want knowledge about something, ask Him. 3. Worship. Again, straightforward, as this is just worshipping God while talking to Him. On the otherhand, I believe I have a different sense of what worship is than many mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox persons; I pump my spirit up with the things of God; I feed my spirit with the Word of God (both logos-written and rhema-spoken), and then my spirit, under guidance of the Holy Spirit invents songs, psalms, and melodies to sing to the Lord (Eph. 5:19; Col 3:16), to minister to Him. With this, I mix in songs, hymns, and psalms that I know. The key, though is to worship God in spirit and truth (John 4:24). 4. Waiting on the Lord. This means to wait for Him to speak to you. With this, we must be patient, and we must calm our minds, that is, tune out the noise so that we can hear God speaking to us. 5. Praying in the Spirit. This perhaps the least certain of all, at least from a Biblical perspective. There are two scriptures that refer to it: Eph. 6:18 "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints." and Jude 1:20 "But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit." I believe that praying in the Spirit is the same as praying in an unknown tongue. I make the connection through the verse that says, "He that prays in an unknown tongue edifies [or builds up] himself." And this is what praying in tongues does. It builds up your spirit--your inner man. It gives your spirit dominance over your soul and body. In this way I am led by my spirit, which is in turn led by the Spirit. Praying in the Spirit quietens your mind so that you can hear God. Praying in tongues is most often, I believe, worship of God, but it is also praying for things we do not know. 6. Groanings in the Spirit. This I can't say I've experienced, although my mom, a Southern Baptist, has. This is basically praying when words fail us. 7. Spiritual Warfare. This is not really prayer, but more of declarations to the spirit world. It is using the authority that Jesus gave us, the Church (Luke 10:19-20; Matthew 16:19; 10:1). If you are interested, I can send you a book on the subject that my roommate Jyri Palm wrote. Of the 6 I am familiar with, I generally inter-mix together, and use whatever is appropriate. I believe that they should be used in private prayer, in group prayer, in prayers in the assemblying of the church, in family prayer times. Concerning praying to the saints. As I understand it, what you are doing is requesting a saint to pray for you, or praying to God with that saint. It has been pointed out that Protestants too, ask others to pray for them. There is a difference however, between what the Protestants do, and praying to saints. The first difference is that the person that is praying is physically alive; we can go and ask them to pray for us. On the other hand, a saint, in Catholic terminology is a righteous man or woman who has died (fallen asleep). Therefore we cannot just go and ask them in person. I believe that the Resurrection has not occured yet. However, I do not believe that the saints as well as anyone else who has died, is really dead as most people conceive death. What I believe happens is that the person immediately goes to heaven, and is alive there but does not have a physical body as we know it, but a soulish one. Then, at the Rapture (discussed in 1 Th 4:13-18; 1 Cor. 15:51-52), this person will receive an incorruptible physical body, and will be like the angels (Luke 20:34-36). Now I do not know whether they can hear what you speak to them. I do not doubt that if they can hear your prayer, they could go tell God for you. In Hebrews, 12:1, we are said to be surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. This cloud of witnesses represents the dead in Christ, and not just those men and women righteous enough to be chosen by another group of men to be saints. Since the cloud of witnesses probably can see us, they might can hear us. But I do not believe that they will talk back to us. If they did, this would be like (certainly not exactly) the incident where Saul talks to Samuel through a medium (1Sam. 28:3-25). But from my conversations with Catholics, and from what I have read on line, I have assume that the saints don't talk back to you. The point comes around again to this: wouldn't you rather talk to God directly (no significant time difference between transmit/receive, and no detectable intermediaries (repeaters)) rather than through others? I believe that the scriptures support this idea; we are told to pray to God, and never is there mention of an intermediary of any type that is not alive on earth, neither in the New or the Old (forgive me if I am being to broad and sweeping, and correct me if I am wrong). But it has been said, that there are numerous examples where one intercedes with God for another. Cited references are: Gen 18:24; Ex. 32:11; Job 5:1; 33:23; 42:8; Ps. 99:6; Jer. 42:2; 2M 15:14; Tobit 3:17; Amos. 7:2; James 5:13 19. Many of these (Gen. 18:24; Ex. 32:11; Jer. 42:2; 2M 15:14; Tobit 3:17; Amos 7:2; and James 5:13-19) refer to live people praying for live people. To those of this type, I would add Ex. 9:28; 1 Sam. 12:19; Job 1:5, and many others. Of the others, I do not see the significance of Job 33:23; 42:8; and Ps. 99:6. Job 5:1 is perhaps the most convincing, but remember that it was spoken by Eliaphaz the Temanite, and so does not necessarily represent truth. After all, when those of the enemy speak, are their words to be regarded as truth. For example, the Amalekite that David slew, spoke a lie, but in the Bible, it is presented as truth, unless you read the context (1Sam 31-2Sam 1:16). We should ask other Christians to pray for us, because the fervent, effective prayers of the righteous do indeed avail much. By fervent, see Col. 4:12, where Epaphras is said to "wrestle" [or labor] in prayer over the Colossians that they may stand in the will of God, in the perfect will of God. By effective, be like the disciples, who ask Jesus, "teach us to pray." For we do not know how to pray initially. This is a continuous process. God is an infinite God, and I believe that He has an infinite number of things to teach us, if we will only keep asking and seeking for them. In a lot of ways, being effective in prayer is likened to being effective in word processing. Someone who has used a word processor before can sit down at Emacs, go through the Tutorial and be able to do things with the word processor. Now he would not be able to do things effectively, because he doesn't know how. There are many ins and outs to Emacs, and were I to learn them, no doubt I could do things more efficiently. So we must spend some time learning how to do things in an effective manner before we can do things effectively. A righteous person knows how to pray effectively. Test all things by our Standard, Jesus Christ, Steven Simmons Stephen Simmons Current Residence: 2429-2 21st Troy NY 12180 (518)274-3642 (leave message & prayer request) or ssimmons@unix.cie.rpi.edu (Center for Integrated Electronics)