Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!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 08:32:20 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 129 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu emory!dragon!cms@gatech.edu writes, " I direct you to one verse which instructs us to pray to the saints; in this verse, Jesus Christ Himself prays to the saints of the Old Testament, just as you suggested. The verse is Matthew 17:1-3, to wit: "After six days Jesus took Peter, james, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him." You have a serious problem with terminology: To converse with a saint, in Catholic language, is the same as "praying" to a saint. "Pray," as I've said often before but cannot seem to say often enough, is an Old English word meaning "request." One prays to neighbors, friends," The word in the KJV of Mt. 17:3 is talking, which comes from the Greek sool-lal-eh'-o, meaning to talk together, or converse, and is translated commune (confer, talk) with, speak among [Strong's, 4814]. On the otherhand, pray, in the KJV comes from the following Greek words: Most commonly pros-yoo'khom-ahee which means "to pray to God, supplicate, worship" [Strong's 4336; see Mt. 5:44; Mk. 6:46; 1Th. 5:25 for examples]. Other occurences are from the following words par-ak-al-eh'-o, which means "to call near, i.e. invite, invoke (by imploration, hortation, or consolation) [Strong's 3870; ex. Mt. 26:53]; deh'-om-ahee, which means "to beg (as binding oneself), i.e. pettition" [Strong's 1189; Lk. 10:2]; er-o-tah'-o, which means "to interrogate, by implication, to request" [Strong's 2065; ex. Jn 14:16 (and all occurences in John & 1 John of pray)]; yoo'khom-ahee which means to wish, by implication to pray to God [Strong's 2172; occurs in 2 Cor. 13:7]. I think that there is a significant difference between sool-lal-eh'-o and the words for pray. There is a great difference between talking with some one and requesting, begging, and wishing something of some one. I hope that you will accept the Greek definition if not the Protestant one. If you disagree still, I would like to see what a lexicon written by a Catholic (Strong I guess was Protestant, but I don't know for sure) says about these words. emory!dragon!cms@gatech.edu (art. 2418) writes, "This similar to the Catholic concept of patron saints. James tells us that the prayers of the righteous are powerful before God. If a saint (literally, "one set apart") is known for a gift in a particular area, we might ask God to let him help us, carry our prayer to God, carry back God's answer to us (dispense God's graces)." I get the idea that Catholics consider saints to be messengers. I have not seen an example in the Old or New Testament where a saint carries the prayer of a person on earth to God. But, if such exists, please show me. [I haven't had time to carefully examine all the references given in a recent article.] On the other hand, let me explain to you the various ways in which I pray to God. Mostly, I pray to the Father, and occasionally to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This imbalance is something that I am trying to correct. I know that God hears me directly, or at least I believe this. God doesn't always speak directly to me. On some occasions, He speaks to me through another person. But more often, He speaks to me thorugh my own spirit. Sometimes, if the message is of the Yes/No type, my spirit answers in that way, and this is what most people call "their conscience." Other times, its as if the Holy Spirit, abiding with my spirit,communicates in some unknown spiritual language to my spirit, and my spirit interprets this and speaks it to my mind much like a macro being expanded. About half of the time, God speaks directly to me, and I hear His voice. What I mean by this, is that although the sound does not come from outside my head, it does come through the auditory nerve. However, I have a friend who God did speak to him once through the outside. One of my roommates has a very different way of communicating with God; He says something aloud, and if correct, God will confirm it with a power surge of the Holy Spirit, as he calls it. I never actually thought about the possibility that my prayer might be carried through the angel. But I don't think this is the case. I cannot detect a layer of beauracracy, so to speak, in my communication with God. The one set of references that I know of, and that Cindy mentioned (sometime), in the Bible that support angelic communication of prayers is found in the book of Revelation. I don't know what people on this net interpret the book of Revelation to be; I am a "pre-tribulationist" and interpret ch. 3-19 as occuring during the 7 year tribulation, during which the Church as a whole will be in Heaven. Furthermore, there will be saints on the earth who hold to the testimony of Jesus, but these saints will have made their decision so to speak, after the Church goes to Heaven. So therefore this does not, in my opinion refer to the situation now. Others, of course have different interpretations, and that in itself is a whole different ball game. Regardless of whether I communicate through angels or not, I could not tell the difference. Any communication that was more direct, I would not be able to tell if it was so. :-) I know a man, who, 17 years ago was caught up to heaven. You be the judge of whether or not it is true; as the Bible says, "Test all things." (1Th. 5:21) He did seem to indicate that our requests are carried to God via our personal angels but that when just fellowshipping with God or praying in the Spirit, we have a direct link with the Father. [The man is Roberts Liardon, and he recorded this in the book, I Saw Heaven, published by Harrison House, P.O. Box 35035 Tulsa OK 74135]. Furthermore, it seems a bit bizarre that there would be an angel to communicate a message between our spirits and the Holy Spirit who lives in us. All of this take and judge according to the Word of God. Luke writes, "These were more fair-minded [noble in KJV] than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so." (Acts 17:11). Here, people check out to see if what Paul said was correct, and yet Luke praises them! How much more should we examine what we are taught be others! The difficult thing about my form of prayer is that evil spirits do often speak directly to a person in the same way God does. Unfortunately, they can mimic God's voice quite closely. Therefore, you must ask God to show you how to test voices to determine if they are from God. May the grace of God rule in your spirit, Steve 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) [Rev 8:3-4 has been cited as a case where prayers come to God via an angel. I believe everyone agrees that there is a difference between communication with God and communication with other Christians, whether dead or alive. As I'm sure you know, many groups use words in special ways. I'm not sure it's going to be useful to try telling Catholics that they are wrong when they explain how they are using "pray". If you check a dictionary, you'll find that "pray" did not have the invariable association with God that it does now. The only remnant of this I can find in the KJV is "I pray thee", which is used in many places with people other than God. I suspect that in all periods it had a somewhat different connotation than "ask", more like "entreat". That's not to say that you have to accept Catholic piety, of course, but I'd at least start by accepting what they say about how they are using words. --clh]