Why don't Protestants asks the saints for intercession?

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mark_a said:
Trying to get information from the dead is necromancy.
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Think what they are referencing (not that I agree necessarily) and this like Marian Apparitions and the like. Of course I am aware that Catholics do not believe Mary died but was assumed. Since that is not in the Bible, the same Protestants will reject the assumption as well, so in their mind Mary died.

That is beside the point. The main argument is that it is absent from the scriptures. There are no direct references to contacting saints, and that attempting to communicate with the dead is forbidden.
 
Hiskid1973 said:
No one denies the dead in Christ are part of the body…It is the contacting them to with requests. Jesus says we are to cast our cares on Him…Sure angels rejoice when a sinner repents, doesn’t mean we are to contacting them…God has charge over them…Why do you think they was a big deal about the veil being torn, it was to give access to the Holy of Holies…How do we send prayer from this realm to the next, Jesus showed us how. Then some say we are just asking them to pray for us, but you have to “send” that request out of this realm.Who is omniscient/omnipresent to receive the requests all the time all over the world. Do those in heave need to pray…Can’t they just go in the Throne room and say
" Hey saint Frank in Ca. ask me to ask you to heal his leg" When Paul ask in his letters that were sent to the various churches, to pray for Him, were those letters heard /read by the dead in Christ? Just thinking how the system works to send prayers to those apart from the Holy Trinity boggles my mind…
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Be at peace.

If you think its boggled now…wait till you are face to face with Jesus.

Prayer begins in heaven. I am nothing. The slightest impulse to lift my heart is from Him who dwells in me. Romans 8:26. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. [27] And he that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what the Spirit desireth; because he asketh for the saints according to God. [28] And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints.

No saint enters my conscience. Jesus shares His ministry of prayer with the heavenly hosts. How great a joy to be tasked(employed) by Jesus for a cause. I have to sleep, eat, natures distractions from continuous prayer. The Saints and Angels in heaven, with great gratitude, take up our causes, impulsed by the spirit and perfected by Christ Jesus Our Lord. Uncle Saint Frank is begging the Lord to give him something to do “for the Lord”. Your notion that we send mental messages to uncle frank, who then forwards that to a Living God who says "he wants what? is insulting.

In Him we live and move and have our being. Your notion of another realm is peculiar. The Kingdom of heaven is within…no transmission necessary. When Saint Paul wrote, the Holy Spirit and all who accompanied Him (hoping for the slightest request) read, heard and rejoice. Those in heaven burn with the desire to pray, beyond our understanding of need. They no longer pray for the reward of heaven or to avoid hell. Now they return love for love to Love As for the veil of faith, thats another thread altogether. Saint Frank has qualities he did not possess in time. take advantage of the fulness of truth and participate with the Holy Spirit in the communion of saints. To him who has begun this thing in you be power and glory forever. Mary, Queen of Heaven, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

peace
 
JohnnyReb said:
Think what they are referencing (not that I agree necessarily) and this like Marian Apparitions and the like. Of course I am aware that Catholics do not believe Mary died but was assumed. Since that is not in the Bible, the same Protestants will reject the assumption as well, so in their mind Mary died.
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The fact of the AssumptionRegarding the day, year, and manner of Our Lady’s death, nothing certain is known. The earliest known literary reference to the Assumption is found in the Greek work De Obitu S. Dominae. Catholic faith, however, has always derived our knowledge of the mystery from Apostolic Tradition. Epiphanius (d. 403) acknowledged that he knew nothing definite about it (Haer., lxxix, 11). The dates assigned for it vary between three and fifteen years after Christ’s Ascension. Two cities claim to be the place of her departure: Jerusalem and Ephesus. Common consent favours Jerusalem, where her tomb is shown; but some argue in favour of Ephesus. The first six centuries did not know of the tomb of Mary at Jerusalem.
That is beside the point. The main argument is that it is absent from the scriptures. There are no direct references to contacting saints, and that attempting to communicate with the dead is forbidden.
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What do you make of the Transfiguration as related in Scripture? ( St. Matthew (17:1-6), St. Mark (9:1-8), and St. Luke (9:28-36))
 
Joseph_L_Varga said:
😃 👍
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What are the differences of those in heaven with their resurrected bodies compared with the dead in Christ who wait for Christ’s return to be raised up to receive theirs…Do they all have omnipotence/ omnipresence ? Is there some kind of relay system from the Holy Spirit? Why didn’t Jesus or the apostles contact the dead in Christ via prayer?He did pray to the Father …Jesus had the power to conduct the transfiguration but that wasn’t a “norm”… He opened up the realm temporarily to make a point…He has the power to speak to the grave, it wasn’t a teaching lesson on contacting those beyond the grave…
 
geebob said:
which makes the lack of a biblical example of prayer for intercession from the deceased all the more concerning regarding the practice. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, yet never in the canonized literature does it occur to the scripture authors to model this practice nor recommend it to the church.

…

And if it is true, we protestants aren’t really missing out on anything, there is no scriptural reason to believe that our piety is lacking something because we don’t engage in it.
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I really appreciate your reply. Your and JonNC’s post clarified to me why our Protestant brethren don’t pray to saints who have deceased and are in heaven. There’s an important example in Job 42 where God commands Job’s friends to ask Job to pray for them (to intercede for them), but indeed, Job was living in the flesh (not deceased yet). I’m not aware of a scriptural example of someone praying to a deceased person to intercede for him. I guess the reason why I nevertheless feel comfortable doing this, even though there’s no scriptural example for it, is that I do not regard the Bible as my sole guide. We Catholics are not “Sola Scriptura”, we believe that error-free teaching authority rests with the Bishops in union with the Pope. Thus, for me, the fact that the Popes and Bishops of my Church have constantly endorsed the practice, is enough to give me confidence that I’m doing nothing wrong, and that in fact I’m tapping into an additional form of devotion that will help me on the way to imitating those saints and their heroic virtues. I’m not only asking St. Anthony of Padua to intercede for me, but I meditate on the virtues of this saint, the lessons his life journey has to offer to me, and I’m trying to apply all those lessons in my own life. But I see why someone who doesn’t trust any other authority than the Bible, would not feel safe with a practice that has no precedent in the Bible.
 
hazcompat said:
Be at peace.

If you think its boggled now…wait till you are face to face with Jesus.

Prayer begins in heaven. I am nothing. The slightest impulse to lift my heart is from Him who dwells in me. Romans 8:26. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. [27] And he that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what the Spirit desireth; because he asketh for the saints according to God. [28] And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints.

No saint enters my conscience. Jesus shares His ministry of prayer with the heavenly hosts. How great a joy to be tasked(employed) by Jesus for a cause. I have to sleep, eat, natures distractions from continuous prayer. The Saints and Angels in heaven, with great gratitude, take up our causes, impulsed by the spirit and perfected by Christ Jesus Our Lord. Uncle Saint Frank is begging the Lord to give him something to do “for the Lord”. Your notion that we send mental messages to uncle frank, who then forwards that to a Living God who says "he wants what? is insulting.

In Him we live and move and have our being. Your notion of another realm is peculiar. The Kingdom of heaven is within…no transmission necessary. When Saint Paul wrote, the Holy Spirit and all who accompanied Him (hoping for the slightest request) read, heard and rejoice. Those in heaven burn with the desire to pray, beyond our understanding of need. They no longer pray for the reward of heaven or to avoid hell. Now they return love for love to Love As for the veil of faith, thats another thread altogether. Saint Frank has qualities he did not possess in time. take advantage of the fulness of truth and participate with the Holy Spirit in the communion of saints. To him who has begun this thing in you be power and glory forever. Mary, Queen of Heaven, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

peace
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He said His kingdom is not of this world, so He is in another realm…We have to pray to Him as opposed to the apostles who talked to Him…Stephen was martyred right in the middle, Peter or Paul both could have given an example on praying to him… Lot of good scripture with the Holy Spirit working in us…So your saying Jesus tasks those in heaven with prayers requests…I don’t think Jesus will be upset when we get to heaven and just stuck with praying by His example…
 
I don’t see anyone with soul sleep…I know OT saints were raised and received their resurrected bodies…I know also know the dead in Christ after those that arose await to receive their resurrected bodies at the last trump…Only one you say(Mary) was raised and given her resurrected body… Anyway, that’s why we don’t do it…If your first pope or
Paul gave us instruction I would be doing it…
 
There have been protestants who have asked me to pray for them. But then these same people don’t believe in asking the saints (or anyone who has died who isn’t called “saint”) to pray for them.

Now considering that these protestants in particular believe that they are saved when they accept Jesus into their hearts, then I’d have to say that they believe their relatives and friends, etc., to be in heaven. However, the fact that they are considered “dead” and therefore they can’t be prayed to actually seems to give the opposite impression…
 
I have no doubt your prayers to the Holy Trinity…We’re all following Christ…
 
Hi all!

Honestly, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with asking the saints to intercede…but it just seems awkward, uncomfortable, and unnecessary for me to do this. I’ve been raised to pray directly to God the Father & Son, so prayer to anyone else just seems strange…like I’m distancing myself unnecessarily from my Beloved Savior. But, that’s just how I feel - no judgment against those who find comfort in saintly intercession!

Peace and blessings,
Julie
 
BartBurk said:
It seems to me a natural thing to ask the Saints in heaven to pray for me just as I ask people here on earth to pray for me. Just because the Saints are no longer here on earth doesn’t seem to be a reason not to ask them for help. Look at Revelations 5:8:

This seems to me to obviously be a reference to the saints in heaven praying for us.
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👍

Prayer is such a highly reverent and personal endeavor that few are in a position to judge another’s effort.

When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray in Luke 11:1, He advised them.

The contention that asking others on Earth to pray for oneself is equivalent to asking the departed to pray for oneself is arguable, at the least.

Certainly the asking of others, whether now with us or now ahead of us, should not substitute for our own direct prayer to our Abba, as Jesus showed in Luke 11:2 plus.

🙂
 
Hiskid1973 said:
I don’t see anyone with soul sleep…I know OT saints were raised and received their resurrected bodies…I know also know the dead in Christ after those that arose await to receive their resurrected bodies at the last trump…Only one you say(Mary) was raised and given her resurrected body… Anyway, that’s why we don’t do it…If your first pope or
Paul gave us instruction I would be doing it…
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What makes you think the OT saints received their resurrected bodies?
 
Hiskid1973 said:
I know this, He said to the believing thief, today you will be in paradise…He dies and they buried his body…
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The statement can also be understood “today I tell you, you will be with me…”

Since the gates of heaven were closed until He ascended, no one was in heaven before that.

“Paradise” may also be referring to Abraham’s bosom, or the resting place for the righteous dead.
Hiskid1973 said:
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I know some have already received resurrected bodies..
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How did God reveal this to you?
Hiskid1973 said:
Some just spirit/soul awaiting resurrected bodies…Paul went in the spirit to the third heaven…I don’t know who’s all where…I am given examples how/who/where
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Looking forward to hearing more about this. 🙂
Hiskid1973 said:
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the NT believers and Jesus prayed...Isn't it best to follow their example..
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You are right! 👍

But apparently you are laboring under the misconception that the only valid and reliable example is found in the NT.
Hiskid1973 said:
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What happens to someone lukewarm in thier faith dies..Where do they go when they die..
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The Aposltes taught that we are not privy to these matters, and should nto make assumptions about them.

It is up to God to judge them.
Hiskid1973 said:
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If you believe a purgatory, how do you know who is there? How are the prayer request/ petitions get there?
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We only know the location of people who have been revealed to us. We pray for them, just in case. How do any prayer requests get anywhere? the angels take them.
 
3rd heaven 2Cor 12…
What about those risen from the grave in Matt 27…Resurrected bodies ?

“But apparently you are laboring under the misconception that the only valid and reliable example is found in the NT.”

The NT is tried and true…Remember we’re not debating, he ask why we don’t believe…
 
mark_a said:
The Catholic Church makes no claim as to whether or not Mary died before being assumed.
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If Mary was sinless, how then could she have died, since death is a result of sin? In other words, I don’t see how she could have died if she was assumed. If she died, then communication with a Marian Apparition could be seen as necromancy.

I mean if Mary died, how are her alleged appearences different than say, if my grandmother Mary appeared to me and attempted to communicate with me?
 
👍

You must count yourself among the few.

My statements - if each were read - hoped to show no judgement, only observation.

🙂
 
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