ssimmons@unix.cie.rpi.edu (Stephen Simmons) (05/29/90)
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]
ssimmons@unix.cie.rpi.edu (Stephen Simmons) (05/29/90)
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)