It is "hair splitting" to you because you are blind to the True Worship, the Only Acceptable Sacrifice, which we give to the Father and Him alone.
As you do not have this to offer, all related activities we use to honor Saints are the same thing you offer to God. So you think we are being clever or deceitful, or "word splitting." We are merely using two different words to explain our truly different two different activities.
The challenge we have in our faith is that we cannot see the object of our faith. Of course, that's why we have to have and live by faith. We do not have signs and miracles and visitations and visions and any other type of visible manifestation today. As a result, people want something they can touch, feel and embrace.
How sad that your God doesn't work in this world any more. No miracles, no signs. And how cruel of him to make a people who long for signs and long to touch and feel and smell and taste. And then give us nothing to satisfy these desires.
SD
Hi SD, thanks for the reply. If that is true worship, then I'm glad to be blind. We don't have to engage in this type of so-called worship, or religious exercise to be acceptable to the Father. We are "accepted in the beloved" when we place our faith in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross. We can add nothing to our acceptance by our religiousity.
As you do not have this to offer, all related activities we use to honor Saints are the same thing you offer to God. So you think we are being clever or deceitful, or "word splitting." We are merely using two different words to explain our truly different two different activities.
Sure sounds like worship to me. Why are the saints honored with the same honor, worship, veneration or whatever, given to God? It is certainly laudable to regard those who have honored God, but in whom does our faith reside? Many of the actions I mentioned are demonstrations of faith in someone, or something, other than in God.
How sad that your God doesn't work in this world any more. No miracles, no signs.
Actually, I am saddened by the millions of honest and well meaning people who are led to believe something that isn't true according to the Word of God. Signs belong to the Jews and miracles ceased when the Word of God was completed. We may call things miracles today, but they are not the miracles of God. Signs and miracles will again occur following the rapture of the church, the Body of Christ, when Israel is again raised to a position of prominence during the great tribulation and into the kingdom.
Instead of feeling sad, we should rejoice in that God has given us His Holy Spirit, which is far better than angelic protection and more enduring than most miracles recorded in Holy Writ. He has also given us the ability to endure all types of hardship in this fallen and corrupt world, per Romans 8. We, as believers, have all the resources we will ever need, both now and forever. That doesn't mean tragedies won't occur and that we won't feel pain and agony in this life. It means God's Spirit gives us the ability and power to endure because it's the inner man that is "being renewed" and strengthened.
And how cruel of him to make a people who long for signs and long to touch and feel and smell and taste. And then give us nothing to satisfy these desires.
What is more cruel, the truth or being deceived by a lie? Galatians 6:12 says, "As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh," which describes the purpose of most religious activities. The control through the "fair show in the flesh" is perpetuated by allowing people to believe in and long for signs, visions and the like. I've no doubt that people have seen things, but they are not of God. Our friend the Devil is the master deceiver and worker of many wondrous deeds. People should be encouraged to get comfort from the Word of God, not from their feelings and hunches and emotions. In 1 Thess. 4:18, we are encouraged to "comfort one another with these words." And in 2 Thess. 2:15-16, we are encouraged by, "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work." Now that real comfort.
BTW, what more can we want and truly need? Believers are assured they are complete in Christ, blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, seated with Christ in the heavenlies, redeemed by His blood, at peace with God, reconciled to God by the blood of Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, saved from God's wrath, justified, sanctified, to be glorified, and all the other blessings we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. If this is taught, all the religious stuff will disappear for true believers. Again, what it truly cruel, to give people what they really need, or keep it from them?