>>It certainly is not "foreign" to Scriptures, nor is it foreign to the practice of Christians of 100 AD. Are you suggesting that the Christians of 100 AD were not aware of what the Apostles taught? That less than 80 years after >>Christ's death, the entire Church went into an apostasy, teaching heresy, without ONE utterance of dissent for the "true" faith, while simultaneously, dying in droves for the faith that they apostasized against???
Have you really given any thought to how ridiculous that sounds?<<
With all due respect... Your post makes a "ridiculous" argument against the fact that nowhere in Scripture are we ever told to "pray to the dead", or to "pray for the dead"... Scriptural prayer is TO God, and FOR and BY the living...
I challenge you to respond with Scriptural opposition to what I've just said... If you think that some exists...
I challenge you to respond with Scriptural opposition to what I've just said... If you think that some exists...
You are making the false presumption that everything that Christians believed and did in the first century was recorded in the Bible. The Bible is a collection of letters to various communities, communities who had particular problems. The Bible is NOT a systematic catechism (chapter one, faith; chapter two, salvation; etc). There are a number of issues within the life of the Church that are either not mentioned or merely implied by Scriptures. Christian practice of the first century CLEARLY indicates a belief in the efficiency of prayers for the sake of dead people, a practice that goes back AT LEAST 150 years BEFORE Christ, as indicated in 2 Maccabees.
Christ established a Church for the purpose of preaching and teaching, the pillar and foundation of the truth. This same Church WROTE the NT Scriptures...Since it is guided by the Holy Spirit, what it teaches dogmatically is to be held as truly from God.
Regards