I thank you for the example of prayer for one another, which is clearly encouraged by Scripture, and is powerful.
What we Protestants have difficulty with is prayer to those Saints who have clearly deceased.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
Are some saints asleep and others awake?
If so, from where does that derive in Scripture?
I’m not your enemy, I’m your brother.
When someone is dead and his body lying in a grave, it is natural to refer to him as “asleep.”
But is it justified, philosophically and theologically, to assert that their SOUL is literally “asleep”?
Was it St. Paul’s intention to make that assertion? Is there any evidence that St. Paul held to the proposition that the SOULS of the dead are as inert and inactive as their bodies?