[af_vet_1981]

Since the OP made this an Open Discussion Thread, I will add a comment also:

1. 200-300 is about when many of the pagan customs were incorporated into Catholicism.
2. No Jewish or Christian prayer is ever recorded in Scripture that addresses anyone but God.
3. No record of an Apostle or church leader before 100 AD ever praying to Mary or a departed saint.
4. No command to pray to a departed saint exists in Scripture.
5. No teaching in Scripture that a departed saint can hear a prayer from earth.
6. No evidence in Christian writings or secular writings or art can demonstrate any believer did this before 100 AD.

9 posted on 4/29/2017, 11:52:36 AM by aMorePerfectUnion

Point 2 is still false, as demonstrated in post 61.

It seems to me you either believe it is true or are unwilling to admit it is false and so must rewrite it into other language to try to make it true.

You still have not answered these other two questions.

Do you agree that
1. The beggar Lazarus, the unnamed rich man, and "Father Abraham" were real men and not a fable concocted for the Pharisees ?
2. Abraham is a departed saint ?

Would you care to now concede the point, provided; if the qualification were to be explicit? Yes, or no?

Well, it was a tall order but I already answered such a qualification in post 198.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Do you agree that The beggar Lazarus, the unnamed rich man, and "Father Abraham" were real men and not a fable concocted for the Pharisees ?

I'm amazed anyone who claims the name of Christ would describe the parables of Christ as "concocted."

[BlueDragon]

Well, it was a tall order but I already answered such a qualification in post 198.

Then why not a yes, or a no to a direct question?

I had to go searching for 198. After finding it MEGO (my eyes glazed over).

I'll not go digging around in further effort, where I would need read from in-between-lines in order to venture guess to answer a question for you, on your behalf.

If you want for us to play those kind of games, then you really should play it from your own end, too. Dig around through my own past comments in order to divine answers to the questions you have posed -- regarding a parable now still under discussion, and there you will find the answers you seek.

Nonetheless, I will offer this, food for thought as it were;
Abraham's bosum. Should that be taken entirely literally?
Perhaps better to ask oneself, should it HAVE TO be taken entirely literally, when what was being highlighted were conditions after death, either repose, and being comforted (while awaiting God's promises to come to yet fuller fruition) with the very one who God had promised He would make a nation, or else as in the instance of "the rich man" in the parable, a place of unbridgeable divide away from such comfort and repose -- a place of torment and suffering?

No need to write up and send to answer to what was a 'feeding time' sort of question, when here it is as dinner banquet where we're all lounging around, reaching to the food with our own hands. For the moment, all one need do further is not be sluggardly, and allow oneself be grieved by needing bring food from a dish, grasped by one's own hand, to their own mouth...

[Elsie]

Abraham is a departed saint ?

ALL believers are saints; or do you NOT accept the clear teaching of the Scriptures?