[metmom]

OK. Again,....

Nowhere in Scripture are we instructed or encouraged to pray to anyone but God himself.

Any attempts at contact with dead people is prohibited by God Himself.

Time spend praying to dead people who nobody is even sure is in heaven, is time NOT spent praying to God.

Jesus commands us to pray and gives us an outline for praying and it is to GOD alone, nobody else.

[D-fendr]

Thanks for your reply but those weren’t the questions. This discussion is like ping–pong.

There are two issues involved: intercessory prayer by the living and does it apply to the Saints in Heaven (Communion of Saints). If you take the first off the table, the second is moot.

Whenever I focus on one, you jump to the other.

Ping–pong like.

Your post and my replies concerned intercessions/intercessory prayer. Your posts indicate you do not believe in it in some fashion. Either it’s not efficacious, not necessary, or we shouldn’t do it, praying only the Lord’s Prayer.

So, I’m trying to stick to this point to clarify whether the second is moot.

Back to the questions I asked about your post “we pray to the living.” Remember we’re trying to look only at the intercession part, for the living.

I asked: Do you pray for the living? Why?

I asked this because:
Your posts indicate you don’t believe in intercessions or at least their efficacy. You post such as: “Both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are making intercession for us believers before God Himself. It doesn’t get any better than that.” Previous posts of yours posit the same point about our intercessions.

And i asked referring your post 738 (quoting St. Paul in Romans and Hebrews): Does this post, the post I replied to not concern the living as well? If so, why then do you pray for the living?

I can make it much simpler by asking along these lines: Do you believe our intercessions for (living) Saints are effective? Do they matter; help each other? Or are they useless, insignificant, of a tiny value, etc? Or should we *not* make intercessory prayers at all since we are only to use the Lord’s Prayer?

thank you...