Mark

Good thing I lived in Tarrant County and now Denton, although Dallas’ problems are spreading!!!

This I believe is violating our right to free speech by their convoluted interpretation of the first amendment.
When are we from Jesus land going to fight back??

Mark

In HIM,
A.

No matter, my brother’s been involved in the Tarrant County politics to include school board and city council out by Aledo.

Oh well, Dallas seems to be getting by w/o my $0.02, tho I feel that sooner or later I’ll be running for something — we’ll see.

I just wanted to add a few thoughts about 3 passages in Revelation.

(1) 5:8 talks about the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders falling down before the Lamb, each with a harp and with a golden bowl full of the prayers of the saints. Even if we assume that the saints here are the ones on earth, still the 24 elders and the 4 living creatures are in heaven and they are offering the earthly believers’ prayers to Jesus.

(2) 6:9 talks about the souls of the martyrs under the altar—note the connotation of sacrifice that that word has—who call upon God to “avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth.” God tells them to rest a while in the next verse, but that is already the beginning of his answer to their prayers: wait, God says, until the number of your brothers is filled up, and then I will do it.

(3) 8:3 this time an angel takes incense and mingles it with the prayers of the saints on the altar before the throne. Again, even assuming that those saints are the earthly believers, it’s clear that an angel is somehow involved in presenting their prayers to God.

Of course, given that John talks about the 144,000 and the martyrs under the altar, it’s not out of the question that the saints whose prayers are offered on it are heavenly ones.

In any case, I think that these passages suggest that the heavenly hosts are somehow interested in what goes on on earth. Why? Because they take Jesus’s place and add to his work? No. Because they are his servants, and, more than that: because they are his friends, whom he graciously allows to take part in his Providential governance as Lord of history even though he has absolutely no need of them.

Cordially,

Adrian

Thanks for your response. Obviously, the fundamental issue here is the difference between Catholic and Protestant approaches to Scripture as a whole. That’s a complex one that I don’t want to get into just yet.

The reason why is that I think that there’s another, more immediate issue that needs to be clarified.

Moses and Elijah talked with Jesus on Mount Tabor about his coming passion. Angels—not human beings, to be sure, but creatures nonetheless—come down out of heaven to visit Mary or to release Paul from prison. Paul says in Hebrews that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.

What’s my point? I’m not claiming that these facts, in and of themselves, are sufficient to ground the entire Catholic/Orthodox teaching about invocation and veneration of the saints. I’m claiming only that Scripture seems to suggest, at the very least, that some beings who are in heaven other than Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit can and do take an interest in what’s happening on earth.

As for the passage in Luke, I agree with you. But the reason for that is that they’re hard of heart.

In terms of the second passage, I wasn’t saying that it explicitly teaches invocation of the saints. What I was saying was that it doesn’t contradict it. All it says is that, when a believer prays, the Spirit is praying in him.

Cordially,

Adrian

Thanks,
Martin

I think with the first, Jesus was making multiple points at varying levels of abstractions. Once you’re in hell, there is no relief. Second, those on earth already have the living saints and the Word. If they don’t get it then, they’re not going to get it even from the heavenly hosts.

As for the second reference, I’m aware we can sell God short, but I wonder if this is perhaps a case of over-reaching or over-attributing (if there’s such a word). What I mean is that we sometimes ascribe certain concepts that either simply are there nor supportable one way or another. Naturally, it’d be nice if there were at least one verse to shed light on this.

With regards to the word “Saint(s)”, it is used only 98 times thruout the OT/NT, and each time it is a reference to the belivers on earth, no mention is made of saints in heaven.

I just don’t understand where we might get the notion that those who are dead and gone are taking an interest in our earthly tribulations. I’m of the opinion that if it isn’t addressed, then it’s purely speculation. Not that it’s wrong to speculate, I’m just leery of extending speculation to doctrine.

For example, do dogs go to heaven? Erm, yes & no. It may be something that we say to comfort young children when a beloved pet dies.

But really, will Fido go to heaven? I’m left to ask myself, ‘Does it matter’? If I meet my dog, I wonder if we would even want to pick up where we left off, since it seems that renewing a relationship with a former pet might be the last thing on my mind when I’m in the prescence of God and all of the other saints.

Oh well, maybe I’m just a “Doubting Tom”.

Peace.

I was of the opinion that a name change wasn’t going to accomplish anything — a whitewash — unless there was an accompanying change in the attitude. But that was Royce’s PC baby.

That neighborhood was where my buddy (a Black Redneck was how he introduced himself to us when he first joined our unit) came up from. Raised by his grandmother, after mom died and abandoned by his father. Fortunately his granny taught him that only an education would get him out of there.

Every once in a while we’d drive over to his granny to do some errands and we’d always talk about the decline and apathy. That was back in the mid 80s to early 90s.

That the streets you describe are worse is sad indeed. MLK/Macolm X streets are the manifestation of the soft-bigotry of classism.