Boot this article may explain some of what you ask.Bootstrap wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 9:55 amDoes the Bible anywhere encourage us to ask the dead to intercede on our behalf? Or to communicate with the dead in any way? If so, where? I see only warnings not to do it.Valerie wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 7:21 pm Boot it is not the same as consulting the dead via mediums. To a Catholic or Orthodox, the dead in Christ, are alive in Christ actually- the great cloud of witnesses. Jesus is the only "mediator" between God and man for salvation but the belief is, just like we ask each other to intercede for us in prayer, the early church believed they could ask those nearest to God to intercede just like we do for each other- here- this goes away back- it is not the sa MN e as calling up the dead as Saul asked for Samuel
And the form is quite different from the way we talk to each other. When I talk with you, I don't use the same kinds of words I use when I praise or pray to God. I don't use religious forms like prayer beads to talk with you.
What goes way, way back is an awareness that we are surrounded by angels and the saints who have gone before us, that they intercede on our behalf. I think that's biblical. And it's found in the earliest Church Fathers. Were Christians encouraged to pray to dead people in this manner before 300 AD or so?
https://www.protomartyr.org/our-faith/p ... ed-saints/