Is it okay to teach your kids to pray to a dead saint?

Hi Rizen. The Bible says, "The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." (Jam 5:16b). Hence it is a blessing to have someone righteous pray for us, as that could produce wonderful results in our lives. Right? Let's say you are praying for a job, or a spouse, or discerning your calling, or anything? Saints praying for you will help you discern that, right? If not, why do we ask each other here on Earth to pray for us?

Because (1) we believe others are alive, and (2) they pray for us if we ask them to and (3) their prayer has power.

James gives the example of Elijah's Prayer, at which God worked miracles: "17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years." (5:17). So why shouldn't we now ask Elijah, or Abraham, or James or Paul, or any other Saint, to pray for us to God, for any of our day to day prayer intentions?

The same (1)-(3) applies to the Saints in Heaven, imo. If we study the Bible step by step, we come to see that.

Here is a verse: "And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." (Rev 5:8)

So there are 24 Elders/Pastors/Priests in Heaven. They are praising and worshipping God. They offer Him bowls of incense, which are the Prayers of the Saints. What does that mean? It means those in Heaven are not idle but praying for us.

God Bless.

Ok. But what about asking others to PRAY TO GOD for us? Surely, there is abundant Scripture support for that.

1 Thess 5:25: "Brothers and sisters, pray for us."

Phil 4:21a: "Salute every saint in Christ Jesus."

Luk 16:24 "So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am in agony in this fire.’

Rev 6:9-11: "And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."

Rev 8:4: "And the smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, rose up before God from the hand of the angel."

There is no difference in asking others to pray for us, whether it is in Heaven or on Earth. It comes down to whether we believe the Saints in Heaven are alive or not. If we believe they're not, as the Sadducees did, then we may say it is useless to ask the Saints in Heaven to pray for us. But if we believe they are, then just as it is a blessing for other believers here on Earth, called to be Saints, to pray for us, in the same way, it is a blessing to ask those, who are now Saints, to pray for us.

God Bless.

Regarding the OP: the answer is clearly no. We are told to pray to the living God, not dead people.

Maccabees was in the Canon for roughly 1200 years, from the 4th Century. In the 16th Century, since it clearly taught the Saints in Heaven pray for us, the reformers took it out of their own Bibles. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles always retained it.

See these links

1) "Philip Schaff says that "the council of Hippo in 393, and the third (according to another reckoning the sixth) council of Carthage in 397, under the influence of Augustine, who attended both, fixed the catholic canon of the Holy Scriptures, including the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, ... This decision of the transmarine church however, was subject to ratification; and the concurrence of the Roman see it received when Innocent I and Gelasius I (A.D. 414) repeated the same index of biblical books. This canon remained undisturbed till the sixteenth century, and was sanctioned by the council of Trent at its fourth session."[45] According to Lee Martin McDonald, the Revelation was added to the list in 419.[42] These councils were convened under the influence of St. Augustine, who regarded the canon as already closed.[46][47][48]

Pope Damasus I's Council of Rome in 382 (if the Decretum is correctly associated with it) issued a biblical canon identical to that mentioned above.[30] Likewise, Damasus' commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, c. 383, proved instrumental in the fixation of the canon in the West.[49]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon

2) And this: "Luther's canon is the biblical canon attributed to Martin Luther, which has influenced Protestants since the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. While the Lutheran Confessions specifically did not define a canon, it is widely regarded as the canon of the Lutheran Church. It differs from the 1546 Roman Catholic canon of the Council of Trent in that it rejects the deuterocanonical books and questions the seven New Testament books, called "Luther's Antilegomena",[1] four of which are still ordered last in German-language Luther Bibles to this day.[2][3]"

Luther included the deuterocanonical books in his translation of the German Bible, but he did relocate them to after the Old Testament, calling them "Apocrypha, that are books which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read."[4]

In the 4th century the Council of Rome had outlined the books which now appear in the Catholic Canon.[11]
Luther considered Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Revelation to be "disputed books", which he included in his translation but placed separately at the end in his New Testament published in 1522." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther's_canon

We go with the 4th Century Council which determined the 73 Books of Scripture, which have remained such for millenia.

Also, at the very least, Maccabees shows it was a historical practice of Jews before Christ's Birth to ask Saints to pray for them.

I know answer yet I always try to search again when a question is asked. So what do they say here's a little bit "It was not Saul’s desire to speak with Samuel that was his sin but the forbidden means by which he did so. It would have been fine for Saul to have prayed to Samuel, asking for his intercession " Who can tell me what is not in the word of God here?

" Speaking to a saint or to a deceased relative or friend through prayer is not necromancy, because Christian prayer relies upon Jesus, as intercessor between God and man, to facilitate the communion. In fact, one reason why it is a sin to use a medium as a go-between to the dead is that it is a denial of Christ as the one true Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5). Not what 1st Tim said at all. As its ok to use that dead person as a go-between you can Christ/God.

"As for whether you can ask deceased relatives to intercede for you, we may hope that they are in a position to do so, whether they are in heaven or in purgatory. Whether or not the holy souls in purgatory can intercede for us is an open question, but there is no harm in asking for their intercession and trusting God to answer our prayers in whatever manner he wills. "

Lol this one takes the cake "but there is no harm in asking". Might as well break out that Ouija Board . Your doing the same thing. Playing with spirits things you should never touch. ,

Steve Martin in a movie comes to mind saying "can we come back from la la land now". I've had this question in the back of my mind. Why can't I just pray to Christ, God in Jesus name? Heb 4 I can come boldly before the throne of God. Phil 4 giving my thanks praise to God. 1st John asking anything according to His will He hears us. Just that OT NT we know God hears us before we even finish praying. OT they didn't pray to the dead. They prayed right to God. Christ hello 'Our Father?" yeah seems HE told them you can talk pray right to God. This was on the earth. Didn't tell them to pray to anyone else under the earth.

Not worth it. I feel as if I am defending something. This is (to me) nothing more then someone that follows the Catholic ways and if you don't agree with them sorry your wrong. So for me every time I pray I use His word talking to my Father since I am also seated in heavenly places and can come boldly before Him and since I know He hears me every time as He said He does in OT NT word. He always answers.

When you really want to know why things are never answered and really willing to listen. Then ask. I don't follow any group. Be wise to listen to those here

No, no, and yes.

i have the whole history and i dont need to know the catholic teaching on it, but thanks, John Foxe , and others in history have exposed the truth.

Children don't pray to Santa Clause.

While Nicholas of Bari, also called Saint Nickolas, is a saint. His feast day in the west is December 6th. In the east, December 19th.

Those who pray to him are called Christian. Though not all Christians pray to saints.

He has no semblance of relationship to Santa Clause whatsoever.

Al l is well children. Enjoy your fun while your innocence lasts but a little while. Then you grow up and if you're unlucky take life far too seriously .
God Bless the child.

🎄🐒🎅🤶

Do you know this?

"8. Catholic Maryland: The First Tolerant American Colony
A. Patrick O'Hare

• "Catholics . . . were the first in America to proclaim and to practice civil and religious liberty . . . The colony established by Lord Baltimore in Maryland granted civil and religious liberty to all who professed different beliefs . . . At that very time the Puritans of New England and the Episcopalians of Virginia were busily engaged in persecuting their brother Protestants for consciences' sakes and the former were . . . hanging `witches'." (50:300-01)

B. Martin Marty (P)

• "Baltimore . . . welcomed, among other English people, even the Catholic-hating Puritans (8) . . . In January of 1691 . . . the new regime brought hard times for Catholics as the Protestants closed their church, forbade them to teach in public . . . but . . . the little outpost of practical Catholic tolerance had left its mark of promise on the land." (9)

C. John Tracy Ellis

• "For the first time in history . . . all churches would be tolerated, and . . . none would be the agent of the government . . . Catholics and Protestants side by side on terms of equality and toleration unknown in the mother country . . . The effort proved vain; for . . . the Puritan element . . . October, 1654, repealed the Act of Toleration and outlawed the Catholics . . . condemning ten of them to death, four of whom were executed . . . From . . . 1718 down to the outbreak of the Revolution, the Catholics of Maryland were cut off from all participation in public life, to say nothing of the enactments against their religious services and . . . schools for Catholic instruction . . . During the half-century the Catholics had governed Maryland they had not been guilty of a single act of religious oppression." (10)

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/protin.htm

Both Catholics and Protestants historically made mistakes on this, and there's no use pretending otherwise. Today, all Christians universally reject religious persecution, so there's no point bringing it up now. As I mentioned on another thread, 20 MN Christians - of all denominations - were killed under Atheistic Communism in just this last century. 360 MN Christians - again of all denominations - are persecuted around the world today, mostly by Communists and Islamists. https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/360-million-christians-faith-not-freedom/ All Christian Countries today, both Catholic and Protestant, grant full religious freedom, so this is not an issue today.

About the Book of Maccabees, what I said stands, unless you can prove otherwise. The 4th Century Council that determined the Canon of Scripture - including the 27 Book NT we all share - included Maccabees in the Canon. That book, which predates Christ's Birth, teaches that the Saints in Heaven - like Abraham, Moses, Onias and Jeremiah - pray for us.

In Christ,
Xavier.

Was witchcraft legal in Maryland?

I have read that there is archeological evidence of witchcraft im Massachusetts during that era, but some of those executed for it may not have been the guilty parties.

There is a big difference between asking a living person to pray for you and asking a dead person to pray for you. Also, all Christians are "saints" (sanctified people). Simply becuase the RCC declares some people to be "saints" doesn't make then saints.

I think that your attempt at comparing those incidents, to RCC and its murderous deeds that lasted 400yrs is laughable at best, given the well over 100,000 marytrs recorded in their own history , 1,000 women,children mothers fathers grand parents....murdered in one day ! as far as Maccabees is concerned , you can believe what you want,but let God be true and every man found a liar.
Antiochus Epiphanes dies 3 times in 3 different places in the Maccabees
and this is scriptural ?

Why the Apocrypha Isn't in the Bible.

Not one of the apocryphal books is written in the Hebrew language (the Old Testament was written in Hebrew). All Apocryphal books are in Greek, except one which is extant only in Latin.
None of the apocryphal writers laid claim to inspiration.

The apocryphal books were never acknowledged as sacred scriptures by the Jews, custodians of the Hebrew scriptures (the apocrypha was written prior to the New Testament). In fact, the Jewish people rejected and destroyed the apocrypha after the overthow of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

The apocryphal books were not permitted among the sacred books during the first four centuries of the real Christian church (I'm certainly not talking about the Catholic religion. The Roman Catholic "Church" is not Christian).

The Apocrypha contains fabulous statements which not only contradict the "canonical" scriptures but themselves. For example, in the two Books of Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes is made to die three different deaths in three different places.
The Apocrypha includes doctrines in variance with the Bible, such as prayers for the dead and sinless perfection. The following verses are taken from the Apocrypha translation by Ronald Knox dated 1954:

Basis for the doctrine of purgatory:

2 Maccabees 12:43-45, 2.000 pieces of silver were sent to Jerusalem for a sin-offering...Whereupon he made reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin.

Salvation by works:

Ecclesiasticus 3:30, Water will quench a flaming fire, and alms maketh atonement for sin.
Tobit 12:8-9, 17, It is better to give alms than to lay up gold; for alms doth deliver from death, and shall purge away all sin.

Magic:

Tobit 6:5-8, If the Devil, or an evil spirit troubles anyone, they can be driven away by making a smoke of the heart, liver, and gall of a fish...and the Devil will smell it, and flee away, and never come again anymore.

Mary was born sinless (immaculate conception):

Wisdom 8:19-20, And I was a witty child and had received a good soul. And whereas I was more good, I came to a body undefiled.

It teaches immoral practices, such as lying, suicide, assasination and magical incantation.

No apocryphal book is referred to in the New Testament whereas the Old Testament is referred to hundreds of times.
Because of these and other reasons, the apocryphal books are only valuable as ancient documents illustrative of the manners, language, opinions and history of the East.

how are dispensationalists not christians? i know there are some hyper-dispensationalists who go way left field and say there is no water baptism for today and other madness. but the classical dispensationalists are just regular christians, they only believe in the fairy tale pre-trib rapture but thats not a salvation issue at all!