by Amazing 51 Replies latest jw friends
The Orthodox have a practice they engage in that is/was new to me. It is connected to what you recommend. I will make a separate post on it and see what you think.
I look forward to the thread.
For two nights I have prayed to the Holy Spirit. For two days I have had some interesting experiences. This thread has been a good one for me.
I answered your pm.
Hello Jim and Blue sapphire
Hi Toreador. Read the whole thread and you will see that this has already been addressed and explained. The Saints are NO LONGER DEAD since they are resurrected. They are alive to God and to us. Unlike before the resurrection when they were dead and thus could not hear us. Beseaching the saints is NOT communicating with the dead.
I guess I should have said communicating with those who were on earth and have since died. I think it is just a way of phrasing it. Many feel when they try to communicate with the dead of course believe these dead from this earth are now living in the spirit realm. I dont see a real difference in that respect and of course I know you feel these dead persons are now resurrected and in heaven.
Have any of the saints answered you or do you by faith think there is a slight possibility that God will more likely listen to your prayers if you ask others to hound him about answering your prayers. Does God think twice about answering your prayers if he hears others in heaven pestering him for answering it besides just you? Do you feel God keeps tabs on how many times he is asked the same prayer over and over again to decide to answer or not?
By virtue of the fact that they are dear to God and WITH GOD, yes. That is what the concept is. I don't know if God "thinks twice".
I guess I should have phrased it such that 'do you feel that the more people you can try to communicate with and ask them to do things for you in the spirit realm by way of multiple asking the better chance you have of getting your prayers answered?
Does God "think twice" about answering the prayers of friends on earth whom me may ask, "pray for me"? Why do people ask their friends to pray for them?
I guess they feel multiple requests are going to get them a better chance of getting them the answer they want,is my guess. Sadly, for many the answer must be no or they didnt ask enough maybe, because by far most prayers are not answered or what many people will say is that they got a no for an answer, at least that way they can claim they at least recieved an answer. Many will take any event in their life and try to pin it on that they got an answer from God.
I guess that is the thing about praying, I have prayed ten of thousands of prayers and used to grasp at straws in trying to claim I received answer of some kind, any kind to prove to myself that God in fact was listening AND answering. I think most if not all were simply time and unforseen occurence in my honest opinion; and when I ask others who claim to have had these fantastic answers to their prayers, they are quick to claim it is personal and refuse to comment. When others claim the same, this bolsters their claim to have actually had an answer.
I dont mean to be rude or uncaring, I am just doubtfull because of my own experience.
Tor
Amazing,
Although God the Father is mentioned in this prayer [Lor'd Prayer] as the one to whom we are to pray, it is not out of place to address our prayers to the other Divine persons. The special appeal to one does not exclude the others.
I left the Witnesses because I came to realize their Governing Body spoke out of their ass....excuse the colorful language. Popes, Priests, Bishops and Ministers are not above doing the same.
Please, friend, supply a scripture that supports the notion we can pray to the Holy Spirit. The quote above is not from a scriptural source.
With Christian love.
when I ask others who claim to have had these fantastic answers to their prayers, they are quick to claim it is personal and refuse to comment. When others claim the same, this bolsters their claim to have actually had an answer.
But Tor, the answer is personal. By telling you the answer I would be sharing more about myself than I care to in cyberspace. I am sorry that I have disappointed you. How 'bout I share one experience (not the big life changing experience) with you? You have a pm.
I dont mean to be rude or uncaring, I am just doubtfull because of my own experience.
It has been my experience that you can't just go into this and expect to hear the answers right away. You truly have to learn to be silent. I suggest meditation. Although difficult at first, it can be mastered--this silence of the mind. If you do not learn to silence the mind, you will never be able to hear the answer above the noise. Have you tried meditating?
Also, Tor, besides learning to be silent, you have to pick a saint and get to know her/him.
What are your aspirations? What characteristics of God do you want to help manifest on this earth? Examine your heart and think about it for a few days. Then research different websites regarding saints. You can start here:
http://www.catholic-pages.com/dir/saints_b.asp
Because of the "Great Schism" in 1054 between the Orthodox and Catholics, not all saints are recognized by each faction of the church. So you might want to look at Orthodox saints also.
When it came time in my studies to select my saint, I did a lot of heart searching and lots of research. When I chose the saint that I would like to work with, I asked her permission to get to know her. That night I dreamt of her and she welcomed me into her home and fed me. She also told me that I was welcome to all that she had.
I chose St. Brigid of Ireland. http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0201.htm#brig
I believe that she has since been decanonized and I couldn't care less. She is real to me. She inspires me. She comforts me.
If you are serious in your pursuit and stay true to your search, you will find that which you seek. Feel free to pm me anytime. If I can help you, I will be glad to do so.
Love,
Robyn
toreador and timetochange,
Toreador:
I guess I should have said communicating with those who were on earth and have since died. I think it is just a way of phrasing it. Many feel when they try to communicate with the dead of course believe these dead from this earth are now living in the spirit realm. I dont see a real difference in that respect and of course I know you feel these dead persons are now resurrected and in heaven.
Many pray to Jesus Christ, and he died and left this earth. The martyr and disciple Steven prayed to Jesus Christ as he was being stoned to death. So, does that mean that Steven was sinning by praying to Jesus as he was being killed for Jesus? By contrast, the Holy Spirit has never died. So, by that standard, we should be able to pray to him more so.
timetochange:
I mentioned these in comments above. If you turn to Acts 13:2, using the King James ... the sentence structure says that the disciples were ministering to the "Lord" when the Holy Spirit spoke ... the sentence structure in Greek requires that the "Lord" being ministered to is the "Holy Spirit" who spoke. How does one minister to God? One prays or sings, which is also a form or prayer. Also the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:26 spoke of the Holy Spirit indwelling us, and searching us out when we do not know what to pray for, and then pleading as our advocate to the Father. Something so intimate certainly cannot then refuse to hear our prayers ... prayers that tell the Holy Spirit that we don't know what to pray for, and need him to intercede for us.
Also, the NT Bible is a Catholic compilation that was not even commenced to be developed until the late 4th century. It underwent many chnages and was not declared inspired until about the 7th or 8th century. It was not available to people until about the 16th century. So, it is a relatively new development in the Christian faith. All that people had was the Church and tradition. The Bible is not a legal constitution by which we make rulings on matters of everything under the sun. Notwithstanding that, I gave some strong inferences using the Bible ... inferences that are as strong as many other well accepted Christian views. About 2 billion (or about 99.999% of all Christians on this planet have been praying to the Holy Spirit in one way or another for nearly 2,000 years ... so it is well rooted in the faith.
Jim Whitney
the sentence structure in Greek requires that the "Lord" being ministered to is the "Holy Spirit" who spoke.
Not at all.
(But does the "Spirit of Truth" really care about truth in argument?)
Nark,
Regarding my comment about the sentence structure in Greek, you stated, "Not at all.", then added: "(But does the "Spirit of Truth" really care about truth in argument?)"
Truth: Of course truth is important. Of course we need to care about it. And of course the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth cares about truth. By all means, if I have erred, then I stand corrected.
The Watchtower Society (under its Greek man, Fred Franz) was so concerned about this verse, that they considerably altered it by turning "Lord" into Jehovah. Why? Because of the implications in the sentence structure. There is no basis to insert the name Jehovah under any circumstance, but they needed it to read that way. An example in English, (which can be more confusing and duplicitous than Greek,) a sentence might read, "While they were serving him, John spoke up and asked for the salt." In English, "him" would normally be understood to apply to John because his response is in the subordinate clause. However, if one uses sloppy grammar, "him" could be applied to someone else. A good English grammarian would restructure this into two sentences to end the confusion. Of course, I used a pronoun example. Using a proper noun, such as a title, we can achieve the same result: "While they were serving the King, the Highness spoke up and asked for the salt." Here, one would not be able to say that the King is not the same person as the Highness.
As for the classical or Koine' Greek grammar requirements, I obtained that view from reading a commentary on the Holy Spirit which addressed this very issue. I believe I made a note of it in my study paper presented at BRCI ... or at least I noted the resource. I failed to save the resource link, so, I will find my hard copy and make sure I correctly understood it.
Since you clearly assert that the rules of Greek do not require that the "Lord" be tied to the "Holy Spirit" as the sentence would suggest, then maybe you could provide some insight and source information that refutes the point presented.
Here is the Greek at Acts 13:2 as it is commonly found in popular manuscripts: Source Ref. The Polyglot Bible: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/poly/act013.htm
I tried to print out the Greek, but JWD font does not support all of the Greek alphabet characters.
Jim Whitney
Jim,
The Greek text, transliterated from Nestle-Aland 27, is: leitourgountôn de autôn tô kuriô kai nèsteuontôn eipen to pneuma to hagion...; "as they were serving/worshipping (the verb from which "liturgy" derives) the Lord and fasting, the holy spirit said..."
This sentence in no way requires that "the Lord" in the circumstantial clause (absolute genitive) be identified to the subject of the main clause -- contrary to the pronoun case in strict syntax. In your example with "the King / His Highness" the identification is only clear because the two expressions are known as equivalents in the reader's/hearer's usage. This is certainly not the case for "Lord" and "Spirit" in Luke-Acts nor in the rest of the NT or other early Christian literature. The only passage afaik where kurios is formally identified to the Spirit is 2 Corinthians 3:17, and there it does not reflect common Christian speech but a very special exegesis (midrash) on Exodus -- the "Lord" with whom Moses spoke unveiled parallels the Spirit with whom Christians have an "unveiled" relationship. The identification is worked by the text itself, it is not part of common usage and doesn't work as a lexicon definition.
Back to Acts 13:2, the sentence structure would work perfectly if we substituted "an angel" or "a prophet" (as is frequent in Acts) to "the Holy Spirit". The point being, the message is divine -- but that in and of itself wouldn't make the "angel" or the "prophet" more than a loose functional equivalent to "God" in the narrative; with the exact same sentence structure, we would certainly not conclude that the "spirit" or the "angel" is the Lord being served in the circumstantial clause.
My understanding of that verse is that it's the Lord Jesus being worshipped, though I appreciate that it can be translated the Lord Holy Spirit and the context seems to be predominantly filled with activity of the same.
