Reflections: nikosnature: Reflections: Praying to Mary is Idolatry. I’m just...

agentsama:

n1ghtcrwler:

apologeticsnstuff:

nikosnature:

nikosnature:

Reflections: Praying to Mary is Idolatry. I’m just saying.

apologeticsnstuff:

Well, more accurately worshiping Mary would be idolatry. What Catholics do is technically called intercessory prayer. Although, I do think intercessory prayer is unbiblical and the verses used to support it are interpreted loosely and creatively. It’s a slippery slope, though. Veneration of Saints and intercessory prayer could easily lead a weak-minded or naive Christian into an idolatrous state of mind. I’m of the mindset that even if intercessory prayer was actually biblically based, it’s still unnecessary. Jesus is our Intercessor, our High Priest. He is how we connect to God. Why pray to anyone but God? Ever?

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Nikosnature

When you ask your friend to pray for you, do you run the risk of idolatry? Also, it may be ‘unnecessary’ to ask Mary and the Saints to pray for you, just as it is unnecessary to ask your best friend to pray for you, but why wouldn’t you?  I mean, the more people praying for you, the better, right?  If not, then why do we ask people here on Earth to pray for us?  Also, Mary isn’t God, but God did ask her to conceive, carry, birth, and raise his child to later see him die a brutal death on the cross for the salvation of man, and she is Jesus’s mom, and I’m sure the Holy Spirit has respect for her too.  Her voice might be the kind of boost you would want your prayer to have.

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Apologeticsnstuff

Where we clearly differ is on our view of what happens after death. I more or less prescribe to the soul-sleep notion (which, I honestly don’t feel like getting into a huge debate about). So in my mind, a dead person cannot do anything, let alone pray for somebody.

Her voice might be the kind of boost you would want your prayer to have.

That seems to imply that God displays favoritism; that Mary’s prayer (which I think is a nonsensical idea anyway) carries more weight than, say, my friend Ben. My prayers are directed toward God, just as my friend’s prayers for me might be directed toward God. I don’t desire to get into a debate on my position of soul-sleep or your position of the validity/importance of intercessory prayer. My main goal was to expose a subtlety in that original post (really, if anything, defending Catholics although respectfully disagreeing with them).

Well, I don’t know too much about the soul-sleep notion, so I won’t discuss that. 

But while I must definitely affirm your right to respectfully disagree with Catholics, I must explain why it wouldn’t be favoritism for Jesus to listen to Mary more than someone else.

The Commandment to honor thy Father and Mother.  We do see in fact, Jesus obeying Mary when Mary asks him to do something, at the Wedding at Cana.

Jesus only changed the water into wine because Mary asked, because he was honoring her by obeying her.

So your notion is that because one member of the trinity (the Son), in his temporary non-immortal bodily state, obeyed his mother (as we are commanded to do), that because of this, Mary has precedence with the Father over all human beings? That somehow, the omnipotent, omniscient, God who predestined human history to unfold in exactly the manner it does, is limited in His power by what one woman who existed in human history desires? I find this position difficult to understand (or biblically defend, should you be interested in such an approach). I can understand looking up to Mary as a good example of a Godly life, but to say that she’s more important than other human beings, having birthed Jesus, seems no less than favoritism. If you think about God’s preordination of human history, it could have been no other woman than Mary to be the birth mother of the incarnate second member of the Trinity. She was the descendant of the Davidic line; she was in the right place at the right time, essentially. She didn’t do anything to earn herself the position of being Jesus’ mother. Let me know if I’m putting words into your mouth or distorting your position, though.

While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him.  Someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.”  But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?”  And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers!  For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

Matthew 12:46-50.  Mary lost superiority over everyone who has faith in Christ while she was still alive.  We have no reason to believe she regained it by dying.

“When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.” John 19:26-27 (KJV, emphasis added)

Jesus specifically tells us that His own mother is our mother as well.

John is not everyone.  What’s happening here is a cultural matter.  As women could not own property or inherit estate in that age, but generally married men much older than themselves, it was standard practice that they would go into the care of their next of kin upon becoming a widow.  It seems safe to assume that by the time Jesus started His earthly ministry, Joseph was already dead, and we are not told whether or not he had any brothers.  Therefore, it appears that Mary was technically under Jesus’ care, though His occupation made His financial security questionable.  Here, because Jesus is dying (and though He knows He’ll be resurrected, it’s not like He’ll be returning to life as normal), He’s tasking John with the duty of taking over His cultural responsibility to Mary.

Not everything in the Bible needs to be read into so deeply that it is assumed to be a command to everyone.  Sometimes a request from one person to another is actually only from one person to another.