Pete's Blog

 The Bible does not teach us to ask individuals in heaven for their prayers. Why do many Catholics pray to saints in heaven and request their prayers? Catholics view these saints as "intercessors" before God. They believe that a saint, who is glorified in Heaven, has more "direct access" to God than we do. Therefore, if a saint delivers a prayer to God, it is more effective than us praying to God directly. However,  Hebrews 4:16 tells us that we, believers here on earth, can "approach the throne of grace with confidence." "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 2:5.  There is no one else that can mediate with God for us. If Jesus is the only mediator, that means that the saints cannot mediate our prayer requests to God. Further, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ Himself is interceding for us before the Father: "Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him...

The Good News at its heart is a declaration that Jesus Christ is in charge, he is Lord of all.  The resurrection of Jesus was a vindication of his claims to have "all authority" and that he had a special relationship to God the Father (I and the Father are one).  Jesus's death was in obedience to God the Father and in it he accomplished his great victor over sin and death.  The Good News is that Jesus in in charge, the Good News is also that Jesus in his death has wind for us the victory over sin and death.  This latter victory means that those who recognise him as Lord and choose to follow him get to receive the blessing of eternal life that he brings.  This receiving of eternal life as a free victory gift  from Jesus is also called being "born again".  This is all so well known even Wiki gets it right, as we discussed on The Good News Show recently.  But it needs to be appropriated personally to be effective, that is, each person needs to not o...