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We honor the Mother of God. There really is no tactful way to handle this subject with protestants who have grown anti-Mary. We believe that the Saints are still alive in heaven and pray for us. They are in heaven, who better to pray for us than they? People on earth pray, why can't they? St. Paul told the Corinthians to gather with spirit. If while he was alive, St. Paul could know what was going on somewhere else, why not after his death? The Holy Spirit makes sure the Saint being asked for prayer gets the message in the same way Paul "got the message" from the Corinthians while he was not present.
Yet many protestants will say, "There is no other mediator between God and man!" My response is usually, "What does a mediator have to do with prayers?" Jesus Christ still mediates the New Covenant. He has the power to forgive sins. It is still His sacrifice that saves us. The sacrifice on the cross can never be redone. Now, if we were sacrificing bulls once a year, or if we believed we needed one bishop (like the pope) to go between us and God and continue to mediate the covenant, then the protestants would have a case. The problem is that the protestants have no idea what a mediator does, so their quotation is grossly out of place. We believe simply that we can ask them to pray for us. The Jesus prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me," should be prayed by every Orthodox Christian without ceasing every day. We pray directly to Jesus Christ ALL of the time. Yet we turn to the Saints and ask them to pray for us. There is nothing wrong with that. We believe that since the Mother of God was closest to Jesus Christ, she first among all the Saints, even before the Apostles. She therefore is the first person I want to ask to pray for me.
Another thing that is important to see is that even in the scriptures the Mother of God is honored. St. Elizabeth, the mother of St. John the Baptist, said as the Holy Virgin Mary approached, "Why is it granted to me that the MOTHER OF MY LORD would come to me?" She clearly felt honored to be in the presence of the Holy Virgin Mary! We as Orthodox Christians have taken the same approach for the last 2000 years. We worship all Holy Good and Life Giving Trinity, but honor the Holy Theotokos, or Mother of God, which ever term you prefer.
According to Orthodox Tradition she lived in the temple and was fed by angels from the age of 3. She was given to Joseph, about 90 years old at that time, who had children from a previous marriage from a woman that had died about a year prior. These are the children that are referred to as Jesus brothers and sisters. As we know, according to scripture, Mary was NOT surprised that the angel appeared to her, but at the unusual greeting, Blessed art thou among women. You see, it was the same angel that had been feeding her in the temple, so that is not what surprised her, because she was used to it. After having God in her womb, she in no way whatsoever entered into sexual relations with Joseph who was past the age anyway. She wanted to be a Virgin, and the reason why Joseph was selected was to protect her virginity. How he was selected is another story in Orthodox Tradition we will pass over in silence. What is interesting is that many evangelicals skip over the fact that Jesus put the Holy Virgin Mary under the care of the Apostle John. This is a fact that can be seen at the end of Jesus Christ's passion in the Gospel account of John. If Jesus had blood brothers from the same womb, they would have been the ones to take the Holy Virgin Mary. John was the son of Zebedee. Yet Jesus gave the theotokos to John because she TRULY did remain a virgin after the birth of Jesus Christ. That is the reason why we call her EVER-VIRGIN.
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DID YOU KNOW???
50% of children
will lose their faith in college. 3 times
more people will become an atheist than
will find any faith whatsoever. Join us
in our journey restoring faith in Jesus
Christ to lost souls. There is a war being
fought spiritually speaking. Our mission is
to restore people to faith in Jesus Christ,
but also equally important, a true understanding
of ancient Christian belief and practice. The
True God IS TRINITY. This is the truth
expressed by the apostles, and it is the truth
that we too will express.
JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN †††
Many times we wonder to ourselves, "Is Jesus really alive?" We question our faith because the world tries to tear us down by telling us that Jesus was a mere man. Is that true? If we examine the history, we shall see and be convinced of the TRUTH.
This is the gospel. Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead. It can be historically proven that the Christians were being tortured and killed as early as 49AD. 500 Christians claimed to have seen Christ risen from the dead all at once. Thousands were seeing the miracles. People being raised from the dead, healings by as little as touching Peter's shadow, Handkerchiefs from Paul worked mighty miracles, and prophecy was witnessed in its fulfillment. The early Christians were in a place to know if they were lying. Why would thousands of people make up and lie about Jesus being risen from the dead then get tortured for their lie. They were thrown to lions, they were crucified, they were burned alive, they were skinned alive, and just about every other imaginable torture. Only one conclusion. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
The TALMUD is an ancient writing that was written by the Jews who put Jesus on trial and sought to kill Him. They hated Jesus, and had no reason to make Him sound better. In this ancient document they accused Jesus of deceiving the people with sorceries. They could not deny His miracles, but had to come up with another explanation because EVERYONE saw and knew He performed miracles. There is no solid basis for denying Jesus was in fact a miracle worker. Even Josephus who was a Jewish historian during that time wrote about Jesus and His miracles. He was writing to please the Romans and He would not have included it if it were not true, because the Romans would not have been pleased with it at all.
JOSH MCDOWELL also has an interesting story. He had actually tried to disprove the bible. When he was in law school some Christians challenged him to disprove the bible. He thought it would be a piece of cake. He was so serious about disproving the scriptures, that he quit school and went to Europe to study in the libraries enriched with material. He even felt that if he could disprove one point the whole thing would be disproven. Needless to say, he was addament and he would not give up easy. Then to everyone's amazement he came back a Christian. What he said was that the historical evidence would prove in the court of law that Jesus Christ is Resurrected from the dead. He has now written many books on the topic and he explains what convinced him. On of the most shocking discoveries he made was that the scriptures were actually written in the first century by the Apostles. He more thoroughly explains this in his book "EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT." (Click the link if you would like to purchase his book: it will be in the Christian books section) He said that if you were to destroy every single Christian New Testament including the ancient manuscripts you could still reconstruct the New Testament using early Church Father quotes of the New Testament except for 11 verses. The fact is that the New Testament is preserved authentically as it is supposed to be. It is not perfect, but close to it. He quotes all of the experts on this subject, and even the liberals have to admit that they could not have been written later than the 2nd century. Yet, even if they were written in the second century, I will explain why they are still accurate. However, Many experts do say that they could not possibly date beyond the first century. Namely because people that were alive in the first century quote the New Testament. Also after studying the book of Acts, they said that Luke was so detailed that when one studies they will find that the book of Acts simply won't fit in a second century setting, only in the first century.
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