Was Saul’s contacting the dead prophet Samuel by means of necromancy the same kind of action as our praying to the saints? Jim Blackburn tackles this question and explains why it’s OK for us to ask saints for their intercession.
Transcript:
Host: Damien in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, watching us on YouTube Live, what’s your question for Jim Blackburn?
Caller: Hi, thanks for taking my call today. We’ve got, in first Samuel, when Saul visits a witch and called up the prophet Samuel; my question is, how is that different from our prayers to Saints, and the communion of saints in general? Thank you.
Jim: Okay yeah, this is a question that comes up from time to time because it appears that that Saul is, in a sense, you know, reaching out to what he might believe to be a Saint for assistance.
But number one, what Saul is doing is different in that he’s not just offering his prayers up to a Saint, asking that a Saint take, you know, pray for me, pray with me for my intentions and take my intentions to Christ, take my intentions to God in Heaven. That’s what we do when we’re praying to the Saints. We’re not asking for their intervention in this life, we’re not asking for them to respond to us, for example, or interact with us in any way. We know that they’re in Heaven, and they’re closer to God than we are, and they might have his ear a little better than we do sometimes, and they can, in that regard, take our prayers to God, pray along with us, pray for us, that’s what we’re doing when we pray to the Saints.
What Saul was doing did seem to be, you know, wanting more of an interaction with Samuel than that, and Samuel’s own assistance, not God’s assistance, with Samuels assistance. So this is–there’s distinct differences there. Also, the story of Saul doing this is not presented in such a way that we are to understand that that was even approved, that that was a good thing Saul was doing. The fact that Saul did this is is told to us in Scripture, but it’s not told to us in such a way that it that encouraged to do it or that we are somehow supposed to take this as necessarily as a good thing.
Okay, does that help, Damien?
Caller: Yes, thanks for clearing that up for me.