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The saints and their prayers

May Christians ask the departed to pray for them, and honour their relics?

The passage it turns on

I exhort therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and givings of thanks, be made for all men: for kings and all who are in high places; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all; the testimony in its own times;

1 Timothy 2:1-6In context. Paul to Timothy: pray for all people, including kings, because God wants all to be saved, and ‘there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’.

Paul opens by asking Christians to intercede for everyone; intercession by one believer for another is commanded, not forbidden, and does not rival Christ. The saints in heaven are more alive, not less, and their prayer is the same intercession Paul asks for here, continued.

Paul’s one mediator is the point of the paragraph, and it is Christ as man who gave himself a ransom. Asking the living to pray is commanded; asking the dead is never commanded, never shown, and sits beside a prohibition on consulting the dead. Christ is enough, and he is always awake.

Press a reading to put the lamp behind the words that side leans on. The passage does not change.

What each side holds

Catholics hold that the Church is one family across death, that those with Christ pray for us, and that we may ask them to, as we ask one another. They honour the saints’ bodies and belongings as relics. Protestants hold that the departed are with Christ and that we are one body with them, but that Scripture gives no warrant to address them, warns against contacting the dead, and names one mediator.

Both sides confess the communion of saints in the Apostles’ Creed. The question is whether that communion includes conversation.

The points people make

A cloud of witnesses

But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, to the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.

Hebrews 12:22-24In context. The same letter: Christians have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to angels, to ‘the spirits of just men made perfect’, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant.

Scripture is silent on it. Scripture says the departed in Christ are alive to God and part of one assembly with us. It is silent on whether they hear our requests.

The Catholic reading

Hebrews says we have come to the spirits of the just made perfect and are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses; Revelation shows the elders in heaven holding “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints”, an angel offering those prayers before God, and the martyrs under the altar aware of events on earth. The departed are not asleep or cut off.

“It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven”

Catechism of the Catholic Church 957

The Protestant reading

The witnesses of Hebrews 12 are witnesses to faith, examples who have run; the picture is a race, not a conversation. Revelation’s elders carry prayers to God; no one in Scripture ever addresses a prayer to them. Awareness in heaven, if it is taught, is not the same as a channel from earth.

“in heaven they pray for the Church in general, albeit no testimony concerning the praying of the dead is extant in the Scriptures”

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article 21, 1531

Asking the saints to pray

I saw in the middle of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the middle of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. Then he came, and he took it out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. Now when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sang a new song, saying, “You are worthy to take the book, and to open its seals: for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood, out of every tribe, language, people, and nation, and made us kings and priests to our God, and we will reign on the earth.”

Revelation 5:6-10In context. John’s vision of the throne room: the Lamb takes the scroll, and the twenty-four elders fall before him with harps and golden bowls of incense, ‘which are the prayers of the saints’.

Scripture is silent on it. Scripture never shows a believer asking a departed saint to pray, and never forbids it in those words.

The Catholic reading

We ask friends to pray for us and no one calls that a rival to Christ. Death does not end charity, and those who see God love us more, not less. Early Christian graffiti at Rome asks Peter and Paul to pray for the departed, and the practice is in every ancient liturgy, East and West.

“Their intercession is their most exalted service to God's plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church 2683

The Protestant reading

Every prayer in Scripture is addressed to God. Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Our Father”. No prophet, apostle or early believer in the Bible asks Abraham, Moses or Stephen for anything, and the first firm evidence of invoking saints is third century. An argument from what friends do is not a warrant to speak to the dead.

“the Scripture teaches not the invocation of saints or to ask help of saints, since it sets before us the one Christ as the Mediator”

Augsburg Confession, Article 21, 1530

Does it come under consulting the dead?

When you have come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices sorcery, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. Because of these abominations, the LORD your God drives them out from before you. You shall be perfect with the LORD your God. For these nations that you shall dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do.

Deuteronomy 18:9-14In context. Moses to Israel before they enter the land: no child sacrifice, divination, sorcery, mediums, or anyone who ‘consults with the dead’; these are why the LORD is driving the nations out.

Scripture’s words can be read more than one way. The law forbids “a necromancer”, with no purpose named, and Isaiah asks “Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?”, beside “shouldn’t a people consult with their God?”. Whether asking a saint for prayer is that kind of consulting can be read more than one way.

The Catholic reading

Deuteronomy forbids necromancy: summoning the dead to learn secrets, as Saul did with Samuel. Asking a saint to pray seeks no hidden knowledge and no spirit is summoned. At the Transfiguration Jesus himself spoke with Moses and Elijah, and the rich man in Jesus’ story speaks with Abraham.

“God thus indicates that one is not to conjure the dead for purposes of gaining information”

Catholic Answers, Praying to the Saints, 2019

The Protestant reading

The prohibition is broad, and the gap between asking a saint for prayer and asking for help, healing or protection has often closed in practice. The Transfiguration is God’s doing, not a prayer; and the rich man’s request to Abraham in Luke 16 is refused, in a parable.

“nowhere has God ever taught us that we are to pray to or ask for the intercession of saints in heaven or anyone else in heaven other than God”

Gavin Ortlund, as reported by ChurchLeaders, 2026

Relics and holy things

God worked special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out.

Acts 19:11-12In context. Luke on Paul in Ephesus: God did extraordinary miracles through him, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons from his body healed the sick.

Scripture is silent on it. Scripture shows God healing through objects that touched his servants. It is silent on keeping and honouring relics.

The Catholic reading

A dead man revived on touching Elisha’s bones; cloths that had touched Paul healed the sick. God honours the bodies of his saints, which were temples of the Spirit and will rise. Keeping and honouring them is gratitude, not magic, and the Church condemns selling them.

“If these aren't examples of the use of relics, what are?”

Catholic Answers, Relics, on 2 Kings 13 and Acts 19, 2019

The Protestant reading

Both miracles are God’s acts, told once, never turned into a practice or a command. The medieval trade in relics, with several heads of one saint, is part of why the Reformers reacted; Calvin catalogued the absurdities. Honour the saints by imitating them.

“as well of Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented,”

Thirty-nine Articles, Article 22, 1571

Who is a saint?

Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry, and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage. For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.”

Luke 20:34-38In context. Jesus answering Sadducees who denied the resurrection: God called himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, ‘for all are alive to him’.

Scripture states it. Scripture calls every believer a saint, and says the dead in Christ are alive to God. Whether the Church should name some formally is a question Scripture leaves open.

The Catholic reading

Paul addresses whole churches as saints, and Catholics agree that every person in heaven is a saint. Canonisation names a few of them with certainty after inquiry, so they may be honoured publicly and held up as examples; it does not make anyone a saint.

“Prayer to saints includes the honor that is their due, but never worship.”

Tim Staples, Catholic Answers, 2007

The Protestant reading

Scripture calls every believer a saint, alive or dead. Protestants honour the martyrs and read the lives of the faithful, but a process that names some, after miracles are attested, risks a two-tier church the New Testament does not have.

“a peculiar administration was gradually assigned to each, so that, according to diversity of business, now one, now another, intercessor was invoked.”

Calvin, Institutes 3.20.22, on patron saints, 1559

Watch

One talk from each side, chosen for making its own case well. Each loads from YouTube only when you press play.

Catholic Answers Live. 11 min. Trent Horn on why Catholics ask the saints in heaven to pray for them. Open on YouTube
Gavin Ortlund. 23 min. Gavin Ortlund on why he holds that Scripture gives no warrant to pray to the saints. Open on YouTube

Sources on this page

Every quotation above, with the page it comes from and the day it was read. Primary documents first where a side has one.