016 Intercession: Between Life and Death

We ask our friends to pray for us – why not ask saints to lift up prayers on our behalf? In this episode, our guest contributor Sarah Gianakon discusses the ancient Christian practice of intercession, or the act of one person lifting up prayers to God on behalf of another. Also featured in this episode are relics, the incarnation, and Gnosticism!

Sarah Gianakon is a graduate of Princeton University, alumna of the Fulbright program in Germany, and is currently pursuing a Masters in Philosophy in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at Oxford University. Yep – she’s one smart cookie!

Take-aways:

1. Intercession is the practice of one person lifting up prayers to God on behalf of another.


2. James 5:16 – “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (NIV).


3. In early and medieval Christendom, the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead was permeable.


4. The doctrine of the incarnation is the idea that, in Jesus Christ, the divine took on human form.

Learn more:

Check out Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov here

Read more about Gnosticism here