I believe in Sola Scriptura—the Bible alone is the final, sufficient authority for faith and practice. The Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4-5) clearly prohibits making images for religious devotion and bowing to or serving them. Even God-ordained symbols like the Ark of the Covenant with its cherubim show that worship must always go directly to the invisible God Himself, never to the physical object or its carvings (Joshua 7:6, Exodus 25). When images were later venerated, like the bronze serpent, they were rightly destroyed (2 Kings 18:4). There is zero command, example, or positive precedent in the New Testament for Christians to venerate icons, kiss images, burn incense to them, or treat them as aids to devotion.
The same goes for Mary. Scripture honors her as the humble, favored mother of Jesus (Luke 1:28, 38, 48; Acts 1:14), a model of faith and obedience, but it never instructs us to pray to her, invoke her intercession, or venerate her with special titles, rosaries, or icons. The idea that she can hear millions of prayers at once or act as a heavenly mediator is completely unbiblical and attributes near-divine abilities to a finite human being. Jesus is the one mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), and we have direct access to God through Him (Hebrews 4:16). All prayer is to the Father in Jesus’ name.
Praying to departed saints and the whole system of intercession isn’t modeled or required anywhere in Scripture either. The “communion of saints” doesn’t mean we redirect petitions to glorified humans. These practices, along with the fine distinctions between “veneration” and “worship,” feel like mental gymnastics to justify later traditions. The earliest evidence, like the Sub Tuum Praesidium prayer, only appears in the mid-to-late 3rd century—long after the apostles—and doesn’t override the clear silence and prohibitions in God’s Word.
Tradition can be helpful when it aligns with Scripture, but it is fallible and must be tested by the written Word. Elevating “lived tradition,” church councils, or Church Fathers above the Bible is the same error Jesus condemned in the Pharisees (Mark 7:1-13). I reject icon veneration and developed Marian devotion because they are post-biblical additions that risk distracting from Christ alone. The biblical way to honor Mary is simple respect for her role in the Incarnation while keeping all worship, prayer, and dependence fixed on God. That’s where I stand.
Sorry to use ai but I’m too lazy to write all my beliefs out again, tldr worshipping saints and Mary is wild bcuz both aren’t biblical and also appeal to church authority and church tradition while simultaneously leaving out the part where church tradition came to with the same Bible that warns of idolatry and icon worship and worship of pagan idols and so on and so forth. It’s either one is true Sola Sciputra is true or the church tradition is true, from what I seen church tradition has led us to this cucked gynocracy by worshipping an idol of Mary, an earthly woman, and therefore excusing all intrinsic evil done by women, when the figurehead of church tradition IS A WOMAN. So it’s either church tradition is true or sola scriptura is, an people like to use the argument that the church fathers created the Bible as it is, they compiled it, but they also compiled it to where there isn’t a single mention of worshiping icons, saints and Mary. So obviously they are not infallible. The worship of Mary came years and years later and isn’t even rooted in church tradition! The arguments for her are so weak and the damage done by veneration of Mary are obvious, foid worship left right and center, thank you church tradition!
The same goes for Mary. Scripture honors her as the humble, favored mother of Jesus (Luke 1:28, 38, 48; Acts 1:14), a model of faith and obedience, but it never instructs us to pray to her, invoke her intercession, or venerate her with special titles, rosaries, or icons. The idea that she can hear millions of prayers at once or act as a heavenly mediator is completely unbiblical and attributes near-divine abilities to a finite human being. Jesus is the one mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), and we have direct access to God through Him (Hebrews 4:16). All prayer is to the Father in Jesus’ name.
Praying to departed saints and the whole system of intercession isn’t modeled or required anywhere in Scripture either. The “communion of saints” doesn’t mean we redirect petitions to glorified humans. These practices, along with the fine distinctions between “veneration” and “worship,” feel like mental gymnastics to justify later traditions. The earliest evidence, like the Sub Tuum Praesidium prayer, only appears in the mid-to-late 3rd century—long after the apostles—and doesn’t override the clear silence and prohibitions in God’s Word.
Tradition can be helpful when it aligns with Scripture, but it is fallible and must be tested by the written Word. Elevating “lived tradition,” church councils, or Church Fathers above the Bible is the same error Jesus condemned in the Pharisees (Mark 7:1-13). I reject icon veneration and developed Marian devotion because they are post-biblical additions that risk distracting from Christ alone. The biblical way to honor Mary is simple respect for her role in the Incarnation while keeping all worship, prayer, and dependence fixed on God. That’s where I stand.
Sorry to use ai but I’m too lazy to write all my beliefs out again, tldr worshipping saints and Mary is wild bcuz both aren’t biblical and also appeal to church authority and church tradition while simultaneously leaving out the part where church tradition came to with the same Bible that warns of idolatry and icon worship and worship of pagan idols and so on and so forth. It’s either one is true Sola Sciputra is true or the church tradition is true, from what I seen church tradition has led us to this cucked gynocracy by worshipping an idol of Mary, an earthly woman, and therefore excusing all intrinsic evil done by women, when the figurehead of church tradition IS A WOMAN. So it’s either church tradition is true or sola scriptura is, an people like to use the argument that the church fathers created the Bible as it is, they compiled it, but they also compiled it to where there isn’t a single mention of worshiping icons, saints and Mary. So obviously they are not infallible. The worship of Mary came years and years later and isn’t even rooted in church tradition! The arguments for her are so weak and the damage done by veneration of Mary are obvious, foid worship left right and center, thank you church tradition!
