Gavin Ortlund, Iconography, and Scripture: The Biblical Logic of Veneration 

Next up in this series are two videos with Michael Garten where he develops in more detail some of the abundant ante-Nicene evidence that Christian imagery was both being created and liturgically honored. So we're trying to cover all our bases.

@@Seraphim-Hamilton Looking forward to it. Your work is a blessing!

Just as protestants cherry pick scripture to support their pet 16th century heresies they cherry pick history and then claim a consensus of data has been met.

That would be really cool.

I actually have a short coming out tonight on papal primacy and have some older videos on the subject- I also talked a fair bit about Rome in my recent stream.

@@Seraphim-Hamilton Awesome!!! I hope you’ll write more books in the future, particularly one akin to an Orthodox “through new eyes.”

ChatGPT was trained by the Iconoclastic Protestants.! Remember that AI claims are overrated and they are good in providing info quickly but to engage in subtle reasoning... neah...

@@johnnyd2383 When I’m actually doing research on a religion that I don’t agree with entirely, I go to that religion and its statements for my sources. There’s no need to go anywhere else. The AI chatbot was only to help me find inconsistencies that I had in arguments. Was it as good as Seraphim at doing that? No, but it was better at it than most people.

The issue then seems to be veneration of saints, right? Seraphim has a video on this

You're on the right track. Venerating icons of saints is indirectly worshipping God who worked so strongly through them.

My answer isn't from the Bible, but from personal experience. When my grandfather was living, my Indian friend visited us and she kissed his hand. It's part of their culture to show respect to elders. Then when I went to the Serbian church, the priest sort of trained us to ask for a blessing. Instead of shaking a priest's hand, you place right hand over left hand facing up and the priest puts his right hand in your hands and he blessed you as you kiss his hand. It reminded me of the thing with Asra. It's pretty much the same motion, except my grandfather didn't bless her. It really touched him. I know kissing his hand is about respecting the priest because he prepares the Eucharist. Then I thought about the middle ages when men kissed women on the hand. They also kissed men on the hand back then, but kissing women on the hands is the only part that survived. We are supposed to aim for the hand of the Saint or Angel in the icon, not kiss the icon just anywhere. All that came together for me and I realized that you're paying respect to the person just as if they were standing in front of you. You're not worshipping, you are greeting them because they are alive. The old testament and even new testament examples of angels saying not to worship them is not really applicable because we are greeting them as a fellow servant of God, not putting them equal with God. The Saints and all of us who are Christians should contain the Holy Spirit. That's why we are censed along with the icons. We're all icons of the invisible Christ. We are temples of the Holy Spirit and so are the Saints. The priest is not censing the people, he's censing the Holy Spirit in the people and icons (representing them). Just focus on the icons representing living people who are just on the other side, almost peering in from heaven, worshipping alongside us. That's how I see it. I love the Orthodox focus of "God is the God of the living, not of the dead."

Who makes a Saint, a Saint?

​@@garretttew9838The Holy Spirit?

I wonder if I'm heretical in any way... ref 1 Peter 3:8

@@mosesbauer5856 examine ourselves (yourself) and your beliefs to see if you are on the faith or not_ and look and see what you believe compared to the Scriptures & The Church for the first seven hundred plus+ year's and you'll find out if you're Heretical' or not. 🔥🤭

@@christianorthodoxy4769 I'd rather stir up conversation than point fingers. It's refreshing to not need any answers for myself. I just do as my parish does, and what my priest recommends. It seems too easy online to cast stones. A call out to heretics is an opportunity to question myself, rather than others.

@@mosesbauer5856 I know what you mean.. but we also have to make sure Our priest leader's aren't in error too. And there is lots of that going on especially these day's unfortunately. 😞 But that's why we must be in prayer for our selves and family (The Church) friends etc. It's been rough and tough lately.

@@mosesbauer5856 Okay.'

Bad argument. Discovering the Trinity and Jesus being God and man...that stuff isn't easy either. There are tons of difficult teachings on the Bible. We can't even agree if Adam and Eve were the first humans or just the first humans from monkeys with a soul. So, to say a teaching is hard to uncover is not a good argument against such teaching. And that's granting that your measure of 'amount of effort' is actually an accurate measurement

Once I spent time with Icons, I got it. Put simply, Incarnation is greater than rationalization. Then I read history... Saint Peter, infinitely holier than I, was incorrect from time to time. He would also get this, I would guess.

The amount of effort that it takes to be blind to the use of icons in scripture.

It’s only takes effort from your perspective because you’ve deluded yourself into thinking your own strained eisegesis is the correct and therefore natural one.

I think a better way to look at it is that the presentation is lengthy in order to do justice to Scripture. I think the fact that this presentation is scrupulous indicates that Seraphim doesn’t wish to do surface level analysis.