Dr. John Bergsma

You should only do that to God.

So what we're seeing is, um,

There's a kind of honoring that's appropriate for human beings, and then there's an honoring that's only appropriate to God.

Both kinds of honoring show up in the Bible, but even biblical Greek does not have a word to make the distinction.

And this is often the trouble in church history is that the language of scripture oftentimes doesn't make all the distinctions that we need to make in the Christian life, and so we need to come up with new terminology.

Now, that was a struggle.

The church had to get past that in the early ages, and there were some early bishops and so on that objected and said, no, I don't wanna use any words that aren't used in sacred scripture.

But we were forced to, like Trinity, for example.

Most people do not have a trouble with the Trinity.

but it is a non-biblical word.

So all we have in the New Testament is proskuneo, which means to fall down or to worship, to bend the knee, something like that.

So later the church had to make a distinction.

What kind of honor, you know, just as you would kiss a picture of your mother or of your wife,

you can kiss a picture of the blessed mother, who's our mother in grace, okay?

But what is that called and what kind of interior act is that?

And so the church came up with these distinctions.

So there's...

There's dulia, which is kind of a veneration or an honoring.

And this is the honor that we show to saints who lived holy lives.

We have respect for them as older brothers and sisters in Christ.