This is the transcript of the first part (before our discussion back and forth) of the video, “ANSWERED! – Allie Beth Stuckey on “Praying to Mary” – Proof It’s 100% Biblical!” (11-1-25). It’s doing very well. After almost two months, it has 18,394 views: not bad for a channel that has 27.9K subscribers at this point. We’re gonna keep growing!
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Allie Beth Stuckey is a Reformed Baptist. Her YouTube channel has 677,000 subscribers. We’re replying to her one-minute short entitled, “What do Catholics believe about Mary and the Saints?” (5-5-24). It has 196,645 views, and is an excerpt from a longer interview with the ubiquitous Catholic apologist Trent Horn, “Catholic vs. Protestant: Praying to Mary” (5-6-24). that devoted 25 minutes to this matter. Here’s what she asked Trent:
You believe that there is some kind of not just spiritual transformation, but that there is an incredible expansion of people’s capacity to know, and to do when we get to heaven, that includes the ability to discern millions of prayers at once in all different languages, somehow prioritize, order, carry those requests to God, and that Mary has achieved that kind of transformation and expansion of her capacity, and all of the saints as well. Where does that idea come from?
Others in the combox echoed her query, with one writing, “The question isn’t, ‘Can God do it?’ it’s, ‘Did God do it?’ “A second person wrote, “I’m hearing a lot of ‘God could’ and not a lot of ‘God said this is how it works’ ”. And a third stated, “Her question was ‘where does this idea come from?’ And he wasn’t able to answer.”
Another person who has the ability to read hearts and minds, opined, “He didn’t answer the question because he can’t, because he knows that idea is man-made.” And a fifth person demanded, “Give me chapter and verse.” That’s what Protestants always want to hear, and Maybe Trent did give them what they asked for in the 25 minutes of the other video. Whether he did or not, we’re happy to provide directly relevant verses from the New Testament.
On earth, we “see through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor 13:12, RSV) and “know in part” (1 Cor 13:12), and “eye has not seen” (1 Cor 2:9) what God has “prepared” for us. The Apostle Paul was “caught up into Paradise” and “heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter” (2 Cor 12:3-4). Saints in heaven “shall understand fully” (1 Cor 13:12), and possess “knowledge” that Paul describes as “perfect” (1 Cor 13:9-10), and “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17), “the glory that is to be revealed” (Rom 8:18). God said, “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is 55:9).
We’ll be “equal to” angels after death (Lk 20:36), and “like angels” (Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25). More than that, the saved will be “like” Jesus (1 Jn 3:2), “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19) and “the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13), “one spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17), “changed into his likeness” (2 Cor 3:18), indeed, will fully be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). So, can Mary and other saints deal with millions of prayers, outside of time? No problem, with all this going on! Jesus said, “with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26).
James 5:16 asserts: “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.” God told Job’s “friends” that “my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer” (Job 42:8). God told Abimelech that Abraham would pray for him, so he could live, “for” Abraham was “a prophet” (Gen 20:6-7). And Abraham in effect “bargained” with God and asked Him to spare Sodom if ten righteous people were found in it (Gen 18:22-32). God would have complied, but there were not ten righteous.
This is why Jesus taught, in His story of Abraham and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31, that Abraham received three prayer requests, and had the ability — delegated by God — to intercede to God and grant them. Protestants reply that Abraham refused the requests, but that’s beside the point. If no one could ever be prayed to except God, and if this were sinful idolatry, as Allie and millions of Protestants believe, Abraham would have had to say so.
But he didn’t, and Jesus couldn’t and wouldn’t ever set forth an error about prayer, even if this were a parable — and it’s not, because parables never contain proper names. We also know that saints and angels present our prayers to God in heaven (Rev 5:8; 8:3-4).
Related Articles
How Can a Saint Hear the Prayers of Millions at Once? [National Catholic Register, 10-7-20]
How Can a Human Like Mary Hear Millions of Prayers? The Answer Is in the Bible [National Catholic Register, 2-18-23]
Bible on Seeking Exceptionally Righteous Intercessors (vs. Dr. Lydia McGrew) [11-9-24]
Related Books
“The Catholic Mary”: Quite Contrary to the Bible? (Oct. 2010; 189 pages)
Biblical Evidence for the Communion of Saints (Feb. 2012, 152 pages)
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