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From memorized occasional prayers to elaborate daily rituals, devout Muslims are steeped in remembrance of Allah and performance of Islamic traditions.
They did not categorize religion with belief but with cultural identity. The tragedy here is that no one has given them a reason to think otherwise. If they were to intimately know even one Christian who lived differently, their misconceptions might be corrected, and they might see Christianity in a virtuous light.
But the best we can do before getting to know someone is to determine whether he is an immigrant or a second-generation Muslim. This one factor often makes a huge difference.
All the same, I immediately gained respect for her. Why had other Christians never asked me this question? They did think I needed Jesus to go to heaven, right? Were they content with letting me go to hell, or did they not really believe their faith?
“Well, I’m Muslim, right? Muslims believe that Jesus was sinless and born of the Virgin Mary. He cleansed the leprous, gave sight to the blind, and raised people from the dead. Jesus is the Messiah, the Word of God.”24
“Betsy, I don’t think the Bible we have today is the word of God. It’s been changed too many times throughout history. But for now, let’s just say I did think so. Where does Jesus say, ‘I am God’?”
she said, “In John’s gospel, Jesus says, ‘The Father and I are one.’ ” That was the one I expected her to go for, and I was ready. “Yeah, but also in John, Jesus prays for his disciples to be one just as he is one with the Father. So he clarifies exactly what he means by ‘one.’
He means unified in spirit and will. If he meant ‘one’ as in ‘one being,’ would he be praying for his disciples to be ‘one’ in the same way? He’s not praying for his disciples to all become one being, is he?”
Betsy, but you won’t find anything. Jesus never said he was God,” I argued. “He made the opposite quite clear to us. He felt the pangs of hunger, thirst, loneliness, and temptation. He cried, and he bled. He didn’t call himself ‘the Son of God,’ he called himself ‘the Son of Man.’ He was very obviously human.”
“How can someone be man and God? Man is mortal, God is immortal. Man is limited, God is infinite. Man is weak, God is omnipotent. To be man is to not be God, and to be God is to not be man.”
“When Jesus went to Galilee, Mark’s gospel tells us he could do no miracles. Not that he chose not to, but that he couldn’t. Can God not do miracles? When a woman in a crowd touched him, he had no idea who it was. Would God not know something that simple?” After pausing to let her process, I continued. “When a man called him ‘good,’ he said that he is not good, only God is good.25 He draws a distinction between himself and God. He does it again when he said he didn’t know when the world will end, and that only God knows. He’s making it very clear that he is not God.”
“Betsy, in case there is any question, in the gospel of John, Jesus said, ‘The Father is greater than I.’ And I agree with Jesus. God is greater than he is. I think you ought to agree with him too.”
“Well, the message is all wrong,” I started, collecting my thoughts. “What they’re teaching people is they can do whatever they want their whole lives, and all they have to do is say a prayer and they’ll go to heaven.” Abba nodded. “Right. And what’s wrong with that? What’s the purpose of religion?” “The purpose of religion is to make good people and a good society. If people can do whatever they want, they will indulge their sinful desires and society will fall apart. They have a blank check to sin. Even Hitler could go to heaven just by accepting Jesus.” Abba prompted me on. “And that’s why
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Everything we do is recorded by angels: one on our right shoulder recording our good deeds, and one on our left shoulder recording our bad deeds. When we stand before Allah, our deeds will be read aloud. No one will be able to intercede for us; not our family, not Jesus, not even Muhammad . Allah will weigh our good deeds and our bad, and if our good deeds are greater than our bad deeds, Allah will give us paradise.”
“Yes. The Quran says that if Christians and Jews believe in one God and do good deeds, they can go to heaven.”26
Regardless of the exact number, most orthodox sects of Islam believe in the doctrine of abrogation.
Ammi quickly added, “But even the most accurate ones are the word of Muhammad , not the word of Allah. We must not equate the hadith to the Quran.”
But still, Muhammad is not God. The Quran is the only uncorrupted, perfect book in the world. The books of hadith are more like the Bible because they are the works of men. There is divine truth there, but we have to be careful of corruption. We always have to check the truths we get from other sources against the Quran.
“God, can You please help me find my friends?” I had nothing else to say, so I said nothing else. When I opened my eyes, what I saw stunned me stock-still. In the air before me were two streaks of color, one gold and one silver, as if whimsically painted onto the sky by an ethereal brush. They trailed into the distance, obviously leading me somewhere.
Thus, positional authority yields a society that determines right and wrong based on honor and shame.
Rational authority creates a society that determines right and wrong based on innocence and guilt.
For one reason or another, the prevailing sources of social authority in these regions deem these customs acceptable, perhaps even preferable. No amount of sheer reason is going to change these practices, nor will externally imposed prohibitions. The change will have to be social, internal, and organic.
Effective evangelism requires relationships. There are very few exceptions.
“But, Nabeel! How can you ask such a thing? Doesn’t the Quran say the Injil is the word of Allah?” It was clear that David had been studying
Injil: The book that Muslims believe Allah sent to Jesus, often considered to be the gospels of the New Testament
The only gospels that even come close to being from Jesus’ time are the gospels of the New Testament.”
“There were other gospels, to be sure, but they all came much later, in the mid-second century or afterward. The four gospels in the New Testament are all first century, right after Jesus. That’s one reason why the early Christians chose them.”
