[Upper Room] The Gospel According to Islam

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Alright, you may be seated. So the resource I'm going to reference tonight, there are others, but this is a good one. It's by Nabil Qureshi. He is an apologist. He grew up Muslim. It's called Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. Qureshi went to be with the Lord four or five years ago, stomach cancer. But it's a really compelling read, an easy read that's presented not as like an apologetic textbook, so much as his personal testimony and relaying the things that, the hurdles that he had to overcome in order to go from being a Muslim to come to faith in Christ. So just a few preliminaries tonight. As always, we want to speak kindly and with understanding and good faith, all of that good kind of stuff. Also, you know, there's probably a lot of interesting discussion that we could have surrounding the history of Muslim expansion into the world, the crusades, the geopolitics of Islam today. We can say some things about Dearborn Michigan, all that sort of stuff. We could, but my goal and intention for our conversation today is a little more modest, having to do less with politics and all of that, and more to do with what Islam actually is on its own terms, and the specific bones it has to pick with Christianity, the kind of arguments that you might encounter, and how we can equip ourselves to respond. This, you know, the first question I want to ask is do any of you know any Muslims? Yes, and we haven't even had conversations.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Good.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

Our son-in-law is. He grew up in a Muslim.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

And I'll tell you that he quotes culture better than I can. Okay. Well, that's interesting, right? Way better.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

So maybe half the people in the room actually know Muslims. We all know of Muslims. We've all had contact with Muslims before. But it is interesting. I've had different points in my life where I've had more or less contact with Muslims. And right now I'm actually at a point in my life where I have less contact. Like I don't, I can't name any Muslims with whom I have an actual ongoing relationship. The closest thing right now is somebody left a note in our mailbox here at the church a couple weeks ago, and it was handwritten on line paper, front and back, and it was basically just a screed of the most you know, your standard anti-Christian Islamic arguments. Some of the things that we're gonna talk through tonight. Yeah, yeah. So half the room, ongoing relationships, half the room, not so much. This is a dangerous question to ask, but we are all kind-hearted, virtuous Christians. So I'm gonna ask, what are your impressions of Islam from the outside looking in?

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Just like Christians, no Islamic person represents the whole Islamic faith. Sure. Yeah. So there's diversity in Islam. Very diversity. Yeah. And the one that we talked to that does the Bible is not at real, is no more active than people out here who don't go to church on Sunday. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

He just lives his regular life and you would tell her to talk about the thing. Right. So that's interesting. That is that is a reality. So, you know, just like we have cultural Christians versus, let's say, observant Christians or church-going Christians, uh, you have a similar dynamic in Islam. You have people who are the faithful adherents, and you have people who are culturally Muslim. They grew up in a Muslim family, but they're Muslim in the same way. An evangelical who never goes to church is an evangelical. It's a label that tells you something about them demographically, but maybe it doesn't tell you too much about what they believe. What else? Other impressions of Islam.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

The Muslims I've known have been kind and very just sincere about their beliefs, their faith, and to them it's very important to practice training from Ramadan to other practices.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:15

And um, some of them were in the more Sufi mystical end of it. Yeah, some of them are more mainstream. Yeah. All of them have been decent people.

SPEAKER_08 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:27

Um, as far as I can tell, appalled by some of the extremists.

SPEAKER_07 5:33

One of my best friends at work is Muslim, and he's just finished Ramadan recently. Um, so he's serious. Um, if you're gonna go through Ramadan, we've had some very interesting, lengthy conversations about Esau, about Jesus. I think that's how and um let's just say that he does know a lot about the Bible. Now he can't quote it, you know, verbatim, but this guy is super kind-hearted, and interestingly enough, I'm probably one of the only Christians that he knows that is not a Christian scientist. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

It's not a what? What what do you mean by that, Christian scientist?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

That's a that's a denomination. So a Christian. Christian science is uh, for lack of a better term, a denomination, but it's not. It's it's more like a cult.

SPEAKER_07 6:40

No, no, I mean no, Christian Zionists.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Oh, Christian Zionist scientists. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Christian scientists is like, wow, we got those around here. I lived across the street from the Christian Science Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Yeah, a big old reflecting pool, a big monument, and a reading room. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone else? Impressions of Islam? George.

SPEAKER_08 7:11

I deal with them off and on all the time. Yeah. I rent property to them, I sign contracts with them. Yeah. I they're just like everybody else in this world. Yeah. You know, actually, sometimes they may be better than some of the people I have to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

That is an interesting point, right? Because Islam is a very works-based religion, it's a very practical religion that emphasizes ritual acts and service and things like that. Externally, you will find, you know, many Muslims, observant Muslims, are very righteous people, very religious, upstanding, fastidious. I mean, there are cultural differences that will rub against some of our Western sensibilities, but a lot of Muslim people are really, you know, righteous people, if you understand that word.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

So this is not as kind as some of the other comments. But the the thing that um I learned from one Muslim friend was about Muhammad's dream that he surpasses all the other prophets, including Jesus. And and that didn't feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, yeah, and we'll talk some about Muhammad in a couple minutes when we look at the basics.

SPEAKER_08 8:33

Islam, like Christianity, is not monolithic.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Right. Right. There is diversity, and we'll talk about some of the main streams within Islam. But getting into the basics, Islam is an Arabic verbal mountain noun that essentially means surrender or submission to Allah. And a Muslim is someone who submits or surrenders to Allah. Muhammad is the prophet of Islam. So he's kind of the pinnacle in terms of God's conduit of revelation. He was understood to be a perfect human and supreme moral exemplar for all humanity. It says in Surah 33, 21, indeed, in the Messenger of Allah, you have an excellent example for whoever has hope in Allah in the last day and remembers Allah often. Because Muhammad occupies such a high place in Islam, and basically when you say his name, you're supposed to say, praise be upon his name, and you do it. He's even part of the Muslim profession of faith that we'll talk about in a few minutes. But because he's such an exemplar, you find a record of his life and works in the Sunnah and the Hadith. And those work alongside the Quran to form the basis of Sharia law. So the kind of moral law for Islam. And we'll talk about that in a bit. But focusing on Muhammad, right, as kind of the perfect human, the exemplar, the pinnacle, if you want to be a good Muslim, pay attention to Muhammad, be like Muhammad. If we're starting to dig into the nuts and bolts and respond a little bit to Islam, what might you say to that? Pamela?

SPEAKER_05 10:22

Well, I mean, the the obvious criticism is that he married, um, I don't remember how old she was, but 10 years old.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

She was sixly wild. Well, she was six, but they didn't consummate the marriage until she was nine. Because it would be weird if they didn't wait that long.

SPEAKER_05 10:37

And he was uh a warrior, yeah, thirsty, so if you um and one of his wives wasn't not she wasn't not.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah. So what we're doing right now is we're not slandering, we're actually engaging in a little internal critique. Because if you read the early authoritative biographies of Muhammad, like the Sarah of Ibn Ishaq, and the most trusted hadith collections about his life and works, you actually don't find a perfect human being. Like in the Quran itself, in 40, 55, 47, 19, Muhammad himself asks for forgiveness for sins. Right? And compare that to Esau in 1919, is actually acknowledged to be sinless and faultless. So in that sense, Jesus is actually better than Muhammad, according to the Quran. We mentioned the Aisha, right? Um she was six years old when they married, nine years old where they consummated the marriage. And you find that in authoritative Muslim tradition, the Shahi al-Bukhari. Also, when Muhammad wanted to marry the wife of his adopted son, he received a new revelation that's recorded in Sarah 3337 that abolished the concept of adoption so that he could disown his adopted son and take his wife for his own. Also, the Quran limits Muslim men to four wives. Again, five would be excessive, but four is reasonable. Muhammad received another revelation exempting himself from that rule. So again, engaging in internal critique, these are questions that we can ask about okay, if Mohammed is the exemplar, if Muhammad is the perfect human being and he shows us what it looks like to submit to Allah, uh, which version of Muhammad? Can I marry a six-year-old? I saw Al, then I'll go with George. I was gonna say if you're exempt from Allah's, then you're a sinless.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Technically, George. Yeah. So that's the interesting thing. Um, you know, we have Psalm 51, which we prayed this morning, where David, he is the man after God's own heart, and yet he's coming before the Lord and actually acknowledging his sinfulness.

SPEAKER_05 13:08

But the Bible never said he was perfect.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Right. That's the difference, right? We don't look to David in order to be our perfect moral exemplar. The Bible never claims that he was sinless. We look to the son of David.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Right?

SPEAKER_00 13:21

So, yeah. Alright. That's Muhammad. Now let's talk about the Quran. Muslims believe that the Bible is a revelation from Allah, but the book we have in our hands, this, this is hopelessly corrupted. So the central text of the Quran of the Islam is the Quran, which basically means the recitation. It was dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel over the course of 23 years. Uh the chapters in the Quran are called surahs, and the verses are called ayahs. And the most often cited surah is number one. It has seven ayahs or verses in it, and it's considered to be the perfect embodiment of Islam. It says, All praise belongs to God, Lord of the universe, the beneficent, the merciful, and master of the day of judgment. You alone we do worship, and from you alone we do seek assistance. Guide us to the right path, the path of those to whom you have granted blessings, those who are neither subjects to your anger nor have gone astray. Now, Muslims believe the Quran to be perfect. And by virtue of what the Quran is, it's actually not supposed to be translated. So the Quran in Arabic is understood to be perfect because, again, it was dictated perfectly to Muhammad. It was preserved word for word with no variation. The claim, the Muslim claim, is that it was preserved perfectly with no variation from the 17th century to today. So, first through recitation, the Quran being recited in Muslim communities, and then eventually the Quran being written down so that it could be passed on. Now, how as a Christian might you respond to that, the claim of the Quran's perfection? Kind of probing your background right now. If you don't have much background, you might not know how to respond to this. But anyone who's spent some time with Muslims or studied this at all, know how to start responding to the perfection of the Quran?

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Doesn't the Quran say that the Bible is the original Bible is God's word and correct?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yes, and but the Bible we have.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Middle Ages. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:49

Yeah, and so the the Old Testament before prior to the Middle Ages, which we know hasn't changed, the Bible hasn't changed. So is that where is that corruption? What verses are corrupt?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

I'm not sure all the details, to be honest with you, but the people of the book, who include Jews and Christians, are responsible for corrupting it, so that whatever Bible existed in Muhammad's day, he claimed that it was corrupt. And so they needed the perfect dictation of the Quran in order to reveal the true will of Allah. Yeah, so the Jews and Christians monkey with the book in order to turn astray, even though we have lots of manuscripts dating back to the first and second centuries, right?

SPEAKER_04 16:33

So one of the things that Mo has name. Well, Moe has said is he's saying that we have all these translations, and so um brought up a Bible app and read from several different translations of a verse, and then he went, Oh, it basically says the same thing. So you know, he was like, Okay, I don't have an argument there.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

So again, it's good insofar as we're able to engage in internal critique. And what I mean by that is looking at Muslim sources to see where there's contradiction and where there's tension from the inside. Because you can argue from the outside, uh, you know, about the quality of the Quran, the textual quality, those sorts of things. And those arguments will get you a kind of so far. But if you start getting into it and you show how it's not consistent and how the authoritative tradition that Muslims actually adopt actually tells against the perfection of the Quran, then you're then then you're unraveling threads that they actually are gonna, you know, we've talked about putting a stone in someone's shoe. That's gonna put a stone in somebody's shoe that they have to deal with. So the most trusted collection of Islamic traditions is known as Sahih al-Bukhari. And shortly after, it records that shortly after Muhammad's death, different Muslim communities recited the Quran differently. Now that's already a problem if you're trying to hold to the perfection of the Quran. And that actually led to violent disputes between the different factions and tribes of Muslim. So the third caliph, and caliphs were like tribal leaders who were successors of Muhammad. The third caliph, Uthman, ordered that a single standard version be compiled, and then he commanded that all the other variant manuscripts be burned. Okay, alrighty. We got an we got an issue there in terms of the perfect preservation of the Quran. Seems more like a political preservation than a perfect, divinely inspired preservation. And here, you know, one more chink in that armor. There's something called the Sana'a palimpset. And a palimpset is so in the ancient world, you you didn't have paper like this paper. You had parchment, you had animal skin, and there was a premium on paper. So if you could, if you had an old document that you didn't need anymore, you could actually wash the text off of it and you can reuse it. And so, through the the miracle and magic of textual science today, what we can do is you have one of those palm sets, you can wash away the newer text and you can identify the older text. There's like a layer of tradition or textual traditional history that you can uncover in the parchment just using chemicals and analysis and stuff. So they look at this Sana'a palm set, which was discovered in Yemen in 1972, and it revealed an underlying older text that was older than the Uthmanic text. Right? So the version that's that's said to be the perfectly preserved Quranic text, handed down from Muhammad, uh you wash away the perfect, and there's another older version underneath it. Right? So that would be like if I had my Bible and I was able to look at Genesis 1 and kind of get beneath the text on the page and discover that it says something completely different. Do you understand how that how that kind of pushes against this idea of the perfect preservation of the Quran?

SPEAKER_05 20:35

So were those earlier texts radically different and not just minor word changes?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

They were, I don't know all the details, but they were substantively different. And even if, this is the thing about the claim about the perfect preservation of the Quran, even if they were superficially different. Because, like, you know, in textual science and new in, you know, in Old and New Testament, you know, we might have one manuscript says, like, the Lord Jesus Christ, and another man's manuscript says the Lord Christ Jesus. Like though typically those are the kind of differences we're looking for. And we can actually deal with that looking at textual criticism and stuff. But the claim for the Quran is that it was perfectly preserved, every jot and tittle, so to speak, that nothing's out of place because that's the kind of God that Allah is, and that's the kind of control He has over the transmission of the Quran. One more thing to mention is the problem of abrogation. You have internal tension. Like earlier verses in the Quran are more peaceful. They were revealed in a time when Muhammad was living in Medina. Later, or sorry, there were let me make sure I'm getting this right. Sorry, there were a time when he was living in Mecca. The later verses he's living in Medina, and they're more militant. So you have kind of internal contradictions where it's like in the beginning of the book, Muslims are basically supposed to be peaceful. And then toward the end of the book, Muslims are supposed to convert everybody at the end of the sword. It's an oversimplification, but you have these kind of tensions within the Quran. And a Muslim might push back and say, Well, you have the same kind of thing, you know, you have the God of vengeance in the Old Testament. The God of love and mercy in the new. Well, as a thoughtful Christian, you can actually have a good conversation about how, you know, the Bible doesn't work the same way the Quran works. God gave commands to certain peoples in certain times and certain places, and yes, that included holy war. But God did not lay that down as abiding moral instruction for his people, saying it is good and right that a Christian put to death, the infidel, or anything like that. But those are the kind of commands and the kind of moral instruction that you find in the Quran. So there's a difference there. There's a difference in terms of historical revelation, progressive revelation. The Bible's a different kind of book. The Bible tells a different story. Indeed, the Bible is telling a story that develops over time. The Quran is something different. So that's the Quran. Next important point to touch on with Islam has to do with the ritual duties. What a Muslim is required to do. There are five of them. Anyone want to take a stab at what one might be?

SPEAKER_05 23:39

Give alms to the poor.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Alms, that's right. Zakat. So zakat, we'll start with the one. Zakat is alms for the poor. It's generally 2.5%. That's the percentage I found. And it's obligatory, right? It's not like we talk about tithes and offerings on a Sunday morning where you do it as a response to what God is doing in your heart. It is no 2.5%. You must do this. This is required. If you don't do this, Allah will have a problem with you. So that's one of them. What was the next one you were going to say?

SPEAKER_05 24:13

Um they had to go to Mecca one time.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yep. Hajj. So that's pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime if you're able.

SPEAKER_05 24:22

Five times a day, prayer.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Prayer five times a day. The salat, every 24-hour period, there's supposed to be five prayers. If you've ever been in a Muslim country, they actually have prayer horns and you'll hear the horn go off, alerting you that it's time for prayer. Body posture actually matters in the prayers. You're supposed to bow toward the Qibla, which is the most sacred mosque in Mecca. So wherever you are in the world, you're supposed to turn toward Mecca and bow and pray five times a day. What else? Fasting. Fasting. Psalm. So fasting from dawn to sunset during Ramadan, which is the ninth month of the year in the Muslim calendar. It's interesting. I saw some research the other day saying that Muslims actually gain weight during the month of Ramadan. Because when it's time to break the fast, they go big. They have a big meal. They eat a lot and a lot more than they normally would during any other time. Yeah, it's a very social kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

I heard the other day that uh the fasting part can be excused if you're traveling. Get it? Yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah, so those flying on an aircraft, plane, or something like that, you plan your trip, so you're fasting. If you're flying or train or whatever, you don't have sex.

SPEAKER_04 25:45

Pregnant women, nursing nursing mother. There was a list.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

And who are excused.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

And elderly, frail, medically frail.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

And so they were interviewing families that were traveling.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Children too.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

Flexibility, that's that's good. Tony?

SPEAKER_07 26:02

My friend, when they're, he and his family will wake up before dawn, pig out, go back to sleep. Yeah. He said it's the hardest thing for him is not the end of not the not the fact that he can't drink water during the day, it's the fact that he can't drink coffee.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Alright, there's one more. Isn't it gift the four? We already did that one. The creed. The Shahada, profession of faith. I'm not gonna say it because it actually has a quasi-sacramental function when you say it. Muslims understand it. It's uh this is kind of a category mistake, but it's almost like taking communion, right? There's something, there's like a spiritual transaction that happens when you say it. And it has to do with Allah being the only God with none other being beside him, and Muhammad being his true prophet. Right? Those aren't the words, but that's that's the confession of the profession of faith. So those are the five pillars of Islam, and they are incredibly important to Muslim piety and practice. It's part, this is part of what you have to do to get to heaven, is these five practices. Let's talk about the moral law, sharia. What do we know about sharia? What is sharia? This is the one you hear on the news a lot, this word, sharia.

SPEAKER_04 27:33

Well, unlike the US, where there's a constitution and that's common law, there is a group of judges who determine from whatever the case is to that you present to them, and they give out uh a final verdict. There's not an appeal. There's um moral.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm not a hundred percent sure how it's enforced in Islam, but I do know, and it might be different tribally and locally, depending on the country and place you're in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

We don't have as much um rights. Right, yeah, that's that's there has to be what, two or three witnesses for a woman.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

I'm not sure. Sharia, like I don't know uh chapter and verse in terms of the particulars of Sharia law. But Sharia, it is the religious law, it's the moral ethical code of Islam. Its two sources are the Quran and those authoritative traditions and collections about the life of Muhammad in the Sunnah and Hadith. And they have, in Sharia law, they have categories for basically every human action. From going from obligatory to, let's see, obligatory, recommended, neutral, discouraged, forbidden. So in Sharia law, you know, they could really get, think about kind of the Pharisaical midrash, where they added all sorts of commands to the Bible in order to really specify what you could do and what you couldn't do. Sharia functions like that. It gives you a blueprint, a moral blueprint that says what's in, what's out, what you can do, what you can't do. And a lot of the tension politically is the extent to which you know Sharia law could be and would be enforced as a matter of civil law. Right? In in Muslim states, I mean in some Muslim states, uh, you see this where the Sharia law is the law. And there's concern, right, in localities in the in the country and or in other countries where perhaps you might see a Muslim majority and Muslims coming to power in various ways, that that could allow, if not the wholesale imposition of Sharia law and at least some Crete. So that's something to think about. Salvation and Islam. Sorry. Would that include the dietary laws? I believe so. Yeah. What? Dietary laws. Yeah, I was in Kuwait and uh I was delighted to find bacon. I w uh we were staying in a hotel in Kuwait City, and I was delighted to find bacon in the breakfast buffet, and then I learned that it was beef bacon. And that is not the same. It is not even close to the same. Because they can't eat pork, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Why can't you eat pork?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

It's part of the dietary law. No pork. It's an unclean animal.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

No shellfish.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

No shellfish.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

No bottom feeders.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yep. And they just a fried catfish is out. What's that? Can't drink alcohol. No alcohol. But they can sell it. Yes. Alright, so that's Sharia. Let's talk about salvation. How are Muslims saved? Anybody?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I don't think they know that they are saved. There's no assurance of salvation.

unknown 31:29

They uh they would work. But even Muhammad uh at the end was like, I hope I hope Allah saves me.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Right. So repentance, repentance is important in Islam. Uh faith in Allah, that's important in Islam. Works, in terms of the five pillars that we talked about, very important. And the vision is that one day, on judgment day, there will be a weighing of good versus bad. You will be weighed in a scale, essentially. And even at that, it's interesting in that, at least in my research, uh, Muslims don't believe that we ever merit salvation. What we do merit, if we want to use that word, is that we do enough good in order to attract Allah's mercy. Because Allah is the merciful, and only we can only be saved by His mercy. So it's not a crass works righteousness, but it is the kind of works righteousness where it's like only those people who climb the ladder far enough are going to get a hand down from Allah.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

I believe there's an exception, and that is if you die as a martyr in the jihad, you inherit that, which would almost explain why uh that's a religious thing. You know, it's like, wow, I can earn I got salvation done there, so I don't have to worry about being killed.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

And women are different. I don't want to mention it.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 33:10

It's it's different from women.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:12

You well, for one thing, and I can say this openly, is you either have to be a daughter of a Muslim or married to a Muslim. Yeah, there's another one.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Alright, last thing I want to mention about the basics of Islam before we get into like core Islamic contentions with Christianity, is the diversity. Um there are kind of two main branches or denominations we could say of in Islam. The Sunnis, who make up uh 85%, mostly in Arab countries, and the Shiites, who make up 15%, primarily in Iran or Iran.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

That's Persian.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

And the Sufis, are the Sufis under Shi'ites? Are they of a brand of Shire?

SPEAKER_05 34:08

I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:10

I think they're disowned by the Shiites. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

So very minority, right? Very mystical minority. The difference, both Sunnis and Shiites share the Shahada. They believe the basic things, but the Shiites actually add a sentence to their confession of faith. They say, Ali is the friend of Allah, the successor of the Messenger of Allah, and his first caliph. Now, who's Ali? Ali was Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. And when Muhammad died, leadership in Islam passed to tribal leaders called caliphs, like I mentioned earlier. The Sunnis respect Ali as the fourth caliph, but the Shiites believe that he was actually the first. The Sunnis think that the caliph should be picked kind of by the community. The Shiites think the caliphate ought to be passed down through the lineage of Muhammad, beginning with Ali. So that's a big difference. I'm not well read enough about Muslim history to truly understand why it's such a big difference and such a big deal. But it is a big deal. Yeah, probably. It generally does.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

And uh that's really clan oriented, it's still clan oriented today.

unknown 35:45

And uh, even though the majority are Sunnis, uh, which come kind of get it elected, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Um that's that seems more Arabic. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, so three core contentions with Christianity. And you know, for Muslims, it's not for a Muslim, being a Muslim is a part of their identity. Social, cultural, religious, it's who they are. And it's it's almost hard for us to understand that as Western Christians, because it's for a Muslim to convert, it's some refer to it as a kind of social suicide. Like if you have unbelieving family members in the West and you convert to Christianity, they may not like it, they may not understand it, but in most cases, you're gonna maintain your relationship. You're gonna be invited home for Thanksgiving and you'll talk and all this kind of stuff. In a Muslim culture, if you convert, you are dead to your family. And in certain Muslim cultures, they will actually try to make you dead.

unknown 36:56

Right. Right?

SPEAKER_00 36:56

They'll kidnap you, they'll try to beat the Christianity out of you, they might just kill you for dishonoring the family. I've heard lots of these kinds of stories from missionaries that serve in Muslim-dominant countries. So it's it's a part of the identity, and Muslims are trained from an early age to defend their faith against major faiths, defended against the infidel, the people of the book, against us. So most Muslims, especially ones who are raised in Islam, are going to have some pretty standard arguments against Christianity. Quareshi talks about the three that he had to overcome, and they surround the deity of Christ, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. So the deity of Christ, that's the first one. Uh in the Islamic view, Jesus or Esau was merely a great prophet, but he was not the son of God. And to claim that he was God is to commit shirk, which is the unforgivable sin. And one line of argument that Muslims will use to support that, to, because they want to say, you know, he's Esau, he's revealed in the Bible, he's a prophet of God, all these all these good things. You Christians, Jesus never said that he was God. Jesus never said, worship me. So if he was God, he would have said that, but he didn't. So you guys don't even risk understand your own faith. Now, how do you respond to that?

SPEAKER_05 38:31

Well, I'm gonna answer that question. Doesn't the Quran also agree that he was born of a virgin?

SPEAKER_00 38:38

I believe it does, but I haven't read that in a while. Does anybody know?

SPEAKER_05 38:43

If you've seen me seeing the sculpture, I believe that the Quran says that Jesus was born of a virgin.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

So that's a good that's a good homework question for the class. I think you're right, but you might be wrong. Alright, coming back to my question. Jesus never claimed to be God. How do you respond to that? Before Abraham was I am. Okay, so that's you know, the I am statements from John are very important.

SPEAKER_05 39:15

The response of others when he made those claims.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

The response of others. What got him killed? Blasphemy. Blasphemy. He was claiming to be God, claiming equality with God.

SPEAKER_06 39:26

Matthew 16, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:28

The whole chapter.

SPEAKER_06 39:29

Well, I mean, sure, but I mean 24 through uh 28, but you know, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Yeah. For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

So the testimony of John in John 1, in the beginning was the word, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Was with God, the word was God. Yeah, so the I am statements are an important line of response to that. Uh the general deity of Christ texts are important, like John 1 in the beginning is the word was with God, the word was God. Uh Colossians 1.15, he is the image of the invisible God. Hebrews 1.3, he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. Right? They have all these texts that are claiming deity for Jesus. Uh now, a Muslim who maybe knows a little bit more about the Bible, maybe like your friend Tony, he will retort and say, Well, those are apostolic uh distortions. Jesus didn't say those things about himself. That's what the apostles said about him in order to, you know, trump him up, make make him a little more God. This is how Jesus became God in the church's estimation.

SPEAKER_04 40:48

And so this is where I go back to Genesis.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:52

And um, but again, they don't believe the same about the fall of Adam. Um, so that's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

Yeah. Eve was the one who fell and not Adam, is what I understand.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

They believe. Yeah, and it's a kind of Pelagian view of human nature in the sense that we don't inherit the guilt and corruption of another. We have our own. In the same way we can't be saved by another. We have to do it for ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 41:23

The other thing is where God says, let us make man in our image, there's plural there. And so I've had friends that say, Well, I can embrace the Spirit of God, and that's how they refer to the Holy Spirit, not as a person, but as personality.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:45

And um, yeah, and then they say, Well, that was, you know, that's a translation problem.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Yeah, there are some grammatical ways to get around the Hebrew if you don't believe in the Trinity, to at least make a plausible argument about why the plural is going on in Genesis. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 42:02

But it's difficult when you keep running into, but it's it's um bad translation, and it's not the true Bible.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Right. I mean, there's always that kind of dodge, like it's been corrupted, it's been corrupted. Then you kind of push back and you say, well, uh the we have manuscript copies of the Bible that was around when Muhammad was receiving his recitation, so we can go way, way back. And it's kind of the Wendy question: at what point was it corrupted and how? And can you show me evidence of those corruptions? Right. Al?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

I mean the clearest is probably is John 14, 1 over 6, with no privilege. You'd be completely able to also meet my father's house. Yeah. My father's house.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Yeah. And I'm going to come back.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Right. So so if if you hear the retort that, you know, John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, these are apostolic corruptions, people saying things about Jesus, but Jesus not saying it about himself, then you can take them to the words of Jesus. You can take them to the I am statements, what you just shared from John 14, or even Luke 5, like we we studied in the work morning worship service a couple weeks ago, where Jesus is in the crowded house and they lower the paralyzed man before him, and he says, That you may know the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins, take up your bed and walk. Alright, so it's Jesus claiming an authority for himself. And that Son of Man one is sticky too. Because again, uh a quasi-informed Muslim will see, like, well, we're right there. He calls himself the Son of Man. Alright, see, he believes himself to be a human. What do you do with that? Well, what do you do with that? Yeah, he was human and he was divine. What's that?

SPEAKER_04 43:46

He was human and he was divine.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

Yes. But what else? What do you want to say specifically about the son of man?

SPEAKER_05 43:52

Term from Daniel that was a deity.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Daniel 9, right? The judgment day and the coming of one like a son of man presented to the ancient of days. And he's granted an authority to judge and authority to reign forever and ever. Something that is like what a human ruler can and ought to do, yet exceeds the capacity of a human ruler. So the son of man is referring to someone who, yes, is human, but is also more than human. Alright, so for Jesus to call himself son of man, he's not saying I'm a son of man. That's a biblical way to talk about a human being. He's Saying, I'm the Son of Man, is again when he's being tried, you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of glory. I'm gonna come back and judge you, is basically what Jesus said there. Which is something that Jesus wasn't a fool, right? He's claiming divinity for himself. So that whole line of argument falls apart. Roy.

SPEAKER_03 44:57

So uh, first of all, talking to Mo, our friend Mo. He just kept pounding away, wouldn't let me answer anything, getting words in edgewise, kept pounding away on the ridiculousness of the Trinity that God is one, he says he's one, the trend. So that was his thing. Now, uh we hear Glenn Beck on the radio, as a lot of us do, he's Mormon. Take his stuff with a grain of salt. And um uh and I just looked it up in the little Google AI there, and it says the mainstream Muslim believes that Jesus was born a virgin. And then when of Mary. Yeah, most of us are born virgins.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

Mary was a virgin. Yes. Mary is a virgin, uh, the Holy Spirit breathed uh life into Jesus anyway. And so at Jesus' death, Jesus did not die. It was Judas or somebody else who died on the cross. Jesus was raised up in heaven. He is alive today in heaven and will die after his second coming.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

So would you like to take the next point from my outline? No, I didn't know you were going there. I might have mentioned the crucifixion a few minutes ago, but let's go with that. Right, that's the next line of contention, right? It's the crucifixion. Because in Surah 4, it talks about Allah's judgment upon the people of the book. And this is focused on the Jews specifically here. In Ayah 157, it attributes his judgment in part to their boasting. And what are they saying in their boasting? They're saying, We killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah. And that's quoting the Jews. And here's what the rest of the Ayah says. But they neither killed him nor crucified him. It was only made to appear so. Even those who argue for this crucifixion are in doubt. And so the Quran says that they were mistaken. They thought they crucified Jesus, but they were mistaken. They didn't actually crucify him. So what happened? Jerry, what happened? I've heard one of them say that they use someone at book like Jesus. Yes, there are two main theories: the substitution theory and the swoon theory. So the substitution theory is saying Esau is this great prophet of God, and Allah would not allow this great prophet to be to be crucified. And so what Allah did is he disguised someone else. Judas, Simon of Cyrene, a Roman soldier. There's a diversity of opinion on this, but he disguised someone else to make them look just like Jesus, and that substitute was crucified while the real Jesus was assumed or translated into heaven. That's the substitution theory of the crucifixion that's advanced by many Muslims. Now, as a Christian, how would you respond to that line of argument?

SPEAKER_01 48:07

First of all, it strikes me that uh that would indicate that Jesus, the Quran says he was uh perfectly the perfect life, but yet he substituted and uh killed an innocent man, allowed him to die in his stead, which would not be that of a perfect person. The second one I would question is the source of their information and where you would possibly get that.

unknown 48:33

Our sources about Jesus and the crucifixion are are quite early. We have uh extra biblical sources that indicate that there was a man Jesus who was crucified.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

They may differ about what was he crucifixed as a separate discussion, but no question historically.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Yeah. But the historical attestation to the crucifixion of Christ, even from people who have no interest in it. Like a Roman senator Tacitus, the Jewish historian Josephus, the Greek satirist Lucian, all these different people attest the crucifixion of Jesus without any mention whatsoever about someone being substituted in or any kind of shenanigans.

SPEAKER_05 49:11

But if you if if they if their argument had any validity, I don't see how that would convince them because they would just say, well, nobody, he was substituted, nobody knew it.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Where's the evidence of that, right? That's right, it's an argument from silence.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

Do they believe like that when Jesus appeared before Thomas? He said, See my hand, see my feet. I mean, or do they not believe that in Mark Scripture? Again, they were saying that that's an apostolic.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Yeah, I don't I don't think they believe that happened. Yeah, so we believe the Bible, they don't. Right. So, historical attestation, the idea of Jesus having to be complicit in the murder of an innocent and this big lie and cover-up. Uh it's divine trickery, right? Allah is supposed to be truthful, but in this he would have tricked all kinds of people, and in doing so, he would have directly contributed to the birth of Christianity.

SPEAKER_05 50:08

But I think the hadith, or I'm not sure which words, um, actually depict Allah as giving permission and approval to trickery when it's against the infidel.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Is that right?

SPEAKER_05 50:21

Yeah, we're allowed to lie to the infidel.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

You're allowed to lie to the infidel?

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

But how this the question I would still have is like, you lie to the infidel in order to undermine them, right? But this lie is a trick that gives birth to the movement, right? So if Allah is truthful and Allah is wise, why would he do that? Like, why would he perpetrate the trick that actually births the church? I don't know, maybe Muslims would have an answer to that question, but it would be a good answer or a good question to ask a Muslim. So that's the substitution theory. The other theory is the swoon theory. That Jesus was indeed crucified, but he didn't die. He was buried alive, and then he was resuscitated in the tomb. And after that he escaped. And this the substitution theory and the swoon theory are also theories that are held out by skeptics, and to various degrees, some New Testament scholars who want to deny the reality of the resurrection. Well, yeah, okay. Jerry, how are you going to respond to the swoon theory?

SPEAKER_06 51:39

Well, I don't think that they had, I thought you said, I don't think they had thoracic surgeons back then after that spear pulled out of his side of his arm.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

Yeah, John in 1934, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. So the piercing of the pericardium, which is the sac that protects the heart and the heart itself. So Jesus took a spear to the heart. What's that? Also, yeah. No, no, that isn't important. They were really good at what they did. They were exceptionally good at what they did. Yes. Yes. And we're laughing because it's absurd. Like this, it's okay to say that. We don't have to be kind in the face of stupid arguments, and it's a stupid argument. Right? He was beaten half to death. He was crucified, and the way you die by crucifixion is essentially asphyxiation. You drown in your own pneumatic fluid and blood and stuff like that. He was pierced through his heart. And so we're supposed to believe that he survived all of that. He woke up three days later, he unwrapped the grave clothes off himself, that he rolled away a multi-ton rock from in front of a tomb, and then he overpowered a couple of Roman guards so bad that they vowed silence for the rest of their lives.

SPEAKER_06 53:00

That sounds like a god to me.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Right? Right. So, I mean, and these are perfectly fair things to talk about. It's like that's not that's not, I mean, we have all this attestation in scripture. We have all of these independent historical sources that that attest to the crucifixion, that attest to the empty tomb. Right? So let's do something with that, Wendy.

SPEAKER_04 53:26

Well, the other thing is that I think that it it if Christ was not crucified for our sins, it kind of like negates everything that Christians believe in. It just it and why would God have presented that like in Genesis, you know, where he promises that Eve's offspring would bruise the serpent, and the serpent would bruise her offspring steel? You know, why why would why would it be all the way through scriptures, all of these, and like this morning when we were learning about Zechariah and saying about coming in on the donkey, why would God have presented this salvation all through scripture and then all of a sudden, oh no, that that sacrifice is not what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Yeah, I'm gonna corruptions, they're all corruptions, it's all a bunch of lies. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:30

And again, when and where and which one.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Yeah, well, that's you know, the internal critique and the internal coherence, right? That's part of, you know. We'll talk some when we kind of wrap things up about engaging Muslims thoughtfully and relationally. I think, you know, being able to present the Christian story and the coherence of God's working in the world, the through line of redemption, I think it's compelling. I think it tells a legitimate and a consistent story that culminates in the gospel. And Islam, from my perspective, it's just one arbitrary choice stacked up upon another. Why is Allah like this? Why does He do it this way? Why does He require this of people? What, I don't know, how does how does that work? You ask those questions, and the answers just aren't as satisfying as what you come up in Scripture, I don't think. Alright, third third line I want to make sure we cover before we finish up is the resurrection. The Islamic view is one way or another, Jesus didn't die on the cross. So if Jesus didn't die on the cross, Jesus wasn't raised, right? We're done with resurrection. But why do Christians believe the resurrection? And the kind of the Muslim view is either they believe it as an invention, that it was kind of invented out of whole cloth, or it's a it's a corruption that Paul hijacked the movement. So invention, the resurrection narrative was a myth that was fabricated by the disciples who stole the body from the tomb and then launched a new religion based on their lie. That's one line of argument against the resurrection that you'll encounter with Muslims. Now, how would you respond to that one? They stole his body, made up a lie about the resurrection.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

So, well, my question would be well, why would they do that if uh the testimonies that we read in history of uh from these men, except for maybe John, they died Martyr's death. So that was their only kind of glory. One of the things in um Islam is um you get to take treasures and slaves and you know from lands that you conquer. Uh the message of Christ was the opposite of that. Rejecting those pleasures was uh to advance the cause of uh Christ. And so it's he'll be just from the circle in space while there's anybody to do that. There's nobody who can do that. Right.

SPEAKER_03 57:17

I like the line that you said earlier that if uh Christ did not die on the cross, but there was somebody else who died anyway, then how would why would the all-knowing God start Christianity? Which is what he just said. Yeah, good question. Ask him that. Yeah. Why would Allah allow something?

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_06 57:42

Weren't there like 400 witnesses to the resurrection?

SPEAKER_00 57:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:46

So all so all of them, all 400 people, were silent on this. And many were still alive by the acts. The gospel written. Right, and all of them were silenced you know, to keep this faith thing of the resurrection going on.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

And who are the first witnesses to the resurrection? Women. If you were making up the story, would you would you put women in there as the first witnesses? Not the first century, no. No, not in the first century.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

Right?

SPEAKER_00 58:13

They would have had wouldn't have had the legal standing in order, you know, there was something subversive about that. If you wanted to make up the story, you would have used men. Right?

SPEAKER_05 58:22

Pharisees or head of the sin he could say.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Yeah, yeah. And plus, why would the apostles run to that if they knew that it wasn't Jesus? No, they made up the story about them running. Right, that's what the monster's gonna say. But here's one. So what happened when Jesus was arrested? Where'd the where'd the disciples go?

SPEAKER_08 58:44

I do not know that then.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Okay, and then what were they doing within days after his resurrection appearance and his ascension?

SPEAKER_04 58:51

Running towards him. Preaching.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

Preaching. Preaching. A bunch of scaredy cats, right? They don't want to get crucified like Jesus, and something happens, and all of a sudden they're preaching on the street quarters, and come what may, haul us in front of the Sanhedrin, throw us in jail, execute us. Whatever. We'll just sing songs. Yeah, right? Okay, why would people do that? Something happened, right? They were transformed. And this, you read the early church fathers like Athanasius on the incarnation. This is a big core part of the argument against the Greeks and the pagans and whatnot. Hey, you want to know why Christianity is true? You want to know why you can trust that the resurrection actually happened? Look what's happening in the church. Look at these disciples coming to faith. Look how they love. Look how this thing is just exploding, and what's happening to all the pagan idols? They're dying. Alright? So, but coming back to the disciples, that doesn't happen if you're perpetrating a lie. People might might die for a lie that they happen to believe. Nobody dies for a lie that they know is a lie. Nobody dies for the lie that they made up. Because there's no reason. You're not going to benefit from it. Alright, so, you know, that's that's a big push against that line of argument. Now the the second line is corruption. And the idea is that Jesus was a faithful prophet who taught pure monotheism. Jesus was, you know, a Muslim before Muslims were cool. But Paul hijacked the movement. And when Paul hijacked the movement, he grabbed on some of these, onto some of these Greek and Egyptian ideas of a dying and rising God. And he sort of injected that into Christianity in order to better sell the movement to pagans. Alright, what might be the Christian response to that? That Paul picked up the Christian movement, hijacked it, edited it, and put in all this stuff about resurrection.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

That would be that's based on Paul's testimony. Paul was the super Jew compared to everybody else, even that said.

unknown 1:01:06

Paul said that himself, right? Right. Right. No, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

If he did know other Greek philosophies, it's clear that he read uh Greek writings and quote them, I mean uh super super guy, but um yeah, just on the face of the play. Well, yeah, I would come up with that. So these uh these uh assertions that are made, um, or someone mentioned this, they come 600 years after Christ. I mean, they may have appeared in bits and pieces there, but they come so far later, but it's really hard to say where where you get that, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

And the John, so you get that from right. And the dying and rising God stuff is like you find things like that in Greek theosophy and things like that, but it's only superficially related at the bet at the best. And you know, here's here's the the one good line before we start wrapping this up is that when you look in Paul's letter, at Paul's letters, you have early creedal traditions and early hymns that were passed through the church. And one of those traditional materials you find in 1 Corinthians 15, and just textually, it's very clearly that Paul is receiving this as something that's been handed down to him, so that predates him, right? It's 1 Corinthians 5, or 15, 3 through 8. I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all, as the one untimely born, he appeared also to me. So Paul is reaching into the tradition of the church that already exists, what's been handed down to him about what, is it since the beginning, about what people have believed about the resurrection of Jesus, and he's tracing it right up to the point where Jesus knocked him off his horse on the way to Damascus and shined his light in his eyes. So it's really hard to make the case that Paul hijacked Christianity and inserted all this stuff about resurrection just to make it more palatable to pagans. That wouldn't have made it more palatable to pagans. And it completely discounts just how Jewish Paul's religion is and just how much it reaches into the Old Testament and how resurrection is a thoroughly biblical motif since all the way from the beginning. So, the deity of Christ, the crucifixion of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, these are not Muslim denials that we have to cow in the face of. These are things that we have perfectly reasonable responses to. And we can engage in argument, we can ask thoughtful questions to try and, you know, and to push back. Because at the end of the day, we have the truth on our side, we have the Holy Spirit who bears witness to the truth, we have the better of the argument because we have the true revelation of God in Scripture. But when it comes to witnessing to Muslims, and um, you know, I mentioned earlier that it is a kind of uh social suicide. And we have to reckon with that when we have these relationships and we are engaging with people who believe in Islam. There's a demand to following Jesus, right? Matthew 10, 37 through 39. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. That passage has quite a bit of poignancy to someone who's flirting with the prospect of leaving behind their entire Muslim identity and converting to Christ. And it also comes with the promise. Matthew 19, 29 through 30. Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. The many who are first will be last, and the last first. So there's a demand, and the demand is real. Again, in a way that maybe isn't quite as real for us in the West. The demand is real, but the promise is even more real. Right? Come. Come to Jesus, and whatever you lose, he will restore a hundredfold. It's worth it. Believe me, it's worth it. But the way we make that case, and the way we're actually able to have these kind of arguments about these specific things like the deity of Christ, crucifixion, resurrection, Quran, Muhammad, all these things. What Kureshi is really good at in his book is showing how ultimately that all happened for him within the context of a relationship with his college roommate. That's how it happened. And that's in a lot of cases, that is how it happens. Ask Jeff Salazen how he does his ministry. Right? It's relationships. We have to be willing to build relationships with these people, engage in hospitality, invite them into our lives, accept their invitation when they invite us into their lives, and within the context and the framework of a loving, trusting relationship, have these conversations. Push, press, be curious, ask questions, put stones and shoes, and pray that God would move us. I know we're short on time. But does anyone have any comments or questions along those lines, Tony? One last thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:10

If you don't know, a use of the word Allah predates Islam. It's not the makeup. Yeah. It's kind of all of it comes down the line. But it's been used by Christians and Arabs, most of the Christians alive for a long time.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:30

Doesn't it mean the one?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:35

I'm not sure to be honest with you. I don't know. I'll admit that to you all. I don't know. Bill. Do you know?

SPEAKER_08 1:07:43

I'm not equipped to kind of just engage with Tony's friend on that on that level of accuracy. But I noticed we talked about the difference, Jesus made in the disciples, and then we talked about the difference Jesus made in Paul. And I think maybe what I could share with a Muslim to whom I was forming a relationship is the difference Jesus makes to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:14

Oh yeah. Yeah, and that's that's the big part of having the relationship, right? Unless you're like the worst, the thing you're not gonna be doing all the time with this Muslim that you're trying to build a relationship with is just arguing. Tell me what you believe so I can refute it. I mean, good luck building that kind of argument. You're gonna share life, you're gonna share your testimony, and that is very much gonna be at the heart of it. I mean, start talking about grace. Start talking about the gospel, start talking about the fact that, hey, I know I have a relationship with God. I know he loves me. I don't live with any kind of anxiety about what's gonna happen to me on Judgment Day. That's already been dealt with. Jesus underwent judgment day on the cross for me. He paid the price for my sins. I'm not feverishly trying to stack up my works in order to tip the scales in my favor on the final day. Whatever sold you on Christianity, whatever sold me on Christianity, whatever drew us to faith in Christ, that is compelling and that needs to be shared.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:24

I heard it said that Muslims do not believe that God hears their prayers. Is that the truth?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

I don't I don't think so. I don't know. I don't think so. Well, alright. Thank you all for coming tonight. Thank you for your attention, thank you for your engagement. Let's sing this final hymn, which I chose deliberately for tonight after having talked and spoke about the radical monotheism that is Islam. Let's do uh verses one, three, and four.