Tagged: Qur’an
When words lose their meaning
A panda walks into a café and orders a sandwich. He eats it, then draws a gun and shoots the other patrons.
A surviving waiter, quivering as he looks up from the carnage, asks, “Why?”
Before walking out the door, the panda tosses the waiter a poorly punctuated wildlife manual and replies, “Look it up.”
The waiter searches for the relevant entry and reads aloud: “Panda. Large, black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
This joke serves as the namesake for Lynne Truss’s best-selling book, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.”
It also reminds us how easily our language may be mangled – or manipulated – so that two people using the same words can intend totally different meanings.
What do you know about Islam?
Islam is the youngest and fastest-growing major religion in the world. But how much do you know about the beliefs and practices that Muhammad and his followers began exporting from the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century?
Here’s a chance to test your knowledge. The correct answers follow the quiz.
The ultimate role model: Jesus or Muhammad?
Muslims have a high regard for Jesus. They believe He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, performed miracles, and spoke prophetic truth. He is in heaven today and is poised to return triumphantly to earth.
Yet it is Muhammad to whom Muslims pin their hopes. While they confess Jesus as a prophet, they say Muhammad is the greatest of Allah’s messengers and the one through whom Allah chose to reveal supreme truth in the Qur’an. Therefore, Muhammad, not Jesus, is the ultimate role model.
Okay. So let’s look at the record. We’ll focus on three areas.
Good reasons to trust the scriptures
This column appeared Aug. 16, 2012 in The Pathway, the official news service of the Missouri Baptist Convention.
Muslims claim The Qur’an is the perfect revelation of Allah, delivered by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. It corrects corrupted Jewish and Christian scriptures and supersedes all other religious writings.
Mormons profess belief in four standard works: The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the Bible. The Book of Mormon is especially important, recording Jesus’ appearance in America to the descendants of a Jewish prophet; it is, in Mormon teaching, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”
Adherents to the Church of Scientology study Dianetics, a book by one-time science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed that people go through multiple rebirths and must shed negative baggage from past lives in order to become “operating thetans.”
Then, of course, there’s the Bible, which Christians call the Word of God.
Add to these the sacred writings of other belief systems – from Buddhism to Baha’ism – and the claims to truth are astounding in their number and variety.
But which of these books is really true? Is it possible that all of them contain some truth – or that all of them are true for the people who choose to believe them? Is it narrow-minded, arrogant, or culturally insensitive to say that any of these writings is false? Why do Christians insist that the Bible is the Word of God? Can’t we all just get along?
Inerrant, inspired, authoritative
Most Christians believe in the veracity of scripture. That is, we trust the Bible to be the inerrant, inspired Word of God and the authoritative source of all we believe and practice.
By inerrant, we mean the original autographs are without error because God, as its Author, does not lie or make mistakes. By inspired, we mean the Bible is “God breathed.” And by authoritative, we mean the Bible is God’s written revelation to us and therefore must guide our thoughts, words and deeds.
But many people – including some professing Christians – do not share such a high view of scripture. They raise serious objections to the church’s claims about the Bible’s truthfulness and reliability. For example, some critics charge:
- “No one really knows what the Bible says because we don’t have the original manuscripts.”
- “It’s silly to assume that one book contains all of God’s truth and that other great writings, from the Vedas to The Book of Mormon, do not come from God.”
- “The Bible is full of contradictions.”
Responding to these objections is a daunting task – in part because critics raise some valid points. For example, it’s true that we do not have the “autographs,” or original manuscripts, penned by the Bible’s human authors.
However, the Bible soars above other ancient documents in many convincing ways, giving us good reasons to trust the scriptures.
Reason 1: The documents
While the autographs, or original manuscripts, of the Bible have not survived the ravages of time, no other book from the ancient world has more, earlier, or more accurately copied manuscripts than the Bible.
For example, we have 25,000 – 30,000 handwritten copies of some or all of the New Testament, 5,700 of them in Greek. This is astounding when you consider that the average Greek author has fewer than 20 copies of his works – and no originals – still in existence.
Even if there were no copies of these biblical texts, we could reconstruct the entire New Testaments from the writings of the ancient church fathers, who quoted from the New Testament more than one million times.
In addition, the existing Bible manuscripts are relatively older than other ancient documents, dating closer to the time of the originals, thus lending credence to their reliability.
Finally, while these documents vary somewhat as they have been copied over the years, nearly all of the variants are minor, and none of them challenges a single doctrine of the Christian faith.
Reason 2: The scribes
The 40 men who penned the scriptures over a period of 1,500 years insisted that their message came from God. Many were persecuted, or even martyred, for their faith. The authors of the Bible claimed to be under the direction of the Holy Spirit (2 Sam. 23:2; 2 Peter 1:20-21).
The prophets ascribed their message to God. Phrases such as “Thus saith the Lord,” “God said,” and “the Word of the Lord came to me” are found hundreds of times in the Bible. The apostle Paul declared that “All Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3:16). Peter referred to the writings of Paul as “scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16).
Even non-Christian ancient writings attest to the truthfulness of the eyewitness accounts of Christ. For example, the Jewish historian Josephus, in his Jewish Antiquities, corroborates the claims of the New Testament writers that Jesus was more than a man; He was the Messiah, and rose from the dead on the third day.
Next: Reasons 3-7 to trust the scriptures.
Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?
Several years ago, El Arabiya TV asked President George W. Bush whether he was anti-Islam. He responded: “Well, I believe in an almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God.”
While the president’s comments no doubt were intended to soothe the minds of Muslim viewers, they had just the opposite effect on me. The god of Islam (Allah) and the God of the Bible (Yahweh) clearly are different. We can see this by asking three personal questions:
1. Does God know me?
Allah. The Qur’an teaches that Allah is the transcendent creator. He knows who you are; in fact, he has fatalistically determined your thoughts, words and deeds – and even your eternal destiny, which is why Muslims so often say, “If Allah wills it.” So, Allah does indeed know you.
But Allah is neither knowable nor approachable. The Qur’an depicts him as a singular being with no “partners.” To call Jesus the Son of God is to commit shirk, the unpardonable sin. Of the 99 names for God in the Qur’an, none is intimate. Allah reveals his will, not himself.
Yahweh also is depicted as the transcendent Creator. He knows us; but more than that, He is knowable and approachable. He created us in His image – with personality, thought, and will – for the purpose of enjoying an everlasting, intimate relationship with Him. He exists as a Trinity in eternal relationship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In fact, God is so knowable, He came in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth. As the apostle John writes, “The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Does God know me? Allah and Yahweh are depicted as supreme beings that know everything and everyone. But … only the God of the Bible is truly personal and knowable.
2. Does God love me?
Allah. The Qur’an teaches that Allah loves those he chooses to love and hates those he chooses to hate. “Allah loves not those that do wrong,” says the Qur’an (Surah 3:140), neither does he love “him who is treacherous, sinful” (Surah 4:107). “Those who reject faith and do wrong – Allah will not forgive them nor guide them to any way – Except the way of Hell, to dwell therein for ever. And this to Allah is easy” (4:168-169). Other types of people Allah hates include the arrogant and vainglorious (4:36; 16:23; 31:18; 57:23); those given to excess (5:87); and the ungrateful (22:38).
Yahweh, on the other hand, loves all people (John 3:16). He demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). John writes, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin” (1 John 4:10). Even though God hates sin, He loves sinners and takes no pleasure in punishing them (Eze. 18:23).
Does God love me? Only the God of the Bible loves all people.
3. Did God die for me?
Allah. The Qur’an teaches that Allah did not and would not die for you, nor would he send anyone to die for you. In fact, Islam claims that Jesus did not die on the cross but was taken up into heaven, and Judas, or someone who looked like Judas, was crucified in His place.
Further, the Qur’an states that there is no need for Allah to provide a sacrifice for sin because ignorance of Islam, not sin, is man’s problem. (The possible exceptions are apostasy from Islam and refusal to convert to Islam.) Staying away from major sins (whatever those are) will automatically result in one’s “small” sins being overlooked by Allah (4:31).
Yahweh, on the other hand, loves us so much He sent His Son to die for us. This was determined in eternity past; Jesus is declared to be the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Christ not only died for us; He rose from the dead, conquering sin and death. And He offers us forgiveness of sins and eternal life by grace through faith in Him.
Did God die for us? Only the God of the Bible sent His Son to die for us, securing eternal life for those who trust in Him.
So, are Allah and Yahweh just two different names for the same God?
You decide:
- Allah is distant and unknowable. The God of the Bible is close and personal.
- Allah does not love every person. Yahweh does.
- Allah did not and would not die for you, nor would he send anyone to do so. But the God of the Bible loves you so much He sent His one and only Son to die for you. And He stands ready to grant you everlasting life if you will receive Him by faith.
This column appeared July 21, 2012, in The Pathway of the Missouri Baptist Convention.
OnceDelivered.net 