Like this:
Posted on 08/06/2009 10:14:42 PM PDT by ROTB
Hello Brothers and Sisters!
It is on my heart to witness to the lost, among whom are the Muslims I encounter.
I have been reading, and am almost done with Sharing Your Faith With a Muslim, and the thrust of it seems to be ...
1) pointing out the reliability of the Bible, given the Koran never speaks of it's corruption at all, contrary to what Muslims currently say about it.
2) cornering a Muslim into the divinity of Christ using the Koran
I am only up to Chapter 10. If anyone else has finished it, I'd appreciate a better summary.
What I wanted to ask is, should I use the standard "use law to drive sinners to Christ", or should I use the technique in "Sharing Your Faith With a Muslim".
This is an ancient controversy. The Arian’s position was firmly rejected at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The Arians held basically that Christ was not God (a lesser God, if you will), due to his physical nature. The Council rejected their argument and Constantine backed the Council's decision.
The issue was put to rest before Muhammad, so the argument you mentioned is simply some Muslims not doing their homework (a failing that is not uncommon to other religions as well).
A: Through crosshairs.
Exactly.
I remember many years ago, newly saved, I was a “pushy ***”. Anyway, a friend of a friend who really cared about his lost friend asked us to help him get him saved. Several of us went over to this man’s Friend’s place with him. He wouldn’t listen and was going to leave. Some of us literally held him down and the gospel was passionately preached to him. The previously angry, stubborn, unrepentant man got up from the cot held hands with us and sincerely and sweetly asked Christ into life. He became saved. The LORD works in many ways. For this man it was better to be “hog tied” and preached The Gospel and repent than to spend eterity burning in the lake of fire.
Are these Muslims you personally know right now or do you mean Muslims in general?
With all due respect: that guy should have beaten the living crap out of all of you, then filed charges against you for assault.
Keep this in mind: ultimately, it’s up to a movement of the Holy Spirit on that person. If you’ve made the best case you can for Christ (and what you say, how you say it, etc., can depend on the person) then you’ve done your job. Don’t knock yourself out over one person who just won’t convert! I think you have to spend a lot of time talking about Christ, who he was, and what he really said, using Scripture at every opportunity. The Word of God is your strongest weapon here, so use it liberally.
If a movement of the Holy Spirit inspired you to restrain him, I certainly can’t argue with that, but I also can’t say that it did since I wasn’t there to feel it. But it’s not advice that I would hand out, even if I had.
The bible says that the Holy Spirit’s job is to bring conviction of sin without conviction of sin then it is a mental conversion and not a heart conversion. If yo can talk them into receiving Jesus then someone else can talk them out of accepting Jesus. Pray for conviction just like on the day of Pentecost when Peter preached Christ crucified it pricked their hearts it was a heart conversion. Pray for the power of the Holy spirit to bring conviction pray that the fallow ground of their hearts would be broken up so that the good seed of the Gospel can be planted in their lives through the conviction of the Holy Ghost. And then you must be willing to disciple those you have birthed into the Kingdom of God. If you are not willing to disciple them then you should not birth them. They will need plenty of prayer and guidance from a older brother in Christ.
How about MYOB?
A very wise Egyptian brother told me after “debating” some hard core Muslims for an hour. Stick to the cross. Not Mohammad, not anything else but the Cross. Don’t insult them and tell them they’re insane. They believe what they believe probably stronger than you believe what you believe. Belittling them does nothing. Stick to the cross.
Like this:
Islam is a drastic religion of severe demands with draconian consequences for those who don't observe them. There's an undercurrent of vengeance and bloodshed from a God who seems to delight in violence. Contrast this with man's sinfulness and the Christian God's mercy and his sacrifice on the Cross.
If that fails, call down fire from heaven..... :-)
I’d like those links. You make excellent points.
Many Muslims believe that Christianity is a poly-thiestic religion because we worship the Trinity.
I have had some modest success in challenging this idea by suggesting that a man can have many roles; he can be a father, brother, husband, etc: WE can take on many roles, and so does our Father. This is overly simplistic, but I believe that it is a good first step in challenging a very large misconception about Christianity.
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I think a better way is to tell them that man and wife are “one” in the Old Testament Hebrew the same way father, son, and holy spirit are “one”. The Hebrew word “echod” Aleph-Chet-Dalet is the same word for both.
Muslims in general, but if you have advice about both situations, I would be grateful.
Then it seems I should finish the book. Thank you Rom.
He will probably say he was a prophet of Allah and a good man but that Mohammad was THE prophet of God. This gives you a change to bring up some of Jesus’ teachings that were against the establish order of the day. Talk about how he challenged the religious leaders of his day who tried to lead people away from truth. You can speak to his kindness and the many times he healed people. That many people saw Christs acts. Talk about how Jesus foretold many things that were soon to happen to him and that there are hundreds of very specific prophecies in the Bible that foretold many things about the Messiah, some thousands of years old.
These prophesies said that he would be born in Bethlehem, that he would go to Egypt as a child, that his mother was under the direct lineage of King David, and that would make him an heir to the throne. They also said one day he would be taken and falsely accused, betrayed by one of his own followers. He would be beaten and whipped and finally crucified. But that he told his followers all these thing would happen to him and he told them why. He said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.” It was also foretold and Jesus himself said so many times that he would also rise from the dead in three days. And He DID. Many, many people saw him after he died. More than 500 people at one time in one place.
Study up on the different ways Jesus ministered to the different people in his towns and that he performed miracles right before the peoples eyes
He was never intimidated by those who claimed authority over him and protected others when they were to be attacked by others. He genuinely loved people and did not care if they were “sinners” (we all are). He said he came to seek and to save that which was lost. He gives us eternal life by grace through our faith in him. I accept that Jesus Christ paid the penalty I owed for my sins and that his shed blood covers our sin and actually cleanses us from all sin.
After you go through these things with your friend, ask him if he still really thinks Jesus was just a good person and prophet of Allah. If he says yes, then I would say Jesus said he was Almighty God in the flesh and that he was the way, the truth and the life and that no one could come to the Father but through him.
The discussion can then get down to either Jesus Christ is who he said he was or he was the worst deceiver that ever lived. Because tens of thousand of people over the centuries have been martyred for their faith.
I know this is pretty long, but I hope it's helpful. I don't see ever having to make sharing the gospel with someone into an argument. That's why genuine respect and letting Jesus love that person through you is so important.
I'm signing off for now. But If you need some more advice let me know. I'll be praying for you.
If you go to the following link, the article itself has links.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=102269
* 83 percent of children from committed Christian families attending public schools adopt a Marxist-socialist worldview;
* Mounting evidence that the public schools are successfully converting covenant children to secular humanism;
* Nehemiah Institute’s graph showing the shocking result of a 20-year study on approximately 60,000 youth in 50 states from churchgoing families.
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