Jesus and Isa: Discussing Christ with a Muslim

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There is a version of Christ found inside the Islamic faith written into the Qur'an.

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Muslims will tell you is the same Jesus that is written about in

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the New Testament, but they don't call him Jesus, they call him Isa.

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So in this episode, we're going to be talking about the differences between

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Isa and Jesus, , what they are, why it matters, and how to discuss this topic

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with any Muslims that you may know.

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You're listening to Base Camp, a podcast where we equip Christians

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to engage the darkest places and the least reached people with the gospel.

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My name is Michael Collins.

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In this episode, I sit down with Jeremy Jenkins, the president and

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founder of All Things All People.

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And we discuss the difference between Jesus and Isa.

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The idea for this conversation came from an article that Jeremy wrote

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for the All Things All People blog.

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I'll put a link to that article in the description.

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The goal is by the end of this episode, you will have a much better

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understanding of the way people of the Islamic faith see Christ,

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what some of the main differences are, and how to best talk about this subject

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with any Muslim people that you may know.

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So let's get right into the episode.

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Mike: you started the last episode asking me to share the story that was in my

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article, so Jeremy, I'm just going to ask that you share the story that was in your

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article that we have on Jesus and Isa.

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Am I saying it right?

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Is it Isa?

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Yeah.

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Jeremy: Yeah.

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Yeah, When I wrote that article, I I'm not always the best at titling things

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because if somebody doesn't know that Isa is the Islamic name for Jesus, then they

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have no idea what that article is about,

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Mike: yeah, I

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Jeremy: so, yeah, so Isa, Isa is the name that the, the Quran uses to refer to

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Jesus and a lot of people don't know that.

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That Jesus is referenced a ton in the Quran.

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I mean, he's one of the most talked about people in the Quran.

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And I was in North Africa sometime recently, and I was there with a team

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of people and we were working with some missionaries in North Africa.

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And obviously I can't say where, and we had gotten really tired of not being

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able to find people who speak English.

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And we don't speak any Arabic at all.

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And so we decided to go down to this touristy area of the city we were in.

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Hoping to find people to speak English.

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And, and of course that works.

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Cause if you've ever been, you've not been out of the country yet.

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Right.

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Mike: never been outta the country.

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Jeremy: That's going to be a lot of fun whenever.

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Mike: The summer will be the first time I'm going to Guatemala

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Jeremy: my goodness.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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Well that, okay.

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That'd be cool.

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Well, and yeah, you'll experience that there too.

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So there's not a ton of English speakers, and so.

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Anytime you get the opportunity to speak your, your heart language,

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it makes things a lot easier.

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So we went kind of hunting for that.

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The other thing too, is when you're in a tourist area and you're walking around

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and they can tell you're not from there and that you're a tourist, they also

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assume you have a pocket full of money and they want to sell you something.

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And so JR and I were walking and we met this guy and he started talking to us.

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I think he owned a, he owned a travel company.

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So he wanted us to take his tours and all of that.

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Well, I'm like, you know, the guys that we work with, those of them who've

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traveled with me know that I'm pretty good at saying no to people who are

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trying to sell us stuff overseas.

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And so we started off just like kind of really in a friendly way, just saying no

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to this guy, but he was pretty persistent, but he seemed pretty nice anyway.

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So we just started talking to him and asking about the company, asking

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about what he provided and Eventually he kind of figured out like we

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weren't looking to buy anything, but he was still really friendly.

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Well, J.

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R.

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and I both love coffee, as you know, and , in a lot of parts of the

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The Middle East specifically like predominantly Arab populations.

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They'll have like these coffee shops.

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They call them our was and I was a HWA and it's outdoors.

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So it's like an outdoor patio and people will sit, older men, especially

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during the middle of the day, we'll sit at these hours for hours

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Mike: eye on us

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Jeremy: is.

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It really, yeah, it really is.

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And but you know, it doesn't bother them.

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It really, it really didn't bother me.

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But yeah, it can be but they'll sit there and they'll smoke

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Shisha, which is like hookah.

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Do you know, you know, like and they'll play chess or backgammon all day.

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And so that's kind of like like I'm built for that kind of like, not the Shisha,

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not the hookah, but but like sitting and drinking coffee and playing backgammon

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and chess and talking to old men all day, like to me, I was sort of like, I

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wanted to sit in that environment, look for opportunities to talk to people.

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So we asked this guy and, and asked him, Hey, where's a good ahwa.

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We don't want to go to a touristy place.

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And so he kind of lights up and he's like, well, Hey, I'll take you to mine.

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I'll take you to the one that I go to.

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And so he walks us, I don't remember, maybe a quarter mile.

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Kind of in this hidden little alleyway system, we would have never known to

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go down and he takes us to this, this Alwa, which is filled with locals,

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which was really my idea of fun.

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I, I, I actively try and avoid tourists as much as I can

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when I'm doing missions work.

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And so we ended up sitting down.

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Well, he, he's going to walk away and we Ask him, Hey, would you let us, you know,

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buy you a tea or coffee or something?

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And and so he sits down and we just start talking.

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And for me, I have a really easy time.

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Talking to people of other religions, partly because I'm super interested

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in them and their faith, but then also because I teach religions.

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And when you tell somebody that you're a world religions, like professor or

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teacher I've never really had any like bad reactions to that, at least not yet.

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And so I told him I was super interested in Islam, told him I was super interested

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in the culture and all of that.

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And so I was just asking him questions and everything he was saying.

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Was kind of leading us to the point where it was just like,

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well, he knew we were Christians.

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We had mentioned that.

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And, and of course he was, he was Muslim.

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I actually asked him, I said, cause I didn't want to assume even though I knew

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it's just like, Hey, are you Muslim?

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And he smiled and was like, yeah.

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And.

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It seemed like everything he wanted to talk about was about the similarities

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between Islam and Christianity and presumably there's, there are a

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lot, you know we believe in one God.

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We believe in an afterlife.

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We believe in a day of judgment.

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We believe that, you know, submission to God is important.

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Mm-Hmm.

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. A lot of Christians don't know, like Islam literally just means submission.

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Mm-Hmm.

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and Muslim just means submitted one.

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So our Venn diagram overlaps.

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Mike: Yeah.

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I've heard a lot of different missionary stories.

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People that were evangelizing to Islamic people and.

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they said the people that they were hanging out with told them,

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you're so close to being a Muslim.

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if you were just accept this one thing.

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Jeremy: In fact, what's so funny because most of my, the first few

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years of my travel and research and studying religions, I was

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doing a lot of work in South Asia.

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Mm-Hmm.

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and Hinduism and Buddhism and things like that.

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And the worldview does not overlap hardly at all.

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With groups like that, like there's, there's hardly any similarities

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at all between what Christians assumed to be true, believed to

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be true and what a Hindu does.

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There's, there's really not that much similarity.

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So when I started, and I'm not, I'm not an Islamic expert, but when I started,

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engaging Muslims with the gospel.

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I was like, Oh, this is so much

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Mike: easier.

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Jeremy: You know what I mean?

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Because, because of the same thing, what you just said is like , they have

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a deep love and reverence for Allah, which is just the Arabic word for God.

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And they, they believe that Allah is the same God that the Bible is talking about.

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In fact, most of Islamic history, at least what Muhammad said was Islamic history

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is, is Jewish and Christian history.

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I mean, and that's why, It is really easy to talk to Muslims about matters

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of faith because they believe in Adam and Eve, they believe in Noah, they

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believe in Abraham, they believe in Moses

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Mike: in Noah, believe Moses um, Somewhat.

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the the, the

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Jeremy: the Quran on top of it.

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Well, somewhat.

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So, yeah, so , I mean, there's a lot of differences, but the main

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difference is that they believe, so if you're familiar with the story of

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Abraham and Isaac, Abraham has a son.

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Well, before he had Isaac, he had another son.

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Is this

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Ishmael

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and what Jews and Christians believe is that Isaac was the promised son and that

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through Isaac seed is the chosen people of God, which Jews and Christians would

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say in some form or fashion is Israel.

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Muslims would say that.

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Actually, the chosen people of God came through Ishmael.

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And in fact, they believe that Ishmael was the son who was almost

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sacrificed when God provided the Ram.

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And so ultimately they view themselves as the seed of Ishmael.

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And if you, if you read the account in Genesis of when.

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When Abraham you know, essentially banished Hagar and Ishmael, it says that

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he brought them out to the desert and that Hagar was distraught because her

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son was going to die, Ishmael and God, and this is in Genesis, God speaks to,

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to Hagar and says, Hey, I I see your son.

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I will not let him die.

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And in fact, he's going to become a great and mighty people.

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And that's the end of it.

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But when Mohammed says that he began to receive revelation from Allah through

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the angel Gabriel in a cave outside of Mecca, what he said was that Jews and

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early Christians actually corrupted.

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What they call the Torah and the Injil.

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Injil is just the Arabic word for gospel.

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And so ultimately what we have is we have essentially two streams of promise.

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Is Jews and Christians say that the promise of Abraham came

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through Isaac and Muslims say no.

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In fact, it came through Ishmael.

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And that early Jews and Christians corrupted, specifically Jews,

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corrupted The old, the Old Testament, and then the New Testament after it.

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And so we do have a tremendous amount of similarities, but there are,

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there are these tiny differences there at the beginning of the

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narratives that, that changed the

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Mike: trajectory of

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everything.

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So do they believe that Jesus is a descendant of Ishmael or Jesus was.

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still a descendant of Isaac, but they just still hold him in

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Jeremy: I don't know.

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I don't know.

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I don't know specifically what they would say about his genealogy.

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They do believe that Jesus and all of the prophets that came before were actually

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prophets of a law and they hold those men in high regards, but the difference

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being that they would say that Jesus and Noah and Moses actually all came Came as

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prophets of Allah spreading the message of Islam, which is submission to Allah.

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And that Mohammed brought the restored revelation of Allah

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in the form of the Quran.

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And, these few key differences that point Muslims towards a life of submission and

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really, I mean, a works based salvation.

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They wouldn't disagree with that at all.

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Whereas Christians say, no, Jesus was the son of God.

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He was God and his death, burial and resurrection redeemed humanity

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and bought them from their sin.

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Mike: We, will get into maybe more of those little differences about Christ.

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But back

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to

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You in, this and what

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is it?

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and this awa.

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with your friend and with JR.

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Jeremy: Yeah.

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Mike: You guys go and sit down and, and then this.

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this

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Jeremy: So what what's funny is like, it's a beautiful thing because.

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What otherwise can be like kind of an academic

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conversation,

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like, oh, here's these differences and all that they proved to be really important

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because this conversation centers in on the idea of him saying, well, hey,

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there's actually a lot of similarities.

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Kind of what you said, like, you guys are just this

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close to being really good Muslims, you know?

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And I said, you know, there are a lot of similarities.

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You're right.

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In fact, we both agree that we're sinful.

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And, and what kind of fall out of this is this really great evangelistic method.

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I don't know who pioneered it.

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But we call it any three which is asking.

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This guy, the question, how do you believe that your sins are going to be forgiven?

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And so he begins to list off the various things that, that Muslims

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believe, including like the five pillars, like you have to confess.

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That Allah is the one true God and Muhammad is his prophet.

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You have to what's called a zakat, which is like, you have

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to give, you have to be generous.

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You have to fast during Ramadan.

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You have to pray five times a day called Salat.

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And then at least once in your life, as you're able, you have to perform a

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pilgrimage to Mecca called the Hajj.

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And there's other things too.

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I mean, the Muslims really are mostly A devout group of people who place a

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high emphasis on living a good life.

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And so he lists off all these things and.

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He kind of finishes and I said and once again, this isn't my question, but okay.

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Do you believe then that your sins are forgiven

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already?

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And he shook his head.

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No, you know, no, I don't , which is the standard Islamic answer.

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Even Mohammed said that he couldn't be sure that he had done enough to warrant

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salvation into paradise upon his death.

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And so Muslims really operate on the sense that no one

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can

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know.

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And I said, okay, so see, here's the difference then.

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And this is where it's important.

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Like any conversation that you're having that's evangelistic in nature, even if

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there's a lot of similarities, sometimes those can be really helpful to highlight,

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but eventually we have to get to

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the differences.

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And I said, see, here's the difference.

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We believe that our sins are already forgiven.

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And the way that I believe that is because of the work of Jesus.

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And I shared kind of an aversion and this kind of goes along with, the any

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three method, and maybe we can, we can link to some, any three resources in

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the podcast notes, but the story we call it the first and last sacrifice,

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and that kind of, once again, leans on.

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The, the overlap between the Abrahamic faith, Islam Judaism and Christianity,

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because you reference, you say, Hey, we believe in Adam and Eve in

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the garden sinned against Allah.

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And the first act of really compassion that God had for humanity was that

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he clothed them and he clothed them in the form of animal sacrifice.

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He killed he killed a lamb and provided them clothing.

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And, you know, he's nodding, right.

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As, as most good Muslims would.

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Yeah.

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And you say, you know, and you see throughout the old Testament narrative

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or the Torah narrative that really for humanity to come into the presence of,

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of a law there had to be sacrificed.

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There had to be a toning sacrifice, usually in the form of, of, of

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animal sacrifice so much so that right between Abraham and his son,

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and it's important, most Christian missionaries would say you don't.

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Like there on the street in an hour, get into an argument over whether it

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was Isaac or Ishmael, you just say Abraham and his son, you know, Abraham

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and his son, there, there was a needed sacrifice between Abraham and God.

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And instead of making him sacrifice his son, he provided a Ram.

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And then so on and so on through the, the, the Torah, the old Testament.

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And, and then I shared with him and I said, and then we meet the person of

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Jesus, who we believe was the son of God.

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And there on the cross, we see him and we see what his cousin, John the Baptist

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said, which, which was interesting.

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Cause he had never heard of John

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the

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Baptist.

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We see that John the Baptist calls him the lamb of God who

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takes away the sins of the world.

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And this man had never heard that phrase.

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And and I said, well, it's appropriate because on the cross he was killed.

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And this, this also brings us to another huge difference between

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Muslims and Christians, because Muslims don't believe that Jesus was

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Mike: killed on the

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Jeremy: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Because they believe Jesus lived a sinless life.

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They believe he was born of a virgin.

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The Quran actually lists like a ton of really interesting

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things, presumably about Jesus.

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They believe when he was an infant.

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That he spoke.

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So they believe all sorts of miraculous

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Mike: things

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about

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Jesus.

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It's not that he

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died.

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It's not

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that

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he

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died.

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Or is it not that he died at all, or just not that he died on the

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Jeremy: They believe no, they believe that he didn't die that he was taken up by a

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law and that he'll return one day He's actually jesus is a huge part of Islamic

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eschatological beliefs, like at the end of days that he's going to come back.

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So they, they actually, and this is a sort of an important thing to

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understand about the Islamic worldview.

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They think that, well, if Jesus was sinless, They don't believe

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he's the highest prophet.

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They believe Muhammad is the highest prophet.

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But if, if Jesus was sinless, then it, then Allah would have

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never allowed him to die on a

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Mike: Interesting.

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So they accept that he's sinless, but they,

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Jeremy: Yeah.

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It's a kind of a strange thing.

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Yeah.

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And like I said, they believe he's born of a virgin.

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They actually hold Mary in really high regard to they would have referred.

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Yeah.

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And usually they refer to her as Miriam.

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Mike: So do they think that The New Testament, the Gospels

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are lying or that they've been

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Jeremy: corrupted.

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Yeah, they believe that they believe that the Gospels, yeah, the Injil.

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Is that we have is corrupted, but interestingly enough I mean, most

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Muslims have never read it because, because all they hear from their

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leaders, from imams, from the culture is that it's, it's corrupted.

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It can't be trusted that early Christians changed the original message

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of Isa to fit some other narrative.

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Yeah.

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And, and of course they reject Trinitarianism.

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They reject that Jesus is God.

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They reject that he's the son of God.

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Probably the One of the most memorized passages in the Quran is where Muhammad

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wrote that God would never have a son.

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Mike: Yeah.

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Jeremy: And so they reject, they reject really the totality of

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who Christians say Jesus was.

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Mike: I'm curious because you know, you talk about in this article

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They, don't believe that it is befitting of God to have a son and at the same time

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they hold family in such a high regard,

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but if it's not befitting of God to have a son, that seems that

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there's something negative about

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Jeremy: having

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a

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son.

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Yeah, I think that, yeah, I mean, I think it all boils down to Islam.

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Islam is probably the purest form of monotheism that you

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could find.

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In the sense, I mean, Christians are monotheists, but they believe that God

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is, is three persons in one essence.

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The first thing you have to do to become a Muslim is say, there is no God,

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but

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God

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in, in Muhammad is his prophet.

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it's called the Shahada.

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And so the true essence right there with submission.

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Of

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Islam, the true essence is that God is one.

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I remember my professors using the word unicity, the idea

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that God is one in nature.

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God is one in person.

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And so I don't think that they would That they would view it as the insistence that

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God couldn't have a son as a negative.

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They view God interacting with anything other than, than

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himself as a defiling of the

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nature of

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God.

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And so, so the Islamic view of God is, is very transcendent as well.

00:18:58
I would not call the Islamic view of Allah as like imminent or near.

00:19:02
to humanity.

00:19:03
And Muslims would say, that's why angels are so important.

00:19:05
That's why Allah did not speak to Muhammad.

00:19:08
Gabriel spoke to Muhammad.

00:19:10
And then if you can take it even a little step further and think

00:19:12
about the, the Christian concept of incarnation, when you learn then

00:19:16
what Muslims view about Allah, the incarnation is hugely offensive.

00:19:20
The idea that God took on flesh and dwelt among us is seen as, as a defiling.

00:19:25
Of the nature of God, because why would God become

00:19:28
a human?

00:19:28
That's so, so much lower than he is.

00:19:31
And what's funny is like Christians

00:19:32
Mike: funny,

00:19:33
like Christians

00:19:34
Jeremy: You know what I mean?

00:19:35
Mike: say,

00:19:35
Jeremy: That's how much he loves us.

00:19:36
Right?

00:19:37
And so Christians operate with this, this idea of God is transcendent yet imminent.

00:19:41
He is, he is, he is far and above creation, but he has chosen to

00:19:45
make himself near and lowly.

00:19:48
Right.

00:19:48
And that's actually an interesting thing to like Christ describes himself as

00:19:51
gentle and lowly, right?

00:19:53
These are not Islamic concepts at all.

00:19:56
And so what they say happened at Calvary and this is actually what my friend

00:20:01
in the Iowa said is, is he stopped me and he said, see, we disagree.

00:20:06
Isa was not killed on the cross

00:20:08
and one of the beliefs that developed that explained what happened at Calvary is

00:20:13
that Allah took Jesus from the cross and replaced him with somebody else and sort

00:20:20
of fooled People into thinking that it was

00:20:24
ESA, that

00:20:24
it

00:20:24
was

00:20:24
Jesus.

00:20:25
Mike: Interesting.

00:20:26
Yeah.

00:20:26
and, And

00:20:27
actually, and is this, is this in the Quran?

00:20:30
This is, or is it just a belief

00:20:31
Jeremy: so there's like one, there's like one mention of it.

00:20:34
It's kind of like a throwaway comment.

00:20:36
And then really throughout time.

00:20:38
Muslims have developed this

00:20:40
belief,

00:20:41
Which is sort of common in some instances like how the Quran interpreted the Old

00:20:46
and New Testament, there's sort of these asides that that Mohammed threw out.

00:20:51
In the Quran in that throughout Islamic history, the Hadith and then

00:20:54
the Sharia, like the consensus sort of developed into what maybe most

00:20:58
Muslims would consider to be true now.

00:21:00
And so, you know, sitting in that coffee shop you know, he expressed

00:21:03
that it was like, no, we don't believe he said died on the cross.

00:21:06
We believe it's somebody else.

00:21:07
And, and I had actually had a conversation with a friend of mine who

00:21:11
we were working with that, that while we were there basically like, . What

00:21:14
do you say when people say that?

00:21:17
And.

00:21:17
He had kind of told me what he shared and I thought it was brilliant.

00:21:20
And what I, I shared with, with my friend in the Iowa and Jr was sitting

00:21:24
across the table and I found out later, cause he hadn't said anything.

00:21:28
He was just praying the whole time, which is, which is great.

00:21:30
And it's a big reason why I always encourage to like for people to as

00:21:34
best as they can, you know Do this

00:21:36
kind

00:21:37
of work

00:21:37
in community

00:21:38
is what I said is what my friend had kind of shared with me that he

00:21:41
says, which is, Hey, listen, I know that that's what Muslims believe,

00:21:45
but let me ask you this question.

00:21:47
I know that family is really important to most Muslims and especially

00:21:50
here in the Arab part of the world.

00:21:51
Like family is essential.

00:21:53
And he agreed because it is.

00:21:54
And I was like, let me ask you this, you know, that Miriam was at the cross

00:22:00
and he said, yeah.

00:22:01
And I said, okay.

00:22:02
And I, I won't share his name, but you know, Hey.

00:22:05
If, if that was

00:22:07
you

00:22:07
on that cross and your mother was there, don't you think she would have

00:22:12
known if it was somebody else in your

00:22:15
place?

00:22:16
And He stopped.

00:22:18
He was actually, it was kind of a funny moment because he was

00:22:20
drinking his tea and he stopped and kind of gave me like a look out

00:22:24
of

00:22:25
out of the corner of his

00:22:25
eye

00:22:26
and he paused and I'll pause here to not that there's not a

00:22:29
response to be given to that.

00:22:31
Because obviously we are talking

00:22:32
Mike: about

00:22:33
Jeremy: God.

00:22:33
Right.

00:22:33
So it would be very easy for a Muslim to say, well, yeah, like Allah could

00:22:38
have done that, which then kind of begs the question of like, why

00:22:41
is Allah being so deceptive here?

00:22:43
Right.

00:22:44
But we didn't even get into that because he just stopped and he kind of laughed

00:22:47
and me and JR just kind of laughed because it was like this funny moment.

00:22:50
And he said, Well, you know, if I understood as much about Christianity,

00:22:55
as you know, about Islam, then I think I could answer that question.

00:22:58
And I was

00:22:58
like,

00:22:59
that's

00:22:59
fine.

00:23:00
That's a perfectly acceptable answer.

00:23:02
, but listen,

00:23:03
when

00:23:03
I want to learn more about Islam, I read the Quran and I talked to Muslims.

00:23:09
If you want to learn more about ESA and Christianity, you should read

00:23:13
the NGO and talk to Christians.

00:23:16
And I said, and I believe that the NGO that I have is Is the true in

00:23:20
Jill and that it wasn't corrupted.

00:23:22
Would you be willing.

00:23:24
If we came back tomorrow to read it with

00:23:26
Mike: us, And the Inge is just the

00:23:28
Jeremy: the gospel, yeah, the new Testament is usually the word that they

00:23:30
use for the gospel or the new Testament.

00:23:32
And amazingly, he said, yes.

00:23:35
And and you know, we, I still actually I'm in touch

00:23:38
with

00:23:38
that guy.

00:23:39
Yeah, through, through the wonders of, of WhatsApp.

00:23:41
And, and we, we, we did make more contact with him while we were there.

00:23:45
To this point, , he's not a believer.

00:23:46
I do believe he's open to, to the message of Christianity, but even the reason

00:23:50
that I wrote that article was that really.

00:23:53
What I learned from that conversation is not even so much about teaching others

00:23:55
is that Getting people to the point where they understand that just because you call

00:24:01
someone Jesus And I call somebody Jesus.

00:24:04
We're not necessarily talking about the same

00:24:06
Jesus

00:24:07
And we see that too with other groups like latter day saints, you know And

00:24:10
i've done a lot of other writing and podcasting about the idea that just

00:24:13
because we're talking about God or we say Heavenly Father, or we, we say Allah,

00:24:18
which is just the Arabic word for God.

00:24:19
Or we say Jesus or Isa doesn't mean that we're talking about the same person and

00:24:24
that it's important to get people to the point where you ask those questions

00:24:27
that lead them to the conclusion.

00:24:29
Okay.

00:24:29
Who actually was Jesus and what did he

00:24:31
do?

00:24:33
And give them the opportunity to say, like, Well, no that's

00:24:36
not what we believe about Jesus.

00:24:37
Right.

00:24:37
Cause at the beginning of the conversation, I think, yeah, that

00:24:40
was in the Middle East and an Arabic population in this open air.

00:24:44
Ah, wow.

00:24:44
But like conversations like that happen here in the, in our context as well,

00:24:48
which is like, that's not my Jesus.

00:24:49
And I actually joke all the time.

00:24:50
Like when I was a student pastor, I used to use the scene from Talbot.

00:24:54
You've ever seen Talladega nights, right?

00:24:56
Not an appropriate movie necessarily, but not one that you would typically get

00:25:00
sermon illustrations from, but there's the scene in that movie where will Farrell.

00:25:04
Is praying and he's like, well, I like

00:25:06
to

00:25:06
pray to

00:25:06
baby Jesus,

00:25:07
right?

00:25:07
And John C.

00:25:08
Riley's like, I like to picture Jesus.

00:25:10
It's like the lead singer of Lynyrd Skynyrd, right?

00:25:13
And it's stupid and it's silly and it, you know, it's not

00:25:16
academic at all or whatever.

00:25:17
It's not missional at all.

00:25:18
But I really don't think even what we experience here in the West

00:25:21
is that different than what we experienced in an Arab population,

00:25:24
which is, we all just kind of like to say, well, this is who Jesus

00:25:27
is

00:25:28
to me.

00:25:28
Yeah.

00:25:29
Right.

00:25:29
But the merit of the conversation really boils down to, well, who actually

00:25:32
Mike: was

00:25:32
Jesus and

00:25:33
what did he do?

00:25:34
Who did he say that he was,

00:25:36
, Jeremy: the conclusions that we come to those conversations are important,

00:25:39
just like the conversation I had with this guy, which is to say like,

00:25:42
well, Hey, one of us is wrong.

00:25:44
Or, or maybe both of us are wrong.

00:25:46
That's the other thing.

00:25:46
Just like, Hey, either, either one of us is right, or both of us are wrong, but

00:25:51
we both can't simultaneously be right.

00:25:52
I believe he died on

00:25:53
a cross

00:25:54
and was resurrected

00:25:54
three days later.

00:25:55
And because of that, my sins can be forgiven.

00:25:57
Now you believe he wasn't killed on a cross and you believe that you have

00:26:02
to do all these things to please God.

00:26:04
So which one of us is right.

00:26:06
If one of us is, you know, and, and the answer to

00:26:09
Mike: that matters a great

00:26:10
deal.

00:26:11
Mm-Hmm.

00:26:11
.And it goes kind of along with the last episode we just did on on truth,

00:26:16
but when we're trying to reach people, the discussions about religion, I think

00:26:21
can sometimes feel almost like a game of tug of you know, and that's kind

00:26:26
of the debate mindset of I'm trying to pull you over to my side and you're

00:26:29
trying to pull me over to your side.

00:26:31
and we'll see Who's stronger.

00:26:32
who really knows their stuff more and whose beliefs are stronger.

00:26:35
But if truth is real, if truth exists, we believe that Christianity

00:26:41
is

00:26:41
the

00:26:41
truth.

00:26:42
And so we don't have to try to pull them over.

00:26:45
If we get the attitude of coming alongside them and saying,

00:26:48
Hey, let's seek truth together.

00:26:50
Let's work together to try to figure out what is true because we

00:26:54
believe that this is what is true.

00:26:56
So if we're honestly pursuing truth, we're going to end up at Christianity.

00:27:00
Right.

00:27:01
Jeremy: Yeah.

00:27:01
And, and one thing that I, I, I, in my experience is like talking about faith

00:27:05
with Muslims is you don't experience as much of Like the relativism that we

00:27:09
were talking about in the last episode with them because really what they're

00:27:11
saying is no actually you're wrong

00:27:13
about Jesus

00:27:14
and we're right and I'm like, okay.

00:27:15
Well we can have a conversation about this, right?

00:27:17
Another thing that is important to remember And this is one thing I've just

00:27:22
learned extensively from missionaries to The predominantly Muslim world is to

00:27:28
try and get them to read what they call

00:27:31
the Angeal because most of them haven't.

00:27:34
And something amazing really happens when you really

00:27:37
read

00:27:38
the gospels and you really, Oh man, like, no, like if, if this Jesus

00:27:43
is the real Jesus, I like, there's something really desirable about that.

00:27:47
And not just that it's like, well, our narrative is better than the Islamic

00:27:51
narrative, but it's like, man, if what the Christians are saying about Jesus is true.

00:27:55
Right.

00:27:55
That's the end of the any three method, which, which I really didn't

00:27:58
get to be able to, to, to get to.

00:28:01
With our friend that day, because of the objection

00:28:03
to

00:28:03
the

00:28:03
fact

00:28:03
that Jesus

00:28:04
didn't die on the cross, but the end is no, but I can know that

00:28:06
my

00:28:06
sins

00:28:07
are

00:28:07
forgiven now.

00:28:08
And so works are important, but they don't save me.

00:28:11
And that's really like, so, so the end of that story is right.

00:28:15
We, We walk him back to his travel agency.

00:28:18
We're, we're kind of laughing.

00:28:19
We had, we had really in a very short amount of time

00:28:21
had, had grown close to him.

00:28:23
Weirdly, you know, I mean, just, and I think actually a lot of it was

00:28:26
because we were talking about issues of faith, like in our, in our society.

00:28:30
We're not supposed to talk about faith.

00:28:32
We're not supposed to talk about religion.

00:28:33
And so we kind of don't know how.

00:28:35
And so we hear about conversations like this.

00:28:37
We're like, I,

00:28:37
I'm

00:28:38
Mike: scared

00:28:38
to even

00:28:38
ask

00:28:38
these questions.

00:28:39
Mm hmm.

00:28:40
You feel like somebody's going to be mad at

00:28:41
Jeremy: Right.

00:28:42
And luckily, and this is an encouragement to listeners that if

00:28:45
you're talking about a population.

00:28:48
Or a religious demographic that isn't a Westerner from the

00:28:51
United States, most of the world

00:28:53
doesn't feel

00:28:54
that way about religion.

00:28:55
I mean, you can talk

00:28:56
up

00:28:56
to

00:28:56
a

00:28:56
Muslim

00:28:56
about Islam.

00:28:57
Like they're usually not going to be taken aback by that.

00:29:01
And so we had, You know, we had gotten really friendly with him.

00:29:04
So we're laughing, we're talking, and then the ending of that story

00:29:09
for us was walking away and looking forward to telling someone more

00:29:15
about Jesus who only knew Isa, the hope, was that we could convince him.

00:29:21
Through the merit of scripture through the merit of the work of the Holy

00:29:23
Spirit in his heart and mind, because ultimately we're not going to convince

00:29:26
him that no, he wasn't just a prophet who

00:29:30
was pointing

00:29:30
to Muhammad.

00:29:31
He was

00:29:31
God in human form, like he took on flesh and blood.

00:29:35
He took on your sin so that now submission to God is a joy.

00:29:41
It's

00:29:42
not a

00:29:42
duty, you know, and that's really the hope of those types of conversations

00:29:46
with, with not just Muslims, but really anybody who thinks that they

00:29:48
know Jesus, but has sort of fallen for some counterfeit version of him,

00:29:52
Mike: which

00:29:53
I feel like the longer you're in Islam, trying to earn your way into

00:29:58
heaven without ever knowing that you can never really know if you've been

00:30:02
good enough or, or done enough good.

00:30:05
with Your life that the longer you're in that the more appealing

00:30:08
. grace has to become that to, To think of, of isa as, as taking

00:30:14
Jeremy: the punishment

00:30:15
Mike: so

00:30:15
you

00:30:15
don't

00:30:16
have to

00:30:16
earn it.

00:30:17
Jeremy: Yeah.

00:30:17
I mean, you would think so and, and, and, and ultimately, like the

00:30:20
people who have come out of Islam.

00:30:23
To convert to Christianity.

00:30:24
I think that's the testimony, but it is, it is a tough pill for them to swallow

00:30:28
because, because they do and part of

00:30:31
Mike: is like, honor tied up in that

00:30:33
Jeremy: yeah.

00:30:34
I mean the idea, yeah.

00:30:35
So I think it's important for Christians to understand like what, what, what

00:30:39
we're asking them to believe it goes against the entire nature of a law,

00:30:43
like the idea that, okay, so you're telling me he took on flesh, became

00:30:46
a human, or also that he's three, he's three persons in one, right.

00:30:50
Which is, goes against, you know, the whole confession of, of Islam,

00:30:54
which is that God is only one, but that even after all of that, that

00:30:58
he died, he, he experienced one of those brutal, brutal execution methods

00:31:03
that the humanity has ever known.

00:31:05
And then he came back to life.

00:31:07
So it's, it is a tough pill to swallow.

00:31:09
And I think that when you say honor, like the idea that God

00:31:13
would allow that of himself, once again, kind of goes to that idea, that's not

00:31:18
befitting their, their version of a law, which kind of goes once again to that

00:31:22
great exclamation point of Christianity,

00:31:24
which is, yeah,

00:31:25
that's the

00:31:25
whole point.

00:31:26
And actually I find that, I find that.

00:31:28
When I, when I have those conversations with the Muslims,

00:31:30
my appreciate your, I'm like,

00:31:32
Mike: actually,

00:31:32
you're

00:31:32
right.

00:31:33
It's not

00:31:33
befitting.

00:31:34
It's not befitting.

00:31:35
It's like Peter saying, Lord, you will never wash my feet.

00:31:39
And Christ says, You don't

00:31:40
get it.

00:31:41
Jeremy: don't get it.

00:31:41
Yeah.

00:31:42
Or it's same thing.

00:31:42
Well, we'll kind of keep it along with Peter too, is like, you know, when Jesus

00:31:46
is saying like, Hey, all these horrible things are going to happen to me.

00:31:49
And Peter

00:31:49
pulls

00:31:49
him

00:31:50
Mike: aside

00:31:50
and

00:31:50
it's like,

00:31:50
no, no,

00:31:50
Jeremy: no, no,

00:31:51
that no,

00:31:52
we're not

00:31:52
going to let that happen.

00:31:53
And

00:31:54
he's, you know, get behind me, Satan, because he's like, you don't understand.

00:31:57
And it is part of me kind of goes, no, you are right.

00:31:59
You, it wasn't befitting of God, but God is so loving of the world.

00:32:05
Right, you know, John, John three, God so loved the world that he gave his

00:32:09
son that whoever would believe in him, Paul later would say, whoever would.

00:32:15
confess with their mouth that he is Lord and believe in their

00:32:19
heart that God raised him from the dead, that they would be saved.

00:32:23
And that's the message for Muslims or for anybody really.

00:32:26
But it is a tough pill for Muslims to swallow because it goes

00:32:29
against, yeah, we, we have all

00:32:30
those similarities, but

00:32:31
the underlying worldview of who and what is God is so intrinsically different

00:32:37
that , it

00:32:38
probably is going to take

00:32:39
more

00:32:39
than

00:32:39
one conversation.

00:32:40
I think that the image that most people within Islam have of

00:32:45
Christians is something akin to maybe what we would say is cheap

00:32:50
grace

00:32:51
, and of course, some of this fault, the blame for some of this falls at

00:32:54
our feet, which is that they believe Christians can do whatever you want.

00:32:58
Say whatever you want, live however you want, believe whatever you want, and that

00:33:02
everything's going to be fine in the end.

00:33:04
And, and so I think that there's a balance that Christians need to begin striking

00:33:08
better with, with their communication to the Islamic world and the witness

00:33:12
that we're living at least publicly.

00:33:14
Which is to say that like, no, we don't believe you can do and

00:33:16
say and be whatever you want.

00:33:17
In fact, right.

00:33:18
The whole point of Paul's words there is like, no, Christ has to be your Lord.

00:33:22
He has to be your master.

00:33:23
Like, and because we do believe he's God, we hold him in, in, in as

00:33:28
high regard as Muslims hold Allah.

00:33:31
But we just believe he loves us personal relationship is a very

00:33:34
weird thing for them to think.

00:33:38
About with a law, , there's been instances where I've talked to Muslims and, and

00:33:41
and asked like, Hey, how can I pray for

00:33:43
you?

00:33:44
I've had Muslims kind of struggle

00:33:46
with that because the idea that like, well, we don't pray

00:33:49
to a lot to receive things.

00:33:52
And this isn't all of them, of course, but some Muslims would even say I

00:33:54
don't want you to just pray for me so that I get something and it's like,

00:33:58
well, no, that's not the point, right?

00:34:00
The point is, let's Revere and adore and worship God,

00:34:03
but

00:34:04
he does

00:34:04
want good

00:34:05
things for

00:34:05
us.

00:34:05
And he wants us to bring our petitions to him and our needs

00:34:08
to him because he is our father.

00:34:11
And, you know, once again, kind of going back to God would never

00:34:15
have a son is like, they don't look at Allah as their father.

00:34:18
They, they look at him as God, as, as Allah, as, as, as the high

00:34:23
one, who's worthy of worship and that if I want to be in paradise

00:34:28
one day that I'll submit to him

00:34:30
as

00:34:30
a

00:34:31
far and

00:34:31
distant king

00:34:32
and So I hate to speak generally in that sense, because of course there,

00:34:35
there are Muslims who, who, who are more personal and how they view a

00:34:40
lot, but generally they, they look at the Christian image of who God is and

00:34:45
say, no, you guys have them all wrong.

00:34:47
He, he's not.

00:34:48
He's not concerned with your day to day life.

00:34:51
He's not concerned with becoming one of you and redeeming you from your sin.

00:34:55
You have to submit to him and please him.

00:34:58
And ultimately that's why the communication of the gospel can

00:35:01
be so tricky because yeah, like I said, we, we, we use the same names.

00:35:05
We use a lot of the same words, but ultimately who, the

00:35:08
question of who and what is

00:35:09
God is so different and it can make things really

00:35:12
difficult to, to communicate with them.

00:35:14
I actually do think Christians need to get a more holistic view of that.

00:35:18
Like we we greatly

00:35:19
lack

00:35:21
The

00:35:21
call to submission and obedience we do buy too much into cheap grace and,

00:35:26
and therefore validate their, their

00:35:28
claims about us, but that doesn't make us wrong about the gospel.

00:35:32
And, and ultimately that's what I think is, is the, the invitation

00:35:35
to the Islamic world, which is, no, there's a, there's a fuller and more

00:35:39
beautiful understanding of who God is.

00:35:41
And what he's done for humanity, and it's found in the person of Jesus, who you

00:35:46
say was just a prophet pointing towards pointing towards submission to a law.

00:35:51
Yeah.

00:35:51
Mike: Islamic

00:35:52
faith seems to me and I haven't studied

00:35:55
Jeremy: it nearly

00:35:55
as

00:35:55
much

00:35:55
as

00:35:55
Mike: you

00:35:56
have.

00:35:56
so I'm really curious if

00:35:57
this seems

00:35:57
accurate to you,

00:35:58
but

00:35:58
it seems

00:36:00
like

00:36:00
what

00:36:00
you would

00:36:00
get if

00:36:00
you

00:36:01
took Christianity?

00:36:02
Removed

00:36:03
the

00:36:04
cross.

00:36:05
and then

00:36:06
let

00:36:06
it

00:36:07
develop in the hands of mankind for 150 200

00:36:12
Jeremy: years.

00:36:13
Yeah.

00:36:13
I mean, I, I think you're probably like, kind of onto something there.

00:36:17
I think if you take the cross.

00:36:19
And the resurrection, of course, out of Christianity, you

00:36:23
really just have a new branch

00:36:24
of

00:36:24
Judaism,

00:36:25
, and so you find yourself with a lot of law and you find yourself with a lot

00:36:29
of, like, just trying to please God.

00:36:31
Have you ever read the cross of Christ by John

00:36:33
Stott?

00:36:34
Mike: No

00:36:35
Jeremy: You would, you would really like it because you like Anglican

00:36:38
theologians and he just talks about how Christians have really forsaken the weight

00:36:44
of the cross and the work of the cross that we find kind of this.

00:36:50
Even bigger emphasis on the resurrection once you really understand the cross.

00:36:54
And so when you think about Islam, and then you also think about a cross

00:36:58
list Christianity is, yeah, you end up with like, Oh, it's really all

00:37:03
about what I can do then when the cross and the resurrection actually

00:37:06
show us that you can't do anything.

00:37:08
Right.

00:37:08
Paul in Galatians talks about how the law was a tutor, you know,

00:37:13
it pointed towards our need for God's rescue God's redemption.

00:37:18
And so, yeah, so I think, yeah, I think for Christians to imagine what it would

00:37:21
be like to not have Jesus in the cross and the work of the resurrection and what we

00:37:27
received from God in those things, that's, yeah, I mean, that's the state of, of

00:37:32
not just

00:37:33
Muslims, but

00:37:34
I

00:37:34
think that's, that's what we have to offer.

00:37:36
You know, that's the message of

00:37:37
the

00:37:38
Mike: across the US, right?

00:37:38
So you mentioned

00:37:39
Does the Quran have stories of Jesus, like the gospels

00:37:44
Jeremy: of

00:37:44
him

00:37:44
walking and

00:37:45
talking

00:37:45
and

00:37:45
doing,

00:37:46
I mean, not a ton, not a ton.

00:37:47
I mean, so they talk about, Yeah, they talk about him as a baby, and then

00:37:51
they, they talk about him in, in his ministry, like what the gospels, but

00:37:55
yeah, I mean, but their mention of Jesus and their mention of Christianity

00:37:59
is anytime, usually, usually if Jesus or, you know, the book, what would

00:38:06
they usually refer to Christians and Jews as the people of the book?

00:38:10
Usually those things are mentioned to further validate the message of the book.

00:38:15
The Quran or what the Quran didn't exist at that point, but the message

00:38:18
of what they call the UMA, which is the collection of the early Muslims.

00:38:23
Yeah.

00:38:24
So, so, so, so, so Issa Issa is a signpost.

00:38:29
In

00:38:29
the Quran for Muhammad

00:38:32
and

00:38:32
the

00:38:33
message

00:38:33
of

00:38:33
Allah that's

00:38:34
being

00:38:34
recited

00:38:35
in the Quran.

00:38:36
Yeah.

00:38:37
This is the problem.

00:38:37
Exactly.

00:38:38
Exactly.

00:38:38
I mean, the, the role that Jesus plays in Islam is the role

00:38:43
that

00:38:44
Moses played or David played, or, you know, pick, pick a old Testament prophet.

00:38:49
It's pointing towards something greater to come.

00:38:52
And that ultimately, like they even look at the New Testament

00:38:55
where Jesus says, Hey, there's going to be one that comes after.

00:38:57
Me who's going to bring comfort and Christians would

00:39:00
say, that's the Holy spirit.

00:39:01
A lot of Muslims say he was talking about Muhammad and so they view Muhammad as

00:39:06
the highest prophet, the last prophet.

00:39:08
So, yeah.

00:39:09
So, so

00:39:10
Mike: a

00:39:10
conversation with

00:39:11
a

00:39:11
Muslim

00:39:12
Should

00:39:12
the goal

00:39:13
Of the conversation.

00:39:15
as we attempt to reach them with the gospel, be to point out these

00:39:20
differences in, between Esau and Jesus?

00:39:23
Or

00:39:24
Jeremy: I think, I think in some sense, you're going to

00:39:26
have a

00:39:26
hard

00:39:27
time

00:39:27
if

00:39:27
you're, if you're avoiding that, you know what I mean?

00:39:30
But , I think it can get very argumentative and you can put somebody on

00:39:33
the defensive by, you know, kind of like

00:39:35
when you were

00:39:36
a

00:39:36
kid

00:39:37
find the 10 differences

00:39:38
between these two pictures

00:39:39
kind of thing.

00:39:40
What I prefer to do is just realize most Muslims as, as most non

00:39:45
believers have not read the Bible.

00:39:47
And so I firmly believe that the

00:39:50
best

00:39:50
thing

00:39:50
is

00:39:50
just,

00:39:51
are they willing to read the Bible with you?

00:39:54
And.

00:39:55
If they are, then show them who Jesus actually was and

00:40:00
allow the Holy Spirit to do

00:40:01
the work

00:40:02
of

00:40:02
convincing.

00:40:03
Now you're going to be there to help navigate some of the questions

00:40:06
and, and point out, okay, this is who Christians actually say Jesus

00:40:11
is and was and, and then just prayerfully walk them through that.

00:40:16
Now there will be times

00:40:17
Mike: for.

00:40:18
Jeremy: You know, debate and that's where apologetics and things like

00:40:20
that comes in and understanding.

00:40:22
But because, you know, because most of us aren't textual critics,

00:40:26
Mike: like

00:40:26
we're not

00:40:27
Jeremy: Greek and Hebrew scholars and things like that.

00:40:28
I try to, avoid getting too deep into the validity of the

00:40:33
Quran versus the validity of the

00:40:34
new Testament.

00:40:35
Even though, I mean, the new Testament greatly wins out in that, in, in like the

00:40:39
historicity and the validity of the texts.

00:40:42
But at the end of the day, I think because most of us, the whole point is.

00:40:45
I want this person to know Christ if they're

00:40:47
willing,

00:40:48
, introduce them to him through the word.

00:40:50
If they're not willing, then that doesn't mean you're not that

00:40:53
you're done with a person, but.

00:40:55
You know, I mean, that

00:40:56
person, we

00:40:56
would say

00:40:57
that person's

00:40:57
probably

00:40:58
not

00:40:58
a

00:40:58
green

00:40:58
light

00:40:59
for

00:40:59
the gospel.

00:40:59
You know what I mean?

00:41:00
And continue in a relationship, continue having those conversations.

00:41:03
But if somebody is willing to sit down and read the scriptures with you, then that's,

00:41:08
I mean, that's, that's the beginning of hopefully what will be a fruitful journey

00:41:11
is to them

00:41:12
going from Issa to,

00:41:14
to

00:41:14
Jesus

00:41:15
to, to Yeshua, to use his, you know, Arabic name.

00:41:18
But you know, And really beginning to understand, okay, no, he,

00:41:21
he died for humanity took on the curse and was raised again.

00:41:26
And I can be forgiven now.

00:41:28
And that was the whole point of that conversation, which is trying

00:41:30
to get our friend there in the coffee shop to understand like,

00:41:33
no, your sins can be forgiven now.

00:41:35
And you can live a life of freedom and liberty still submitting to God, but being

00:41:41
known by him and knowing him in return.

00:41:44
And that's the invitation to the

00:41:45
Mike: to the Islamic world.

00:41:48
Jeremy: So if

00:41:48
Mike: there's a Muslim listening to this who I would say, if

00:41:53
somebody's listening to this and they

00:41:57
Jeremy: of it at this point.

00:41:58
Is there anything that you would say directly to them?

00:42:00
I would, I would say, I mean, if somebody is listening to this and they come

00:42:04
from a Muslim background, I mean, along

00:42:07
Mike: Muslim,

00:42:07
Jeremy: know, a tremendous amount of resources there was an, there was

00:42:10
an apologist, an author named Nabil Qureshi who wrote, Tremendous book.

00:42:15
He was a, he was a Muslim and he was a very devout Muslim and he wrote a book

00:42:18
about his testimony of finding Christ called seeking Allah finding Jesus.

00:42:22
I would read that.

00:42:23
Yeah.

00:42:24
There is a a version of the Quran which is, is highly regarded not just within

00:42:30
Christianity but even most religious scholars would say that it's called

00:42:35
the Quran with Christian commentary, which was, is a, is a very faithful

00:42:40
translation of the Quran with Christian commentary written by a scholar named Dr.

00:42:44
Gordon Nicol who I've had who've actually had on the podcast many years ago.

00:42:48
But beyond that is if, if Christ is calling you To

00:42:52
know him,

00:42:53
look into those resources, but then also just find, find a

00:42:56
believer, find a Christian to walk through the Bible with you.

00:42:59
And if you can't, if you can't find that, then just open up to the gospel

00:43:03
of John and just start in John one and read about who Jesus actually

00:43:07
was, who he is, what he's doing now on our behalf and what he's calling you

00:43:12
to, which is to a deep relationship.

00:43:15
With god with allah, that goes far beyond just

00:43:18
Mike: submitting

00:43:19
to him

00:43:20
Jeremy: But actually

00:43:21
knowing

00:43:21
him

00:43:21
and being loved

00:43:22
by

00:43:22
Mike: him