I said "Muslim-Friendly", not "Islam-Friendly". There's a difference. The Islamic Faith is diametrically opposed to the New Testament's teaching of God's grace shown to sinners through a sacrificed substitute. Instead, it's a religion of generalized grace that's fickle: arbitrarily administered by a god who requires 5 "Surahs"
[CHAIM is a Reformed and Calvinistic mission to Jews that also reaches Muslims with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. www.chaim.org ]
Muslims seek to merit God's favor by the performance of these 5 duties that must be done in order to be good Muslims: a Confession of Faith, a Ritual Prayer, Obligatory Alms, the Fast of Ramadan and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Do them all and hope for the best, and perhaps Allah the All-Merciful will be merciful to YOU, and be gracious enough to bring you to Heaven. Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. Because no one can know. Consequently there is no assurance of personal salvation as there is with New Testament faith. Unless of course you die in the performance of jihad, and in that case you go straight to Heaven. Otherwise, you just may go to the "other place" despite your 5 Surahs.
But World Missionary Press [wmpress.org]distinguishes between opposing Islam while being friendly to Muslims. Now how is that possible? Because World Missionary Press contextualizes the gospel for Muslims in its gospel tract "How to Know God" (in both Arabic and English): in other words, while sharply distinguishing Scripture's way of pleasing God from the Qu'ran's way, they still explain Christian doctrine in ways Muslims can understand.
For example: the title of one section reads: "Sacrifice Needed to Reconcile Us to God." The account of God telling Abraham to slay his son as a sacrifice is very important in Islam. And just as in Genesis 22, the Qu'ran says that God stopped him before he went through with it. In the Bible that son is Isaac. In the Qu'ran that son is Ishmael. "How to Know God" simply quotes the portions of Scripture that don't mention the son's name because they're trying to focus the reader's attention on the importance of the act of substitutionary sacrifice itself. Both accounts then mention the ram caught in the thicket as God's provided substitute. Then it uses other Scriptures that teach the importance of blood atonement using animals, and that God was pleased with such sacrifice. Incidentally, the Qu'ran also states the same thing.
The section right afterwards is entitled "Jesus Is The Lamb Provided by God," and uses that famous "substitutionary atonement" passage in Isaiah 53 that's been so effective in sharing the gospel with Jews:"He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth."
Isaiah 53 works with both Muslims and Jews. Dr. Richard Ganz, Jewish believer in Jesus and pastor of Ottawa Reformed Presbyterian Church who served on the faculty board of clinical psychiatry at Upstate Medical Center in NY, states that when he was first shown Isaiah 53 by a friend, he thought it was from the New Testament. Ganz states:
"Hans was obviously quoting to me from their Gentile Bible. I responded without a moment's hesitation: 'Anyone who was there at that cross could have written that stuff! What does that prove?' Hans handed me the Bible, and in a millisecond of receiving it my life was shattered. The name that I saw at the top of the page was Isaiah! Hans had been reading to me from my Bible, from my Hebrew Scriptures, and I felt as though someone had taken a sword and cut me to pieces. Hans then told me, as I sat with my eyes transfixed on that name, Isaiah, 'It was written 700 years before Jesus was born.' " [Dr. Richard Ganz, The Revival of a Rebel Jew [richardganz.com/rich-ganz-testimony.php]
The point is ... that the same text that's good for Jews is also good for Muslims. And "How to Know God" uses it.
The next section is entitled "Redemption Is Only By God's Provision". Here, the emphasis is on God's initiative and design, not man's, when it comes to sacrifice. God, being God, gets to decide what is and is not an acceptable sacrifice, and here, it deals with a controversial concept that the Qu'ran diametrically opposes: that Jesus actually died, and why He died. Isaiah 53 addressed that already, but here the tract elaborates with actual New Testament passages. Finally, the section entitled "The Birth of Jesus Announced" uses Luke 1:26 ff. This is important because it gives the account of the angel Gabriel. Muslims already believe in Christ's virgin birth, and they revere Gabriel; he's mentioned highly in the Qu'ran.
Hope this helps, in your personal and church Gospel witness to the world!
[CHAIM is a Reformed and Calvinistic mission to Jews that also reaches Muslims with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. www.chaim.org ]
Muslims seek to merit God's favor by the performance of these 5 duties that must be done in order to be good Muslims: a Confession of Faith, a Ritual Prayer, Obligatory Alms, the Fast of Ramadan and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Do them all and hope for the best, and perhaps Allah the All-Merciful will be merciful to YOU, and be gracious enough to bring you to Heaven. Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. Because no one can know. Consequently there is no assurance of personal salvation as there is with New Testament faith. Unless of course you die in the performance of jihad, and in that case you go straight to Heaven. Otherwise, you just may go to the "other place" despite your 5 Surahs.
But World Missionary Press [wmpress.org]distinguishes between opposing Islam while being friendly to Muslims. Now how is that possible? Because World Missionary Press contextualizes the gospel for Muslims in its gospel tract "How to Know God" (in both Arabic and English): in other words, while sharply distinguishing Scripture's way of pleasing God from the Qu'ran's way, they still explain Christian doctrine in ways Muslims can understand.
For example: the title of one section reads: "Sacrifice Needed to Reconcile Us to God." The account of God telling Abraham to slay his son as a sacrifice is very important in Islam. And just as in Genesis 22, the Qu'ran says that God stopped him before he went through with it. In the Bible that son is Isaac. In the Qu'ran that son is Ishmael. "How to Know God" simply quotes the portions of Scripture that don't mention the son's name because they're trying to focus the reader's attention on the importance of the act of substitutionary sacrifice itself. Both accounts then mention the ram caught in the thicket as God's provided substitute. Then it uses other Scriptures that teach the importance of blood atonement using animals, and that God was pleased with such sacrifice. Incidentally, the Qu'ran also states the same thing.
The section right afterwards is entitled "Jesus Is The Lamb Provided by God," and uses that famous "substitutionary atonement" passage in Isaiah 53 that's been so effective in sharing the gospel with Jews:"He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth."
Isaiah 53 works with both Muslims and Jews. Dr. Richard Ganz, Jewish believer in Jesus and pastor of Ottawa Reformed Presbyterian Church who served on the faculty board of clinical psychiatry at Upstate Medical Center in NY, states that when he was first shown Isaiah 53 by a friend, he thought it was from the New Testament. Ganz states:
"Hans was obviously quoting to me from their Gentile Bible. I responded without a moment's hesitation: 'Anyone who was there at that cross could have written that stuff! What does that prove?' Hans handed me the Bible, and in a millisecond of receiving it my life was shattered. The name that I saw at the top of the page was Isaiah! Hans had been reading to me from my Bible, from my Hebrew Scriptures, and I felt as though someone had taken a sword and cut me to pieces. Hans then told me, as I sat with my eyes transfixed on that name, Isaiah, 'It was written 700 years before Jesus was born.' " [Dr. Richard Ganz, The Revival of a Rebel Jew [richardganz.com/rich-ganz-testimony.php]
The point is ... that the same text that's good for Jews is also good for Muslims. And "How to Know God" uses it.
The next section is entitled "Redemption Is Only By God's Provision". Here, the emphasis is on God's initiative and design, not man's, when it comes to sacrifice. God, being God, gets to decide what is and is not an acceptable sacrifice, and here, it deals with a controversial concept that the Qu'ran diametrically opposes: that Jesus actually died, and why He died. Isaiah 53 addressed that already, but here the tract elaborates with actual New Testament passages. Finally, the section entitled "The Birth of Jesus Announced" uses Luke 1:26 ff. This is important because it gives the account of the angel Gabriel. Muslims already believe in Christ's virgin birth, and they revere Gabriel; he's mentioned highly in the Qu'ran.
Hope this helps, in your personal and church Gospel witness to the world!
