Mobile device - Print - Bottom

Home -- English-1 -- English-2 -- BIK01 -- Step 109 - Application of these findings in ministry

Previous Step -- Next Step

109 - OMISSION EXAMPLE 2: Application of these findings in ministry

---

a) When responding to Muslim missionaries, who try to win you over to Islam, you could ask: “Why should I leave my Bible and follow the Koran? The Bible includes many clear geographical details to help me understand, where God acted, while the Koran hardly ever gives any geographical information, for me to understand where Allah acted. I prefer to stick with the clarity of the Bible.”

b) In sharing the Gospel with Muslim seekers, it is helpful to point out, that God in his love came to us in his Son Jesus Christ to live among us as our Immanuel. This is why after the resurrection, if you believe in Christ, you will live with God in heaven, where he will be our Immanuel. We will not end up in a sensual garden on earth far away from God, but we will have direct fellowship with him in heaven as his children partaking in his glory and power. Because God became our Immanuel in Christ, he wants to be our Immanuel for eternity in heaven. Believe in the Gospel of Christ and you will have the right to this privilege too.

c) When you do follow-up among new believers coming from Islam, it can be helpful to learn verses like this one by heart: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) Explain to them that this verse reveals the humility of God, which allowed him to plant a garden in Eden and later on to become our Immanuel in order to save us by dying for us on the cross.

d) When helping committed disciples from a Muslim background grow spiritually, you can give them a Bible with maps in it and encourage them to search and look for the places, which the Bible mentions, so that they can appreciate the geographical clarity of the Bible and help them get out of the geographical fog of the Koran, in which they formerly lived.

e) When preaching to and teaching groups of believers coming out of Islam, it is helpful to trace the many verses in the Bible, describing God as Immanuel, living among his people in the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple. Show them how this is reflected in the New Testament description of Christ as our Immanuel and the church constituting a living temple of the Holy Spirit, in which God is present. Also point out, that God's humility made this possible, a character of God totally missing in the Koran.

f) Finally, in warning Christians with little exposure to Islam, you can use the two opposing characters of God contrasted above: the God of the Bible is humble, planting a garden in Eden and becoming flesh in Jesus Christ to save us; but the God of the Koran is proud and anything but humble. Therefore, he did not plant a garden in Eden nor did he become flesh in Jesus Christ to save us. These two cannot be the same. There are two incompatible spirits at work in the Bible and the Koran. If you mix them up, as is done sometimes in the Western world, bringing about some kind of “Chrislam”, you will destroy the message of the Bible.

Mobile device - Print - Top