Dear EFC subscribers:
This month I have gotten a lot of question, both from Muslim critics of Christianity and from believers who are trying to respond to such criticisms. The main content of this newsletter will be a few of these Q & As. They are at the end of the newsletter. Enjoy.
Church Planting:
My wife Jan and I are planning on leading a brand new church planting in Merced, California beginning summer/fall of this year. We invite you to consider joining us in the wonderful opportunity of the Christian Adventure. We now have a web site, through which you can get some information and contact me if you are interested at john.oakes@gcccd.edu or at our website. http://mercedchurch.com
Coming up:
I will be teaching a class on the History of Christian Hermeneutics at the ICOC teacher’s conference in Orange County, CA Thursday 2/24 at 2:00. The conference is titled The Art of Scripture Reading. I will upload the notes to the web site, but want to encourage you to consider attending this really great conference. Here is the website for information or to register: http://icocteacherconference.com
Also, I will be teaching a 14 hour New Testament Survey class for the Pacific Southwest Ministry Training School. The first four hours will be taught on Friday/Saturday 2/18-19. I will be uploading the notes, power point and the audio on 2/20, so be looking for the material.
New Materials:
There is a lot of new material at the web site. I am in the middle of a four-part class for campus students on the Book of Daniel. Here is the link: Book of Daniel The last class will be on 2/17.
Also, I am in the midst of a three-part, six-hour class on Church History. The last class will be this coming Saturday at 9:00 PST. You can register here register for CH class or you can access notes, power point and the audio at Church History Class
I have now finished a series of seven sermons from the Psalms. Notes, PPT and audio are available Sermons on Psalms
Also, a new class which offers a perspective on Christian unity from a church history perspective is available. Christian Unity and Church History.
Q & As regarding Islam and Christianity:
Question:
What writings should be called God’s word? The words which are literally said by God himself? Muslims claim that the Koran contain God’s words, not the words of Muhammad. His words are separately recorded in Hadith. Christians claim that every word in the Bible is inspired but the fact is: there’s difference between revelation and inspiration. Revelation is absolute, inspiration is suppositional. This is because revelation comes via an angel. There is no possibility of making a mistake for the angel. However, as the heart has relation to the mind and to the evil commanding the soul, it is affected by them. Therefore, mistakes may occur in inspiration. What do Christians say?
Response:
Christians say what the inspired Bible says with regard to its revelation and inspiration. 2 Tim 3:16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and in profitable for teaching, reproof, and training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be fully equipped for every good work.” In other words, the entire accepted canon of Scripture, including the Old and the New Testament are fully inspired by God, and are therefore authoritative for belief and practice to the Christian. Also, there is 2 Peter 1:19-21 which tells us that, because of the myriad of fulfilled prophecies in the life of Jesus, and because of his miracles, we now “have the word of the prophets [the Old Testament] made more certain.” In other words, the detailed prophecy fulfillments of Jesus are solid evidence supporting the belief in the inspiration of the Bible. Peter goes on to declare that the Bible writers (he is talking about the Old Testament, but this obviously applies equally well to the New Testament) “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” So, like Paul in 2 Timothy, Peter is making the verifiable claim that the entire Christian Scripture is inspired by God. There is no issue of mistake here. Then there is Psalm 119:160. “All your words are true, all your righteous laws are eternal.” Here, the writer is referring to the Old Testament. Also, there is Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, where Paul says “And we thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as human word, but as it actually is: the word of God.” Again, we see the clear statement that what Paul said, including 1 Thessalonians, Romans, Galatians, etc., is the inspired word of God. It is the revelation of God directly to Paul, not through the intermediary of an angel.
Of course, the passages I just quoted are not EVIDENCE for inspiration. They are merely CLAIMS of inspiration, but the claim is clear. The Bible claims for itself full authority as revelation and inspiration. Of course, the Qur’an acknowledges this claim of Old and New Testament authority when it refers to these Testaments as ” injil.” For example in sura 5:46, the words about Isa (Jesus) are called gospel or injil. Muhammad considered these writings in the New Testament as authoritative, even if some Muslims today do not. This happens twelve times in the Qur’an. But, not only does the Bible claim that the Old and New Testaments are fully inspired–that they are the very words of God–but they also provide abundant EVIDENCE for this inspiration in such fulfilled prophecies as Micah 5:2, Isaiah 53:1-14, Zechariah 9:9, Daniel 9:24-25, Psalm 22:16-19 and so many more fulfilled prophecies. (see
EvidenceforJesus)These show (as God claims in Isaiah 42:9 in which God claims that in Isaiah and other prophecies he declares things to be true before they happen) that the Bible is due to divine inspiration. There is voluminous evidence for the revelation and inspiration of the Bible. I give much of this evidence in my book,
Reasons for Belief (www.ipibooks.com)
By contrast, although the Qur’an does claim for itself authority and inspiration, the evidence to support this claim is sorely lacking. There is no prophecy in the Qur’an fulfilled hundreds of years later. None. There are no public miracles by Muhammad which parallel Jesus walking on water, feeding and healing thousands and raising people from the dead. The claim for inspiration is found in the Qur’an, as it is in the Bible, but the evidence to support such a claim simply is not there. This is a big problem for Muslims, as they are well aware. This is why Muslims tend to attack the inspiration of the Bible–not because the evidence is not there, but because their own scripture lacks internal evidence for inspiration. This leads to insecurity on the part of Muslims, understandably. But, rather that provide such evidence from miracles and prophecy fulfillment, because it does not exist, they are left with only one option, which is to try, unsuccessfully, to undermine such evidence when found in the Bible. Their attempts only work when they are speaking to one another in a Muslim echo-chamber, but not in an open debate with Christians. They lose such genuine debates regularly. We put on such a debate several years ago “Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Which is the True Legacy of Abraham” which is available at
www.ipibooks.com In this debate Shabir Ally really struggles to provide any evidence whatsoever for the inspiration of the Qur’an. Why? Because he has none, other than questionable claims regarding numerology.
You claim that “inspiration is suppositional.” This is a claim, but on what do you base this statement? Who says that inspiration is suppositional? What I can say about this is that when the word “inspiration” is used by Bible writers, it is nothing suppositional at all. This is mere rhetoric on your part. Whether inspiration is suppositional or not is a matter of definition, I suppose, but what is clear is that the Bible claims that its inspired writings are the fully authoritative and the revelation from God. There are plenty of passages which prove this. You say that “revelation comes via an angel.” Who says? What authority do you have to simply declare that God’s revelation always and only comes by an angel? Muslims claim that the words of Muhammad come from an angel. Fair enough, but what is the evidence to support this? Do we have any such evidence? Were there people present in the room who saw this angel? The answer, of course, is no. Claims are one thing, but evidence is another. On this we have the word of Muhamad, but this is not evidence. And, like I said, who says that God can only reveal himself through angels? Did God speak to David (a prophet in Islam) through angels? What about Elijah? God spoke directly to Moses in the burning bush, as Muslims know. This seems like a rather weak argument to me. Let me repeat. 1. The statement that revelation comes only by angels is just that: a statement without evidence. 2. There is no evidence, other than his own claim, that Muhammad was spoken to by an angel.
You say that mistakes may occur in inspiration. Again, this depends on your definition of inspiration. Clearly, the Bible claims that it does not contain such mistakes (Psalm 119:160). The Bible is fully inspired in the sense that it is the very words of God, “as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” This is my answer to your important question.
John Oakes
Question:
Jer. 30:8-9 and Ezek. 34:23-27 clearly speaks about a king who will rescue the Jews from the hands of those who enslaved them. Obviously, Jesus did not fulfill these prophecies. Are these prophecies are made-up?
Response:
You say that Jesus “obviously” did not fulfill these prophecies. Forgive me, but this is not obvious at all. Let us look at these prophecies. “No longer will foreigners enslave them. Instead, they will serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.”
In this case, the prophecy is a rather “obvious” reference to Jesus who was descended from David, who was born in the City of David, Bethlehem. Jesus fulfilled 2 Samuel 7:14 in which God promised to David that he would never fail to have a descendant on his throne. Jesus us the ultimate king of kings. He is God-in-the-flesh. He did indeed save God’s people from slavery. Like Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him in John 8:31f, all who sin are slaves to sin. Those who believe in Jesus and put his words into practice are saved from slavery to sin. Slavery to sin is the worst kind of slavery. Jesus freed me from my slavery to all kinds of sins. I no longer serve foreign or domestic masters! I serve God! Moses saved Israel from physical slavery, but Jesus, the son of David, saves all (not just Israel) from spiritual slavery. If Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed. Galatians 5:1 tells us that “It is for freedom that you were set free.” Again, this is about slavery to sin and slavery to law-keeping, which is the worst kind of task-master.
The same can be said for Ezekiel 34:23-27. I have taught on this passage many times. It is a very clear prophecy about Jesus. “I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David.” Jesus is king who serves on David’s throne. He is the “son of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1) He is the “root of David” He is the one through whom God gave the Jews a new covenant (Ezekiel 34:25, Ezekiel 36:24-27, Jeremiah 31:31-34) as all of us know.
All of these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Not only did he rescue the Jews. He also rescued the Gentiles, as was prophesied many, many times in the Old Testament. Jesus also fulfilled Isaiah 49:8-9. He is the one who said to the captives, “Come out.”. And this king will also be a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6). Again, it is not “obvious” at all that Jesus did not fulfill these prophecies. I fact, dare I say, it is quite obvious that he did! He did so in fantastic and wonderful ways. Just because some Jews and Muslims do not understand what God is saying to his people, does not mean that it is not clear that these passages refer to the saving work of Jesus of Nazareth.
John Oakes
Question:
How should we understand Ezekiel 23? How should we respond to a Muslim who states that this passage is pornographic (especially Ezekiel 23:19-21) and uses pornographic language? How should we respond to a Muslim if he challenges us to read this passage in a sermon or in front of a child? Are all parts of the Bible inappropriate for children to read? What is the proper age for someone to be able to read the whole Bible (including Ezekiel 23)? How should we defend Ezekiel 23 as the Word of God?
Answer:
I have preached from Ezekiel 23 and taught from Ezekiel 23 a few times. When I do so, I let the audience know ahead of time that there will be some language that will perhaps be inappropriate for small children. In this passage God is describing the absolutely disgusting sins of the Jewish people with very strong language. Sin is gross. Sin is disgusting. Sin will send us to hell. The idolatry of the Jews was an abomination. God tells this to his people using graphic descriptions.
No, this is DEFINITELY not pornography. I believe that you and I both know what pornography is, and this is not pornography. Pornography is the presentation of sexual material for the purpose of creating sexual arousal. If you read Ezekiel 23 you will surely agree that this is NOT pornography. Not at all. Not even close. It describes the disgusting idolatry and rebellion of the Jews in very strong terms. I do not hesitate either to read these passages to adult audiences and to preach them. But, I would not do so with five year old children in attendance. We can talk plainly about sex without sinning or being pornographic. Adults will certainly get the point of Ezekiel 23. This criticism by Muslims is not sincere at all. It is an examples of Muslims reading the Bible, not to understand it or learn from it, but to find reasons to criticize. Such criticism is not at all sincere.
What is the appropriate age to read the whole Bible? Well, what is the appropriate age to talk to children about sex? Is it sinful to talk honestly about sex? No, it is not. I believe that any young person who is old enough to read and understand the entire Bible (typically 12-15 years old) is mature enough to read Ezekiel 23. No six year old child reads the whole Bible. By the time a person is old enough to read it, they are also old enough to read Ezekiel 23. This is a non-issue with which Muslims are insincerely simply trying to make trouble.
John Oakes
Question:
The Koran says the same things that God said to the Jews which the Major and Minor Prophets proclaimed. For e.g. 1) Hearts hardened (compare Quran 2:74 with Ezek. 3:7, Zech. 7:12) 2) Be Kind to orphans & don’t shed each other’s blood (compare Quran 2:83-84 with Isa. 1:17, 59:7) What is the Christian’s response to this?
Answer:
The evidence is that Muhammad had significant knowledge of Judaism and the Old Testament. The evidence further says that Muhammad had very limited knowledge of the New Testament, as much of what he said seems to fit more of things from the false/corrupt “gospels” such as Thomas than the New Testament, such as the false stories about the supposed miracles that the baby Jesus did. It is quite clear that Muhammad said things that he learned from the Jews, such as the stories of Abraham, Moses and David. It is not at all surprising that things said in the Qur’an are similar to what is found in the Hebrew Bible. Honestly, I do not see why a Christian has to explain this. This is exactly what one would expect.
John Oakes
Question:
Muslims says: God does not beget nor he has wife nor he has bodily form but prophetic books contains polytheistic concepts about God for e.g. 1. God has bodily form (Dan. 7:9) 2. God has sons & daughters (Isa. 43:6) 3. God treats Jerusalem/Israel as Wife (Isa. 54:5, Hos. 2:2). What’s your response?
Answer:
Muslims say a lot of things, and many (but not all!) of them are said from a very dishonest and unfair perspective. Let us not behave as these biased, unfair and disrespectful Muslims do–for example in this case. Here, the Muslim critic is obviously being disingenuous. Even this critic knows that the criticism is not a fair one.
First of all, not only does the Bible use anthropomorphisms, the Qur’an does as well. No one really believes that God has a hand or hair or even male or female genitalia. Any attempt by a Muslim to paint the Old Testament this way is dishonest. Of course, these are metaphors in the Bible, including anthropocentric ones. God reaches down his hand to lift us up, but he does so metaphorically. Sure, God allowed Daniel to have a vision of God in Daniel 7:9, but we all know that this is a vision. God does not have a physical body. To say that the Bible says that he does is clearly to deal dishonestly with the Scripture. For example, in the Qur’an sura 48 ayat 10 there is a passage about the hand of Allah. Of course, Muslims say that this is an anthropomorphism, and that Allah does not have a literal hand. Well, Christians say the same thing about their scriptures. What is good for one is good for another, but for a Muslim to find such passages in the Bible, when there are the same sort of passages in the Qur’an is hypocritical and evidence of simply trying to cast dishonest criticism. There are dozens of Scriptures in the Qur’an which ascribe human traits to Allah and many hundreds in the Hadith. There is an entire area of study in Islam to explain these anthropomorphisms, yet this Muslim person criticized the Old Testament for having these same things.
And by the way, The same can be said for these other passages as well. Of course, God does not have actual, physical sons and daughters. God the Father does not even have a body, and he is neither male nor female. He does not have a Y chromosome. To quote Isaiah 43:6 as evidence of this is really evidence of the dishonest spirit of this Muslim person. Just read the passage and you will see that the parenthood here is metaphorical, not literal. To claim differently, really, is to lie. Here, God says, “bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.” Here, clearly (and the Muslim critic know this, and thus the hypocrisy!), that this is talking about the followers of God, not actual physical children. Seriously!!!
God does treat Israel as a wife in some sense, by loving her and wanting a close spiritual relationship with her. What a beautiful metaphor! But is this Muslim person implying that the Bible says God wants to have sex with Israel? Really? Please, this is so disingenuous and, really, so dishonest and unfair, that the person who throws out this charge ought to be really embarrassed for their dishonesty.
God of the Bible does not have a bodily form, he does not have genetic, physical children and he does not have sex with people. Shame on this Muslim person for implying differently, and for willfully taking these passages out of context!!! Would he/she want us to do the same with the Qur’an (which is an easy thing to do). No.
John Oakes
