Tonight, I tell you why it's time to dispel the myth that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
While Abrahamic seed might bond us, our theologies — as they pertain to the nature of God, our duties to Him, and how to treat our enemies — put us in separate camps of self-quarantine.
Then, I bring you exclusive and unseen footage from The Rebel's trip to Israel: Two in-depth interviews with insiders on the topics of Middle Eastern geopolitics, and Israeli high tech.
Plus we've got your weekly Quote of Honour!
Terry: I have enjoyed our dialogue. You have given me some food for thought and I will continue to study and see what I come up with. No doubt we will cross paths again – I look forward to it:) God is using you to sharpen me up!
And Tammie, this “straying from the original topic” can be very enlightening for all of us because it can bring up issues and dialogue that can be very edifying. Thanks for your thoughts as well.
I fully agree. But the Old Testament (OT) is used for the most part in the New Testament (NT) to authenticate Jesus Christ. On the road to Emmaus, after His resurrection, Jesus confronted two of his disciples and, in order to clear up their lack of understanding of the meaning of His death and resurrection, what did He do? “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”(Luke 24:27) He went back to the first books of the Hebrew Scriptures – the Pentateuch or Law – and explained through all the Prophets as well, all about Himself and how that all tied together with His death and resurrection. In verse 32 these same men spoke about how their hearts burned within them as He explained the Scriptures to them.
So yes, the Old Testament is the authoritative word of God, and is revered along with the New Testament by all Christians. God teaches us throughout the OT about His character and His faithfulness to His people. But the whole Bible must be seen as the progressive revelation of God, and pointing to the Gospel (even starting right in Genesis 2 with the concept of “rest”, which weaves through Scripture until we get the clear picture of its fulfillment in Hebrews 4). We interpret the OT through the eyes of the NT, not the other way around, simply because of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection. The Law had a place, even in the life of Jesus and his family, but the Law has been fulfilled and made obsolete in light of the grace of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus (Hebrews 8:13). The Church, consisting of born again Jews and Gentiles who follow Jesus, is now the bride of Christ.
I can only hope and pray that you and others will be inspired to dig into the Scriptures, both Old and New, in order to see the tremendous depth of the revelation of God which is in there in Christ Jesus.
God bless!
Christians are people of the book, the Bible, so anything theological should stem from the Bible, not from our imaginations or desires. After all, the apostle Paul was evaluated by his faithfulness to the Scriptures, the Old Testament (OT), by the Bereans (Acts 17:11). Notice that his preaching throughout the New Testament (NT) was focused on the resurrection of Jesus, so there was a connection between the OT and the resurrection of Jesus. All who claim to be Christians should be evaluated in what they believe and promote by the Bible itself, me included!
Terry – You wrote: "The binding of Issac was the explicit rejection of human sacrifice, " I do not know where you found that explanation in the Bible. Could you give me a reference, please. If you read Genesis 22 and Hebrews 11:17-19 you will find that the whole incident concerning Isaac was a demonstration of Abraham’s faithfulness to God, and a foreshadowing of the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ – the lamb of God. The whole incident had a future messianic application.
Terry – You wrote: “They worshipped the Creator of all things before Jesus and they worship Him now.” The pre-incarnate Christ, the Word of God, was the Creator of all things!
John 1:3: “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”
Colossians 1:16,17: “For by him (”in" could be a translation here) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers, or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
Hebrews 1:10: (this is a direct reference to Jesus, the Son – see the previous 9 verses): “You, O Lord laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;” This is also a quote from Psalm 102, and the reference there was God.
So if the Jews reject Jesus and the New Testament, which they do, then they basically have rejected the true God who created the world. They have rejected His full revelation of who He is. They worship a god who demands keeping the law, when, in reality, Jesus fulfilled the law and provided salvation apart from the law (see Romans 3:20). They have rejected the Creator of the world. See my next comment to Cathy R for a little more to think about.
“In the old days (pre-Trudeau daddy) Canadians of all religions co-mingled, followed Canadian laws and western values. People in general put the more radical tenets of their religions aside in favour of civilized western society. "
Ditto that! I say ‘ditto that’, but we all know Islam is incapable of such co-existence. They say so themselves, quite plainly. Islam has nothing in common with Christianity, western values, democratic governance or individual freedoms. All the things we hold dear, fought and shed blood for. Why would we accept this evil into our house? There is no good reason why we should.
……And if we are smart we won’t allow any more of it. I would also say that if Muslims don’t want their theocracy insulted they should take it home and keep it there. The west isn’t going to accept it without a very large ongoing fight.
What I find fascinating is that the old testament is in the new, and new is in the old.
They then rejected the prophesied Messiah to come, meaning that they rejected the reality of God in Jesus Christ.
They have rejected the work of God in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
They are looking for a future Messiah, which means they reject Jesus as Messiah and God and are idolatrous in waiting for someone else.
God has come to them in the flesh and they have rejected Him – they have rejected God Himself! Who, then do they worship? We do Jews no good whatsoever by telling them that we all worship the same God. They all need to hear the Gospel and receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour. They need our love, which means we need to speak the truth to them about Jesus, and they need our prayers.
I suspect, from your quote of Samuel Jackson (he made a mess of the real biblical quote, as Tammie pointed out), that you wish Christians would not judge you or infringe on your “rights” or desires. All Christians want is true good health – physical, mental, and spiritual, for all people. I was a drunk, and I am glad that someone pointed me to Jesus, as He showed me the true path to that good health, both in this present life and the eternal life to come. No true Christian claims to be perfect – we know that we are all reconstruction/renovation projects.
Peter Alkerton; I won’t " move on from these ancient writings" because there is such a wealth of knowledge to be gleaned. Everything from the big bang theory (or not) to the seperation of church and state (see Moses father in law). There is always something new. But I have no desire to force anything on you against your will.
You of course are welcome to your opinion. We have a free country.
If I am wrong and there is no God as described in the Bible, then I have lost nothing in believing in Him throughout my life.
If there is a God as described in the Bible then all those who did not believe will lose everything, including their soul.
Quite a “roll of the dice” wouldn’t you say?
Samuel L Jackson wasn’t given the rest of it to say.
Which he quoted from the Bible. Written long, long ago.
From a Christian perspective, many in the 2000 years of Christianity have committed atrocities in the name of Jesus. The question is: Was this true Christianity They may have even thought that they were Christians, but in reality were not. What I would suggest that you do is to read about Jesus, which is what I did, which led to me becoming a Christian. I simply sat down with the Bible and read the first four books of the New Testament, the Gospels, which teach about Jesus’ life – what he did and what he said. This totally dispelled my previous understandings of him and Christianity. I saw a very different picture of what Christianity was. Then I continued to read about the beginnings of the Christian church, from Acts and the rest of the New Testament. What a contrast to what I had been taught before in the media.
There is a distinct difference between Mohammed and Jesus. Simply reading about their lives and reading what they said will demonstrate that very clearly. And, as a reminder, in the 20th century there were between 100-150 million killings around the world by atheist leaders, for the cause of atheism, by Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Rejecting “religion” and heralding atheism is a dead-end street. Just check out Jesus – you will pleasantly surprised!
That statement reinforces this statement: "Don,t no shit about religion,don,t want to. "
Which because of that ignorance leads to this statement, “The sooner all religions are gone like the dodo, the better off everybody will be”
Atheist and agnostic based cultures have many hundreds of thousands more people than religious cultures, but make sure you ignore that in your “I hate religions” diatribe.
When was the last time you saw Christianity kill people?
Make sure you lump all religions together. Fools cannot make the distinction.
In the old days (pre-Trudeau daddy) Canadians of all religions co-mingled, followed Canadian laws and western values. People in general put the more radical tenets of their religions aside in favour of civilized western society.
Enter Trudeau(s) and multi-culturalism: The encouragement of division instead of integration.
Every time Trudeau or any government leader talks about a religion’s domination, persecution, or favorability, they do society a disservice. Justin is encouraging religious tensions and likely future conflict instead of encouraging western values such as democracy, equality, and assimilation.
Let people have their preferred version of God, but encourage a society where religion is just something people do, like any other pastime or trait. Just because I go to church on Sunday, and you prefer Sunday morning football is no reason not to be friends if we have other things in common.
Time to make western civilized society the priority…again.
When I asked my grandmother about the religion in Saudi Arabia, she said something similar to this,“Many hundreds of years ago, a very wicked man tricked the people to believe in a false god. They still believe today. Our God is loving and merciful and we know this because he sent his only son Jesus to teach us; Jesus died on the cross & he was resurrected so that our sins could be forgiven. We get to know God through Jesus. Don’t you worry, you are not going Saudi Arabia!” My grandparents agreed with me that I would live with them. My parents learned more about the cultural and “religious” practices and decided against a move to the Middle East. I know my grand-mother was the driving force in convincing my Dad to abandon the idea.
As as adult, I have researched Islam pretty extensively & my grandmother’s basic explanation when I was a child still holds true.
The totalitarian ideology of Islam is not a religion, and the tyrannical nature of the belief system is the opposite of God.
However, though we are mostly very clear on the fact that Muslims and Christians do not worship the same God, let us also be clear that the Jewish understanding of who God is is very different from the Christian understanding; hence, Jews also worship a different God from Christians. Jews and Christians are not “brothers”. Christians are followers of Jesus Christ, born again of the Holy Spirit. Neither of these truths apply to Jews.
Jesus made it very clear himself (after talking about being born again in John.3:3-5) in John.3:16-18: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the the name of the only Son of God.”
Jesus himself is very clear that ALL stand under condemnation unless they believe in the Son of God – him. Both Muslims and Jews reject Jesus (both reject him as the Son of God, as the Messiah/Saviour, and his resurrection) therefore they all stand under condemnation. Jesus also said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.”(Jn.14:6) This is very exclusive!
The teachings of the Bible are very clear that Christianity is the only true religion, that eternal life is exclusive to Christians, and that Jesus is the only way to get there. The real Jesus is not some watered down version, like a prophet of Islam or wise teacher of Judaism. It is the Jesus of the Bible. Both Jews and Muslims need prayer that they will respond to Jesus and be saved. Otherwise their eternal destiny is hell.
And remember – if you disagree, it is not me saying this – it is Jesus himself as revealed in the Bible. You need to deal with him!