St. John Studies

In Today’s world, we hear so much about the Muslim faith, yet we don’t understand much about it.

From the Gotquestions.org website we get the basics: “In the seventh century, Muhammad claimed the angel Gabriel visited him. During these angelic visitations, which continued for about 23 years until Muhammad’s death, the angel purportedly revealed to Muhammad the words of Allah (the Arabic word for “God” used by Muslims). These dictated revelations compose the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book. Islam means “submission,” deriving from a root word that means “peace.” The word Muslim means “one who submits to Allah.”

Like I wrote yesterday, many Christians think “all faiths are the same and we are worshipping the same god anyhow”. On a basic level, we will discuss Islam today.  It is difficult to say much about a faith in 750 words but here goes.

Paul Little writes of the work that a follower of Islam must do: “heaven is achieved by living a life in which, ironically, one abstains from the things with which he will be rewarded in paradise.  In addition to this abstention, one must follow the Five Pillars of Islam:  repeating the creed, making a pilgrimage to Mecca, giving alms to the poor, praying five times daily and keeping the fast in the month of Ramadan.”

This sounds like a devout faith.

What about their god?

Allah is his name and we know that to try to portray him is a grievous error. Retribution from Muslims against Allah portrayal has been in the news headlines.  Bottom line: don’t do Allah drawings.

Where did Allah come from?

He came from the words recorded by the prophet Muhammad.

Muhammad is the founder and chief prophet of Islam and the source for the Quran. “Muhammad” – whose name means “highly praised” – was born in Mecca in 570 AD. His father died shortly before his birth, and he lost his mother at the age of six. Muhammad was then raised primarily by his uncle, for whom he worked as a shepherd. In his late 30’s, Muhammad took to regularly visiting a cave in Mount Hira, on the outskirts of Mecca, to seek solitude and contemplation. In 610, at the age of 40, Muhammad returned from one such visit telling his wife he had either gone mad or become a prophet, for he had been visited by an angel. The initially startled Khadija became his first convert. Muhammad reported that while in a trance-like state, the angel Gabriel appeared to him and said “Proclaim!” But like Moses, Muhammad was a reluctant prophet. He replied, “I am not a proclaimer.” The angel persisted, and the Prophet repeatedly resisted, until the angel finally overwhelmed Muhammad and commanded him: ‘Proclaim in the name of your Lord who created! Created man from a clot of blood. Proclaim: Your Lord is the Most Generous, Who teaches by the pen; Teaches man what he knew not.’ (Qur’an 96:1-3) After receiving Khadija’s support, and additional angelic visits, Muhammad became confident he had indeed been chosen as the messenger of Allah and began to proclaim as he had been commanded. In the beginning, Muhammad had few followers but in a period of need for leadership, Muhammad took political and military command of people on the Arabian peninsula. By 634, Islam had taken over the entire Arabian Peninsula. Within 100 years of Muhammad’s death, it had reached the Atlantic in one direction and borders of China in the other. This success was due in large part to the military and political abilities of Muhammad’s successors, the caliphs [Religion Facts Website, 2016].

Today the Muslim faith ranks second to Christianity with 1.6 billion believers.

Their faith is based on what Muhammad wrote about Allah in the Koran [their holy book].   Muhammad did not claim deity, teaching that he was merely a prophet of Allah.  In the pages of the Koran, we learn that Allah is set apart from man, responsible for good and evil.  Incarnation of Allah is impossible in the Muslim faith.  Why would god want contact with lowly man?  For the Muslim, the idea that Jesus was crucified on the cross is impossible.  How could God be defeated and punished by his creatures?

Did Muhammad know about Jesus? Is Jesus in the Koran?

Muhammad thought Jesus was a prophet, not God incarnate.

The Quran states that people (i.e., the Jews and Romans) sought to kill Jesus, but they did not crucify nor kill him, although “this was made to appear to them”. Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified but instead, he was raised up by God unto the heavens.

They have their own spin on our knowledge of God and His Son Jesus Christ.

Let me return to the quote “all faiths are the same and we are worshipping the same god anyhow”.

As you hear some basics of the Muslim faith, what conclusions do you draw?

Same God?

I don’t think so…

In yesterday’s post, I described my brush with Buddhism-Hinduism in college. Paul Little admits that the college student is most likely to encounter new faiths in the university atmosphere [unless they go to a strict church-based school].  New faiths are ok but they can make one question their Christian church upbringing.

One of the most common misconceptions about other faiths is the statement that I made in college that “all faiths are the same and we are worshipping the same god anyhow”.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Today, I will try to explain the basics of Buddhism and Hinduism [not very thoroughly, but I will scratch the surface]. Tomorrow I will discuss Islam and the following day I will explain in simple terms my understanding of Judaism.

Maybe the easiest way to explain these faiths is to begin with a discussion about God [since I refer to my God also I use the capital G]. For the Buddhist, God is wrapped up in the character Buddha, a man who taught his practice of the “middle way” [he tried to avoid extremes] sometime between the 4^th and 6^th century BCE.   As I referred to the character Siddhartha in yesterday’s post, Buddha taught that the proper life path was not in sensual indulgence extreme and not in severe asceticism extreme [asceticism is the avoidance of fulfilling anything but basic life needs].   The best life was someplace in between those extremes.  Buddha never claimed to be god.  In fact, he was agnostic about the concept of deity.

Paul Little states this about Buddha, “if God existed, the Buddha taught emphatically, he could not help an individual achieve enlightenment. Each person must work that out for himself.”

This I found to be true. Buddhism is what I would call a “works” religion.  You have to work at it to achieve a higher level of spiritual consciousness.  I have also found that it is a demanding religion.  You might think this strange but when the famous golfer Tiger Woods was caught having multiple marital affairs in 2010, I wondered what his path back to a better life would be.  Buddhism teaches of the pitfall of the sensuous life but there is scant mention of forgiveness when a person “sins”.  Look at the statement Woods made on the day he made his public apology for his indiscretions.  “Buddhism teaches that a craving of things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security.” He continued, “It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught” [CNN Website, 2010].  I always wondered where he found the way to admit his frail humanity, where he found the way to forgive himself and where he found his way to cleanse his soul.  I just don’t see it.

For the Hindu, the concept of god is very different. The idea of god is a force that resides in everything, from me, to my laptop, to the table that the laptop sits on.  Life is an endless transition as the god-force that resides in all things is in the process of change.

The focus is on process.

Nothing stays the same. A person is in a constant state of change as he or she matures.  Life is a path of good and evil and as humans we are to try to live the best life we can.  What is our reward at the time of death?  If life has been good, the reward is to graduate to a higher life form.  If life has been evil, the punishment is to be demoted to a lesser life form [reincarnation].

Paul Little says the “ultimate goal is for man to be reunited with the God in nirvana.”

Obviously, man wants to be reunited with the Hindu god and that is the incentive for living a better life. As I said above, the focus of life is on process because there is recognition that all life and all that is in life is transitory.  In essence the material world is an illusion, so why worry about anything but the god force that is in everything.  The Hindu is only concerned about Maya or the reality of the spiritual world.

I am going to stop here and ask this…

Do these conceptions of god, sound like the Christian God?

I don’t presume to say that they are wrong and our Christian God is better but I have to admit that as I scratch the surface of Buddhism and Hinduism, I don’t find much that I can relate to.

All faiths are the same and we are worshipping the same god anyhow.

My God and Buddhism… not the same.

My God and Hinduism… not the same.

Mr. Little lays it all on the line.

The greatest test of faith for the Christian is to believe that God is good.

The most common loss of a person’s faith occurs when we encounter evil and suffering and we can’t make sense of it all.

We feel we have to understand but that is the point. God never asks us to understand.  God never expects us to understand.  He knows why things happen but we are not capable of comprehending.

Why are we so limited?   We are too present-centered.  We are mired in the details of the tragedy.  We are overwhelmed by the evil acts of man.

We are just not intelligent enough. God’s ways are not man’s ways.

We are just left with the question “Why?”

God asks us to hold on. Paul Little writes “God never asks us to understand; we need only to trust Him in the same way we ask our child to only trust our love, though he may not understand.”

I know this is hard, especially for those of us who want all the answers. God won’t ever give us the full picture of why things have to be the way they are.  Helmut Thielecke “points out that a fabric viewed through a magnifying glass is clear in the middle and blurred at the edges.  But we know the edges are clear because of what we see in the middle.  Life, he says, is like a fabric.  There are many edges which are blurred, many events and circumstances we do not understand.  But they are to be interpreted by the clarity we see in the center—the cross of Christ.”

Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” One day we will understand, maybe when we join God after our life is over.

Right now, God asks us to trust that “all things work together for good” Romans 8:28.

Including the acceptance of suffering and the acceptance of evil and the coexistence of God.

Habakkuk 3:17-18 “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

Can we have the faith of Habakkuk? If we could, I believe that God would be pleased.

If we could, we would be able to get through the suffering and evil we encounter.

As believers, we eventually come to one very clear conclusion.

God is in charge…and I am ok with that.

Next week: Does Christianity Differ from Other World Religions?

Where is God when we experience the evil of the world?

He is right there with us…

I have posted ideas about the source of suffering, emphasizing that the source of suffering is not God; it is man. However, it is a common idea that when people suffer, God is uncaring.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Paul Little writes, when it comes to physical or mental suffering, “God is not a distant, aloof, impervious potentate, far removed from His people and their sufferings. He not only is aware of suffering—He feels it.”   Outside Lazarus’ tomb, in the face of death for a dear friend, Jesus “wept” with indignation. He wept over Jerusalem, and uttered a sad lament over her blindness and obstinacy. And still today He is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses” (see Mark 3:5; John 11:35, 38; Luke 13:34, Luke19:41). The writer to the Hebrews summed it up well, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).

As we near Easter week, we are confronted with the suffering of Christ on the cross.

We get it. As Christ suffered, so did God.

Dr. Myron Taylor on writing about God and suffering tells the tale of the medieval monk: “A popular monk in the Middle Ages announced that in the Cathedral that evening he would preach a sermon on the love of God. The people gathered and stood in silence waiting for the service while the sunlight streamed through the beautiful windows. When the last bit of color had faded from the windows the old monk went to the candelabrum, took a lighted candle and walking to the life-size statue on the cross, held the light beneath the wounds on Jesus’ feet, then His hands, then His side. Then, still without a word, he let the light shine on the thorn-crowned brow. That was his sermon. The people stood in silence and wept, every one knowing that they were at the center of a mystery beyond their knowing, that they were indeed looking at the love of God—a love so deep, so wide, so eternal that no words could express it and no mind could measure it.”

I have a son who is attending a family funeral for a young woman from his wife’s family, his wife’s cousin. I have talked to him and I have heard him say things that tell me he is struggling to make some meaning of it all. He wonders about why this woman has died so young.  He can’t fathom why this had to happen.  What is the purpose of it all?  I don’t have the answers.  I just told him to have faith that God is behind it all somehow.  God is the anchor that you have to hold onto when these things happen.  That is the way to get through these times.

I have gone through these times myself as many of you have. I have learned that God is right there, right in the middle of the sorrow.  Dr. Taylor states “When you climb the steep mountain, or walk through the dark valley, when your heart is aching, and your eyes are blinded with tears—you can count on it—God cares. You feel so shut out, so cut off, so alone. But you are not alone. Through the Holy Spirit God is present with you as He was present with God’s suffering people in Egypt, with Job in his trials and tribulations, as He was present with Jesus in Gethsemane and on the cross. ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’, is a promise you can count on. When the tragedies of life crash upon us, when shock and deep sorrow come to our lives, God’s great heart is the first to break. Our God is the God who suffers with us.”

Isaiah 53:3 “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem.  Hebrews 2:18  “Because He himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.” Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet He did not sin.”

These and many other scriptures from the Bible say it all…

God is not aloof.

God is right in the middle of what we are going through.

He feels our suffering. He offers His solace.  He shares His strength.

“Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac…God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins” [Hosea] “An enemy will overrun the land; he will pull down your strongholds and plunder your fortresses” [Amos].

I have been blessed. I have been reading the Old Testament with an interest I have never felt before. I have been stopped in the past with the boring nature of the details of laws, the recounting of endless genealogies and the cycle of sinful people, God’s admonitions, God’s punishment, repentance and then more sin.

Now I have a deeper appreciation.

I am reading in Hosea and Amos right now and I am amazed at the warnings of God.

He basically tells the people of Israel and Judah that they are going to suffer for their sinning. God is warning them about what is going to happen.  As you read the Old Testament, the warnings are repeated over and over.  I don’t know how many ways God can tell a people that suffering is going to come…

And still they ignore the warning.

What is the meaning for us today?

Today, we are living in New Testament times and the question arises: how could a good God send people to hell?

Paul Little has a very direct and clear answer. “God sends no one to hell.  Each person sends himself “[Little, 113].

Ezekiel 33:11 “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?”

God does not want people to suffer. God wants people to “straighten up.”  God wants people to “get it right.”

We need to believe it when God says in Jeremiah 29:11 “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

God has invested so much in us, trying to tell us what He wants, trying to instruct us in how to live life and knowing that we cannot give Him what He wants, God has given us the way to be forgiven, redeemed, cleansed and “made fit for heaven.”  All we have to do is accept God’s gift.

Mr. Little states “God has no option but to give us our choice.”

Matthew 23:37-39 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

We force His hand by our disobedience. As we see signs of a decaying standard of Godly living all around us in our culture, what are we going to do in response?  Are we going to join the people who are disobeying God’s commands?   Are we going to stand strong and try to do our best to push back the un-Godly trends that others are following?

You know the answer.

It is in your Bible. He expects it.  You had better try to do it.

If you don’t…well it is clear about what is going to happen.

From Amos: “I will crush you as a cart crushed when loaded with grain. The swift will not escape, the strong will not muster their strength and the warrior will not save his life…even the bravest warriors will flee naked on that day.”

That day when we will feel God’s wrath, that day when we bring punishment on ourselves.

Today’s post has been a challenge. I have been on a mountain with poor wifi coverage.  I have worked hard to get connected but now the problem has been solved.

In conversation with one of my travelling companions he related a couple of stories about good in the world. That’s where we will begin. Let’s paraphrase his thoughts.  A Godly man with many marketable skills has decided to give his life to ministry.  He and his wife have sacrificed and sacrificed to serve the local church.  He feels called to further his commitment and he decides he needs to go all in and become a pastor.  He is heading to seminary and has made all the right moves to fulfill the Lord’s calling and then he is stricken with a very aggressive cancer.  He has thousands who are praying for him, and his wife is sure that he will be healed.  He is not.  The cancer takes his life and the world has lost a very powerful man of God.

Why?

Did he not deserve to serve the Lord? Did he not deserve to live a Godly life so others could see?  Did he not deserve to have happiness in his newfound Godly purpose?

Yes he did; on all counts…but it was not God’s plan for that to happen.

Paul Little says this idea of good people getting rewarded is the thinking of man, not God. What as people do we expect?  Little cites Hugh Hopkins “a good God would reward each man according to his deserts and that an almighty God would have no difficulty in carrying this out.”  In other words, a good man will get a positive reward and let’s flip it over; an evil man will experience suffering because he deserves it.   Little says “would God be good if He were to deal with each person exactly according to his behavior?”

It just does not work that way.

What is at work here?

First of all, there is the assumption that the best part of the life we live is the comfort that we can have, the comfort that is the result of happiness. This is a human evaluation.  We want comfort and we want contentment.  We think that is the best thing for us in this life but what if God thinks otherwise?  What if God’s definition of happiness is discomfort?  For most of us, that would be unbelievable.  The idea that God would want us to have pain, the idea that God would want us to suffer, the idea that God would think that we would benefit from hard times.

Let’s get a bit personal. The greatest u-turn I ever made in my life was made when I was in the middle of the worst suffering I had ever experienced.  I was not happy; I was devastated.  But as I worked through my suffering I began to see a new way to live, a new power to draw upon, a new source for wisdom.  I began to work toward a new life and now as I compare where I am to those days, I realize that I have so much going for me.

What is this I speak of…some say it is God’s way of building my character.

Secondly, we have the pop religion idea of Karma.   Simply put, “what goes around comes around.”  Christians don’t believe like people of the Hindu faith [where Karma comes from] but some feel that a person gets his just reward.  If you sew evil, you will reap evil.  If you do good deeds, you will get good rewards.   Let’s take it further, like Job, if you are suffering it must be because you are experiencing what you deserve because you have been a bad person.  What a thing for Job’s friends to think, but they did think it.  Conversely, if you are living a good life, you must be a good person.

In the Bible, we encounter example after example [other than Job] where people suffer and they did not deserve it. Miriam gets leprosy because she challenges the authority of Moses [a man who does not wield authority with much confidence].  The innocent baby of David and Bathsheba dies because of David’s sin.  The man born blind and healed by Jesus was accused of sinning; that was why he was blind.  Little points to the eighteen people who were killed by the falling tower of Siloam; Jesus said they were not greater sinners than other Galileans.  These things happen and we ask why?  Did they deserve to suffer?

The Christian looks at the Bible and also at life and wonders is there a direct connection between deeds and suffering? Sometimes the connection is not clear.

Here is what we are left with: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord [Isiah 55:8]. And  “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law” [Deuteronomy 29:29].

When it comes to evil and suffering, we just don’t know.

We never will.

But God knows…