When I was a young boy, I attended a
Methodist church with my family. At the same time, I had friends who
attended the local Baptist church. While I didn't understand all the
doctrinal and theological differences, I knew these differences were
significant enough that the two groups would not congregate
together. It seemed strange to me, but both belief systems claimed
to be right. I wondered even then if we shouldn't question ourselves
and explore or consider the views of others. After all, we,
ourselves, may be the ones in error.
As the years passed I realized that there are many hundreds of
Christian denominations, and thousands of independent Christian
churches in the United States alone. In addition, there are also the
so called "borderline" groups such as the Mormons, Gnostics, and
Jehovah's Witnesses. And then there are the non-Christian religeons
of Islam and Judiasm which also worship the One True Almighty GOD.
How are we tp sift through all the vast differences and arrive at
the truth? By diligently seeking to know God. (Hebrews 11:6) We will
not find truth by merely finding excuses to prove our own private
doctrines which are many times only the fabrication of men, nor by
finding excuses to disprove other peoples doctrines.
All of us, whether we admit it or not, look at the world and our
religeon through "colored glasses." We are trained by our life
experiences and our organizations and affiliations which we choose
to involve ourselves in to think and act in certain ways. These
"colored glasses" cause us to see distorted visions of reality. We
misinterperet, misrepresent, and fail to understand simple
scriptures. Thanks to our "glasses", we see things that are not
there, don't see things that are there, and call the truth a lie
because we can not see it for what it actually is.
I am reminded of a man who wrote a book several years ago. This
book was the hottest selling item in the Christian world for a time
even surpassing the Bible in sales. That man had figured out when
Jesus would return. He narrowed it down to three days in September
.... 1987. Obviously, his misinterperetations led him into error on
a grand scale.
This man was not the only Christian to lapse into error. Jim
Jones, David Koresh, and many others have gone down the same road.
Of course, Christians are not the only ones to misinterperet their
scriptures. The following are a few mistakes Muslims have made in
their understanding of the Koran.
First. Modern Muslims say that Muhammad was the last prophet of
God to mankind. That statement is wrong. The Koran does not say
that. Modern Muslims misinterperet the passage which states that
Muhammad is "the seal of the prophets." (Koran 33:40) To interperet
this passage to mean that Muhammad was the last prophet is
completely out of context with the entirety of the Koran. Elsewhere
in the Koran, Muhammad is said to be a prophet in the same manner as
Noah, Jonah, Moses, etc., but there is no hint of him being the last
prophet. (Koran 3:144, 6:50, 7:188) Properly interpereted, the
passage, "seal of the prophets," means that Muhammad bore the seal
of prophethood in that he was the messenger of God to his people, in
his time. Even some modern Muslim commentators have suggested that
to the Muslims of Muhammad's time, this passage was not taken to
mean that he was the last prophet.
Second. Modern Muslims say that Jesus did not die on the cross.
This is a misinterperetation of a passage in the Koran which states,
"the Jews did not kill Him, they only thought they did." (Koran
4:157) This same passage is sometimes translated as, "they did not
kill Him, but he was made to appear as another to them." Dispite the
obvious Gnostic implications of the latter version, {see the
Revelation of the Mystery of the Cross} the former seems to be more
prevelent. To interperet this passage to mean that Jesus did not die
is an error. We must remember that Jesus said, "No man takes my
life. I lay it down freely." So then, properly interpereted, the
Jews did not kill Jesus because He layed His life down. However, the
Jews did think that they killed Him. This can be the only possible
interperetation in light of Jesus own statement and the fact that
the Koran quotes Jesus as prophesying of His own death and
resurrection. (Koran 3:55, 19:33)
Third. Muslims say that Jesus is not the Son of God. (Koran
19:35) This is more of a false perception than a false doctrine. In
the Arab world of Muhammad's time, sons were a necessity. It was
through sons that Arabs would prosper, attain wealth, and have
security in their old age. Sons were so important that if a daughter
were born, many of the pagan Arabs would take the newborn baby girl
and bury her alive in the desert. So then, with this great
importance on sons, when an Arab was told that God had a son, it was
perceived as meaning that God must also need a son to to help Him
attain wealth or care for Him in His old age. Of course, this is
absurd. It is also interesting to note that the Gnostic writing
entitled "The Apocryphon of John", which was in circulation during
Muhammad's time, states emphatically that the Almighty God consorted
with a female divinity and Jesus was the result of their
procreation. The Koran denies this view. (Koran 72:3)
Let's look briefly at what the Koran does say about Jesus. He was
a man and a spirit sent from God. He was born to a virgin. He is
God's Word. He is the Messiah. And His followers will be above
others in the Day of Judgement. (Koran 4:171, 3:55)
Now then, as we can clearly see, diligence in our study of the
Scriptures is extremely important. As we study the scriptures and
consider the beliefs of other faiths, we must not be preoccupied
with looking for error in others, but rather we should look for
truth in other faiths while examining ourselves for error.
I encourage you to avoid books or articles written about others
by those of your own "camp." All too often, when someone writes a
book about another faith, denomination, or organization, it is in an
attempt to debunk them. Much of this type of foul practice is
comprised of conjecture, speculation, exaggeration, and even
fabrication. "The horses mouth" is a much more reliable source of
information and should be our primary source. Even then we should
look more to the foundational literature on which other beliefs are
based. As we have seen, anyone could potientially misinterperet the
truth. But through the grace of God and our diligent search, we can
come to a fuller knowledge of the truth of the Almighty God.
And now a word of warning. Some of the writings you will explore
contain error, heresy, and deception. So one might ask, "Why should
we read works of heresy, etc.?" Partly because we need to know our
enemy in order to be able to recognize his schemes. But our main
reason to study heresies is to learn the truth that the heresy was
based on. For most heresies begin with truth and are then
misinterpereted or exaggerated to a ridiculous extreme. So when
studying these writings, we should practice what one noted minister
has said and "Be as smart as the ole cow. Chew the hay and spit out
the sticks."
It is absolutely essential that we remain rooted and grounded in
an established standard of truth while pursuing other studies. For
me, that standard can be nothing other than the Bible. I,
personally, will not do any significant study outside the Bible
without going back to study of the Bible between those other
studies. For example, I would recommend beginning study with the
Bible, and then the Koran, and then the Bible, and then the Gnostic
writings, and then the Bible, and then the N.T. Apocryphal Acts, and
then the Bible. This firm foundation of established truth found in
the Bible must be maintained.
So why study anything outside the Bible? While the Bible
certainly is God's word, and is in itself enough for a person to
study, it does not contain all of God's words and therefore leaves
certain aspects of Him unrevealed. In much the same way that white
bread and bologna are enough to sustain life for our physical
bodies, the Bible is enough to sustain our spiritual life. But who
could be satisfied with only white bread and bologna? By no means
should we allow our physical stomach to be more important to us than
our spiritual stomach. Do not misunderstand, I am not trying to
belittle the Bible. I am merely attempting to point out the vastness
of the wonderous riches of the Divine, Supreme, Almighty God of the
Universe.
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16,17)
"There are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they
were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could
not contain the books that would be written." (John 21:25)
"And if all the trees in the earth were pens, and the sea, with
seven more seas to help it, (were ink), the words of Allah could not
be exhausted. Lo! Allah is Mighty, Wise." (Koran 31:27)
This article is written in the Name of Jesus Christ.
It
has been posted for your use by,
Reverend Bill McLean.
