Thanks for your reply, it’s much clearer now where you are coming from and the concerns you have expressed are entirely reasonable. I agree that there is a clear question here, which is, is the God of the Koran the same God as the God of the Bible. The strange answer is, yes and no. In some ways yes, in some ways no. If you take all the attributes of God (to make it simple we can use “names”) that are described in the Koran, and compare these to the names or attributes of God in the Bible, there is a very high correspondence. Plenty of research has been done on this. At the same time, there are plenty of attributes of God in the Koran that are totally unbiblical, and plenty of “noise” and distortion as well.

Now, let’s lay the right starting point by saying that none of us has a perfect knowledge of God, or of Jesus, nor a perfect understanding of salvation (and let’s not forget that the early church did not end up agreeing on the divinity of Christ for many decades, and on the trinity for nearly 400 years). So all of us, true Christians, are worshiping our concept of who God is, which is distorted to one degree or another. However, our loving Father accepts this worship if it is in Spirit and in truth – not in perfect truth, but enough truth to hit the “target” so to speak. I don’t know how else to put it. God accepts our worship, and we are saved, even though our understanding of who he is is less than perfect.

So the question becomes, how accurate does your theology need to be in order to get saved. Here is where the contention usually begins. On the one hand, you’ve got your typical American Evangelicals and cult watchers who, with the best of motives, define things very narrowly in seeking to defend sound doctrine. But sound doctrine is important for growth, but not necessary for salvation. All that’s necessary for salvation is faith in the finished work of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. And indeed, our understanding of who Jesus is can also be less than perfect – Abraham was saved by faith by just knowing that somehow God could attribute righteousness to him not on the basis of works. In other words, God’s requirements for the BASIC KNOWLEDGE of truth that you need to be saved, appears to be very broad. There are many examples from Scripture to illustrate this, both OT and NT.

So the question then becomes, can people from a Muslim background discover enough truth about God from the Koran and from natural revelation and reason (and often dreams as well) to lead them to a salvation experience and an ongoing walk with the Father though Jesus. I think the answer is yes they can (and many experiences and testimonies bear this out), but if they don’t then move on from just the Koran, they will never grow as Christians.

Interestingly, when Muslim converts testify that they saw Jesus in a dream, it usually includes the fact that He calls Himself Isa, and doesn’t feel the need to say “I’m not the Isa of the Koran, I’m the Isa of the Bible” – both Jesus and the Muslims seem comfortable that it’s one and the same person – albeit that any such convert usually ends up seeking a new testament and reading it to learn more about the Isa that appeared to them, and thus does their journey of discipleship start.

I’m often reminded of Muslims when I read of the Jews (and Pharisees in particular) in the New Testament as they face a similar dilemma. They are in a religion that has an understanding of God, but it’s a religion of works and there is no salvation in it. Unless they repent of dead works and trust in Jesus/Isa/Yeshua, they can’t be saved. The problem is the ones who are more committed to the religion than they are to the truth – just like the Jews of Jesus’ day, they end up opposing the work of God while thinking they are doing him a service.

I have rambled a bit here but I trust that what I’m saying makes sense. A good book on the subject of extra-Biblical cultural revelation being a foundation for the Gospel is Don Richardson’s “Eternity in their Hearts”. There are probably some good books that talk specifically about Islam, but I don’t have any and I’m not an expert on Islam, I’m just approaching the issue applying the same principles that apply generally in missiology.

Sorry if I have bored anyone!!

Blessings,

Mark

Let’s not make the mistake that some missionaries have in the past, and require something of these new followers of Jesus, that Jesus has not required of them.

As for whether you can use the term “Allah” to pray to the God of the Bible… every morning 100 million Arabic speaking Christians across the Middle East get up and have their quiet times, read the Bible (in Arabic) and pray to Allah the God and Father of Isa al Massih (Jesus the Christ) – as they have done for well over 1000 years. Are you gonna try and tell them they are wrong? If so, on what basis? Korean Christians pray to Hananim the God and Father of Yesu… Chinese Christians pray to Shang Ti… and when I pray I use “God”, “Lord” and a few other non-Hebrew, non-Greek terms that my father in heaven seems quite comfortable with… because my heart language happens to be English.

Perhaps more importantly, God is able and willing to use latent revelation of the truth in ANY culture in order to lay a platform for the establishment of a relationship with Him through Jesus. If you can’t use the Koran for that, then Paul should not have quoted ancient Greek poetry (which had religious value in that culture) on Mars Hill in Acts 17 – but he did.

We need to heed the conclusions of Acts 15 – not to lay upon converts from other cultures a burden that the Gospel does not lay upon them – including the burden of transitioning to different (and culturally irrelevant) forms.