Right Left Whatever

We're Off to China, Happy New Year!

Amy and I are off to China on December 31, and will be back after January 14 (how much after depends on how much sleep we need to recover). If we have access to the blog from China, and we have a spare moment, I'll post from over there. In any case, my cousin Ann will be blogging in my absence.

Just before I go, a couple of quick links of some sites of interest I've noticed today:

Scripture-reading lessons from the Church Fathers.
I'm going to look at the Bible in this way, looking for Christ in the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments. Last year, I read the Bible in a dual-way: one reading from the OT and one from the NT each day. Going back and forth sometimes seemed to be a distraction. I'm going to read it one book at a time this year (though not in a strict table-of-contents order). Jesus said that Moses wrote about Him, this year that's what I'm looking for in my Bible study.

Chris Johnson (Midwest Conservative Journal) directs us to this sermon, where The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, DD makes these statements:

And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses?

And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the sacred Quran to the prophet Muhammad?

And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

Were these just random acts of association and coincidence or was the Angel Gabriel who appears as the named messenger of God in the Jewish Old Testament, the Christian New Testament Gospels, and the Quran of Islam, really the same miraculous messenger of God who proclaimed to a then emerging religious, global community and to us this morning that we are ALL children of the living God? And as such we are called to acknowledge that as Christians, Jews and Muslims we share a common God and the same divine messenger. And that as children of the same God, we are now called to cooperatively work together to make the world a haven for harmony, peace, equality and justice for the greatest and least among us.

I've got issues with that quote. Even if the Islamophiles are correct and Islam is a moral religion of peace, that does not mean that it is a true religion. Christians worship Jesus, the Son of God, who died for our sins, and God the Father setting His seal on Him by His Resurrection. Islam says that God does not have a son and that he did not die for us. Logically speaking, Islam may be true, or Christianity may be true, but they cannot both be true: "Jesus is the Son of God" cannot be equivalent to "Jesus is not the Son of God".

One thought on witnessing, then I've got to get packing: On Wednesday morning, Amy and I will be at the airport getting on a plane that is going to a specific place. There will be lots of planes going to different places. Imagine this scenario: Suppose we're getting on the wrong plane. The lady who takes our boarding pass says, "uh...you're getting on the wrong plane, you need to be at gate A17". We say, "Huh? Who do you think you are? They all go to the same place! Gee you're really intolerant! Leave us alone! We'll take any plane we please!" No, doesn't work that way. If we were getting on the wrong plane, the attendant would be doing us a big favor by telling us before we wound up at the wrong destination. We should, as Christians, consider the consequences of not telling people that what they believe (or don't believe) may result in them not getting where they want to go either.

Happy New Year!

Posted by joelfuhrmann at December 29, 2003 04:53 PM