Thabiti Anyabwile - The Gospel for Muslims: An Encouragement to Share Christ with Confidence

2010 by
THABITI ANYABWILE

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.TM

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright 2000, 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Edited by Jim Vincent and Kevin P. Emmert

Interior design: Erik M. Peterson

Cover design: Brian Bobel

Cover images: istock, getty

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Anyabwile, Thabiti M., 1970- author.

Title: The Gospel for Muslims : an encouragement to share Christ with confidence / Thabiti Anyabwile.

Description: Chicago : Moody Publishers, 2018. | Originally published: 2010. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017041611 (print) | LCCN 2017047172 (ebook) | ISBN 9780802496379 | ISBN 9780802416841

Subjects: LCSH: Missions to Muslims.

Classification: LCC BV2625 (ebook) | LCC BV2625 .A68 2018 (print) | DDC 248/.5--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041611

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To a faithful street preacher whose name I do not know, who heard all of my anti-Christian arguments and responded with gospel clarity and love.

To Derrick Scott and Sean Ensley, who prayed with concern that I might not be eternally lost through sin and unbelief and that the Lord would rescue me from Islam.

To a young man in my freshman dorm, Dwight, who endured with patience my opposition and lived joyfully and faithfully for the Lord amid a building full of freshman pagans!

To Mack, Brian, David, Joanna, Nisin, and the students of FOCUS for serving the Lord in the gospel among the Muslim people they love.

And to the Lord of Glory, who used all these human vessels to tell me the good news of His love, of His wrath and judgment against sin, of His atoning sacrifice on behalf of sinners, of His resurrection and reign, of His second coming, of eternal life through repentance and faith in Him, and of the blessed hope and joy of beholding His face.

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Dont ya think when we pray to God and they pray to Allah

We were at a missions conference focused on world evangelization. The questioner was involved with Christian media, but his patronizing look assumed any reasonable person would of course agree with the generous assessment he was about to make.

Dont ya think that were talking to the same God? he concluded.

Well, no, I said. Actually, I think thats really a dangerous way to think.

Dangerous? He stared at me. Whys that?

Well, I said, sure, there are some similarities between the two faiths, especially if were talking about certain moral actions. But when we talk about the most important thingsthings like how to know Godto confuse the God of Islam with the God of the Bible confuses the gospel, the very point of our eternal salvation.

I wish I could have given him the book you hold in your hands. Theres no confusion with Thabiti. In fact, this is a book Ive been wanting for a long time, for four important reasons.

Thabiti is compassionate. Though I have never seen him shirk from the truth, I have never seen him be unkind either. His manner is filled with grace and truth, and that comes out in this book.

Thabiti is bold. Ive watched him speak of Jesus in a large gathering of Muslim people, the vast majority of whom were friendly, a couple of whom were very angry, and all of whom disagreed. Yet he worked to honor God, not man, by speaking the complete truth of the cross. After all, Thabiti understands whats at stake. He crossed the line himself from Islam to Christianity. I have seen Thabiti put his faith on the line with Muslim friends time and again.

Third, in a world awash with methods and techniques, Thabiti spells out clearly that the most important method to be equipped for sharing our faith with our Muslim friends and neighbors is to know the gospel through and through. He calls us to trust that the gospel is truly the power of God unto salvation. If you know the gospel, you have the most important tool there is to share your faith with a Muslim friend.

Finally, Thabiti calls on all Christians to sharpen their faith. Orthodox Islamic doctrine is eerily similar to counterfeit Christianity: Muslims believe that Jesus was merely a prophet, not God; they believe our good works gain us entrance to heaven. They believe that the Bible is corrupted and though it contains some words from God, its not the Word of God. They believe substitutionary atonement is a scandal and that God would never allow His Son to suffer the horror of a blood sacrifice on the cross. Besides, they say, were not that sinful anyway.

Dont these orthodox doctrines of Islam sound like nominal and popular misconceptions of Christianity in the West? For years Ive heard that God helps those who help themselves; that Jesus was just a great moral teacher; that the Bible is full of errors. Today, even penal substitutionary atonement on the cross is under attack and painted as cosmic child abuse. Is it any wonder my media friend at the missions conference is confused about to whom were praying? Thabiti calls us to sharpen our thinking about the basic foundations of the Christian faith so we know what it is were to be talking about.