Latest / Karl and Crew / Faith, Reason & Culture Q&A with Abdu Murray
Transcript
- 0:00S1: Broadcasting from Chicago, across North America and beyond its cast
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- 0:46S1: Now, from our call of Hope Studios, this is Carl
- 0:50S1: and crew Ask the Experts week.
- 0:54S6: This has been epic, and I'm not overstating it. I mean,
- 0:58S6: the amount of content we have here that is transformational.
- 1:03S6: If you haven't heard the word, we've got three episodes
- 1:06S6: per day this whole week because of the experts that
- 1:11S6: we're bringing in. And wow, Ali, what else do you say, sister?
- 1:15S4: You know, I am so grateful for those of you
- 1:17S4: who have asked questions. We obviously have not been able
- 1:21S4: to get to all of them, but I think we
- 1:23S4: hit a lot of different angles. So even if we
- 1:25S4: didn't get to your question exactly, get the show cast
- 1:28S4: because there's a good chance we answered something similar texts
- 1:32S4: show to 805, 55, 78, 98.
- 1:35S6: Well, the beat goes on. Abdu Murray here new to me.
- 1:38S6: Ali was keeping him all to herself for the longest time.
- 1:42S6: And then when I.
- 1:44S4: As in we had him on twice when Carl was out.
- 1:47S6: Oh my goodness. Speaker author attorney who specializes in addressing
- 1:51S6: issues where religious faith and emerging cultural trends intersect and collide.
- 1:58S6: They're colliding everywhere, aren't they, Abdou?
- 2:00S7: They are indeed. Thanks for having me on, guys. I
- 2:02S7: really appreciate it.
- 2:03S6: Really good to have you back. What are the big
- 2:05S6: issues today?
- 2:06S7: Well, the big issues today are almost daily changing. Um, uh,
- 2:10S7: in terms of where faith and culture collide. I mean,
- 2:13S7: the big pervasive issues right now, at least for the
- 2:15S7: past two years, have been the advent of AI and
- 2:18S7: where that's leading us in terms of understanding what it
- 2:21S7: means to be human and what it means to be
- 2:23S7: made in the image of God. And we're sort of
- 2:25S7: sort of losing a sense of that, because if the
- 2:28S7: machines can do what we do and they have no soul,
- 2:31S7: what does that say about us? Uh, also, of course,
- 2:34S7: the issues of identity. I mean, identity seems to be
- 2:36S7: the word that everyone talks about all the time across
- 2:39S7: the board. It's making news, it's making headlines. It made
- 2:42S7: news and headlines yesterday because of a Supreme Court ruling
- 2:46S7: on gender issues with regard to parents and what they
- 2:49S7: know and can't know, uh, from school systems. And, of course,
- 2:53S7: you know, world events. And what is the role of
- 2:56S7: the Christian in praying for our enemies and those who
- 3:00S7: persecute us in light of all that's going on around
- 3:03S7: the world. So there's no shortage of, uh, cultural issues
- 3:06S7: to have to talk about, and they seem to emerge daily.
- 3:08S7: The good news is, is that we have an unchanging
- 3:10S7: message that predicts all these things, even though the world
- 3:13S7: seems to be changing.
- 3:15S6: It seems to me like we got a tough recipe.
- 3:17S6: We've got spiritual ambiguity on the rise in the West,
- 3:20S6: and then you've got an AI platform that is, um,
- 3:24S6: spiritually ambiguous on steroids. That's a bad combo, isn't it,
- 3:28S6: my friend?
- 3:29S7: It really is. Because what when we do have a
- 3:32S7: sense in which people are returning to a sense of spirituality,
- 3:35S7: but there's also this dominant feature and culture, which is
- 3:38S7: the the culture of self making, uh, whether it's curating
- 3:42S7: your online, uh, persona or it's becoming an influencer, especially
- 3:46S7: for young people, when you ask them, what do you
- 3:47S7: want to be when you grow up? They say influencer.
- 3:50S7: And that leads to a sense of a curated and
- 3:53S7: a manufactured identity. Then along comes, uh, artificial intelligence platform,
- 4:00S7: which basically says, you don't really have one. You're just
- 4:02S7: a machine like me. Um, and, um, but you can
- 4:06S7: create it if you want to, but you have to
- 4:08S7: do it not through a spiritual means, but through a
- 4:11S7: completely sort of artificial means. It's a it's a dangerous combination.
- 4:15S7: And we're seeing the effects of it. The more the
- 4:16S7: research is coming out, the more we're seeing that overreliance
- 4:20S7: on technology to tell you what the world is like
- 4:24S7: and to do your thinking for you. Uh, it's not
- 4:26S7: resulting in the machines becoming more human like. It's resulting
- 4:30S7: in the humans becoming more machine like.
- 4:32S4: Abdu Murray, our guest expert. Uh, now, he has tackled
- 4:35S4: complex issues in some pretty tough forums. He does Q&A forums, debates,
- 4:41S4: dialogues at leading universities like Yale, Berkeley, MIT, and others
- 4:46S4: around the world. I am going to. One of the
- 4:48S4: things I love about your website, Abdu, is that you
- 4:50S4: have these videos of these 20 of the most commonly
- 4:55S4: asked questions about the faith. So I'm going to pull
- 4:58S4: one from those to get us started and to kind
- 5:00S4: of help set the table for the kind of questions
- 5:03S4: that our folks can ask you. 805 55 7898 855
- 5:09S4: five 7898 let's start with this one. Is the Bible
- 5:13S4: morally outdated?
- 5:16S7: Yeah. And this is one of my favorite topics, actually,
- 5:18S7: to talk about, because I wrote a book called More
- 5:20S7: Than a White Man's Religion, where I pose the issue.
- 5:24S7: The more I see on schools, I see that the
- 5:26S7: university levels, they're not asking first, is the Bible true?
- 5:30S7: They're asking first. Is the Bible moral because they accuse
- 5:33S7: it of being sexist and racist and, uh, anything ending
- 5:37S7: in the suffix phobia, you know, uh, transphobia, homophobia, that
- 5:42S7: kind of thing. Um, and the answer is no. In fact,
- 5:44S7: I would argue that the Bible is actually the cure
- 5:46S7: for the very things that's being blamed for. When you
- 5:49S7: look at the way, let's just take the racism and
- 5:51S7: ethnicism issue, Um, when you look at the way the
- 5:54S7: Bible actually describes the nation of Israel, oftentimes Israel is
- 5:58S7: used as an instrument of judgment by God for the
- 6:01S7: actions of the surrounding nations. In other words, God doesn't
- 6:04S7: judge them based on their skin color or based on
- 6:07S7: their location, or based on their accents or their food choices. Rather,
- 6:12S7: God judges them based on their on what they do morally,
- 6:17S7: which is child sacrifice and worshiping false gods, temple prostitution
- 6:21S7: and these things. And we know it's not race based,
- 6:24S7: because when Israel does the same things, God uses those
- 6:27S7: other nations as instruments of judgment to correct Israel, uh, herself.
- 6:32S7: So we see that God is no, no, no, no
- 6:35S7: one who favors people based on their ethnicity. In fact,
- 6:38S7: God judges people not based on their skin color, but
- 6:40S7: on the content of their character. And of course, that
- 6:43S7: sounds terribly familiar. That sounds like Martin Luther King who
- 6:46S7: did not pull that phrase out of the sky. Well,
- 6:48S7: I guess it came from the Bible. So he kind
- 6:50S7: of did. But, um. Uh, but it's the sentiment of equality, uh,
- 6:54S7: right there and then, you see, if the if the
- 6:56S7: Bible were racist and sexist, what you wouldn't see is
- 7:00S7: women who are non-Jews being the heroes of stories. Yet
- 7:05S7: you see in John chapter four, when Jesus encounters a
- 7:07S7: Samaritan woman who is rejected by not only her own people,
- 7:11S7: but of course, by, um, the animosity that existed between
- 7:15S7: two ethnicities of the Jews and the Samaritans. Jesus uses
- 7:19S7: a woman to become the first cross-cultural missionary, and she's
- 7:21S7: wildly successful. And that is an amazing thing. And that's
- 7:26S7: one story of but dozens. So right now in our culture,
- 7:29S7: we're facing the issues of racial equality and all these
- 7:32S7: kind of things and, uh, gender equality. And the Bible
- 7:35S7: has been talking about this for 2000 years. So rather
- 7:38S7: than be this kind of thing where we think of
- 7:40S7: it as an outdated book, it's actually our eternal contemporary.
- 7:44S7: It's ancient, yet it constantly speaks to our current cultural issues.
- 7:48S4: Abdu Murray, our guest. I'll give you the number 800
- 7:51S4: 555 7898. If you have questions on faith, reason, culture,
- 7:57S4: world religions 800 555 7898.
- 8:01S6: Uh, do we live in a culture not just in
- 8:04S6: the West? I think predominantly more so here. Uh, it
- 8:08S6: seems that when I travel around the world and I
- 8:11S6: see people that don't have the means we have in
- 8:14S6: the West, I'm reminded that Jesus himself said, I've chosen
- 8:18S6: those who are poor in this world to be rich
- 8:20S6: in faith. It's it's a bizarre situation that we have.
- 8:24S6: We've got blame game on steroids. And my my question is,
- 8:29S6: I know that we need to look for justice, but
- 8:33S6: how important? I'm sharing my conviction here. Here's my conviction.
- 8:38S6: Rather than asking you to rubber stamp my conviction, you
- 8:42S6: tell me where I'm wrong. My conviction is that the
- 8:46S6: gospel has an innate nature of looking within oneself, not
- 8:52S6: the world around us. And when we lose that, we
- 8:55S6: lose a lot. Am I wrong? Abdou.
- 8:59S7: When we look within ourselves and not to the world,
- 9:01S7: we lose a lot. Or when we lose that idea.
- 9:04S6: Yeah, when we lose the idea that the the the
- 9:07S6: greatest problem in our life is staring us in the
- 9:09S6: mirror in the morning and not someone else. We're better off,
- 9:13S6: aren't we, Abdou?
- 9:14S7: We we are. Um. And this is where I think
- 9:17S7: the gospel has this universal applicability. You know, I came
- 9:19S7: from a muslim background and a middle eastern, uh, ethnicity.
- 9:24S7: And so I come from an honor and shame culture
- 9:26S7: and an honor and shame culture is different than a Western, um, uh,
- 9:30S7: innocence and guilt culture in the sense that an honor
- 9:33S7: and shame culture is communal. Uh, we have the same morality.
- 9:36S7: We just enforce it communally. In other words, if I
- 9:38S7: do something wrong, I become someone shameful as opposed to
- 9:44S7: I've done something wrong. In the in the West, we
- 9:46S7: have an individualized culture, which is if I do something wrong,
- 9:50S7: I can look inwardly and I don't need someone else
- 9:52S7: to tell me. I look in the man in the mirror,
- 9:54S7: as it were. Um, and both have their beauties. Um,
- 9:58S7: because I do think there is this sense in which
- 10:00S7: the sin condition is something that's intensely personal, and when
- 10:03S7: we don't reckon with the sin condition, um, and see
- 10:06S7: the truth of our, uh, the, the condition with which
- 10:10S7: we are beset, then we can't affect the community in
- 10:13S7: a positive way. Um, however, um, we have to recognize
- 10:18S7: at the same time that our sin condition does have
- 10:21S7: a communal effect. So while we're looking for justice and
- 10:24S7: these kind of things, inequality all throughout society, it starts internally. Um,
- 10:29S7: and so the beauty of the gospel is, is that
- 10:31S7: it was presented to an honor and shame, Middle Eastern culture.
- 10:35S7: So it was communal and it talked about the societal
- 10:39S7: impacts of our sin, but it also presents itself in
- 10:43S7: an individualized way because our individual sin is being called
- 10:47S7: out when the rich young ruler says, what must I
- 10:49S7: do to attain eternal life? Jesus individualizes the answer. He says,
- 10:54S7: there's one thing you lack. Not everybody, just you. And
- 10:57S7: you need to sell everything you have and come, come
- 11:00S7: follow me. Not because rich people are inherently bad and
- 11:03S7: they have this thing that other people don't have, but
- 11:05S7: because this guy relied on himself a little too much
- 11:09S7: and Jesus needed to call out that guy. So he
- 11:11S7: held up a mirror to that individual guy, and he
- 11:14S7: did it in a communal culture. And the whole idea
- 11:17S7: here is that when we face the sin internally, we
- 11:21S7: can begin to have positive effect externally. But if we
- 11:25S7: don't deal with the person we're looking at, well, then
- 11:27S7: how can we ever actually affect the world in a
- 11:31S7: positive way? In fact, more than that, when we don't
- 11:34S7: look internally, we start to judge hypocritically. And that's a
- 11:37S7: violation of when Jesus says, do not judge hypocritically, but
- 11:40S7: when you judge, use a correct judgment. So over and
- 11:43S7: over again, when we look internally and we lose that sense.
- 11:46S7: We start to judge other people as less than us.
- 11:48S7: And therefore there is an inequality. We judge their prejudices
- 11:52S7: and their inequalities, never dealing with the inequalities in our
- 11:55S7: own life.
- 11:56S4: Abdu Murray, our guest expert this hour taking your questions
- 11:59S4: on faith, reason, culture, World Religions 855 five 7898 855
- 12:08S4: five 7898.
- 12:10S1: Get your info from a source you can trust. It's
- 12:13S1: Ask the Experts week with Carl and crew.
- 12:16S6: It's Carl and crew. Ask the experts. One of our
- 12:20S6: favorites here, Abdu Murray. Uh, here's why this is so important.
- 12:25S6: When we're talking to world religion, we're talking ethics. We're
- 12:28S6: talking almost any topic where you've got this collision of
- 12:32S6: philosophies in our world today. If you've been aching to
- 12:36S6: have an answer to those kind of questions, tee them
- 12:38S6: up right now. 800 800 0555 7898 800 555 7898. Abdu,
- 12:52S6: a question I'm asking for a friend ala me. Here
- 12:57S6: we go. Um, Abdu, I had a friend when I
- 13:01S6: lived in South Africa for a year, had a ministry
- 13:03S6: to Muslims and he had an interesting approach. I don't
- 13:08S6: have a dog in this hunt at all. So I
- 13:10S6: want your honest opinion. You being raised in a muslim context.
- 13:14S6: He appealed that this God that these folks were praying
- 13:18S6: to in their naivety, or maybe in their Muslim in
- 13:23S6: name only, was really the one true and living God.
- 13:26S6: And he used that as an attempt of an evangelistic tool.
- 13:30S6: I've heard a lot of debate on this. So coming
- 13:34S6: from your you've got a perfect platform to speak to this.
- 13:38S6: Who is the God of the Muslim of Islam versus
- 13:42S6: the God of the scriptures.
- 13:44S7: Yeah. And this great question. And, uh, oftentimes I want
- 13:48S7: to make sure I approach this with a level of
- 13:51S7: tactical wisdom and not only, um, uh, biblical insight, but
- 13:56S7: of course, they feed each other, don't they? Um, and that's, uh,
- 13:59S7: when Paul says in Colossians chapter four, verse five, walk
- 14:02S7: in wisdom toward outsiders. So when we were talking to
- 14:04S7: a muslim, if you start talking about different gods, well,
- 14:08S7: because they fundamentally believe, because the Quran, their holy book,
- 14:12S7: says that Allah, which is just a name for God,
- 14:15S7: which means the God. In fact, most, uh, most Arab
- 14:19S7: Christians refer to God as Allah, uh, as well, not
- 14:23S7: just Muslims, because it means the God. They would say
- 14:26S7: that their god from the Bible. From the Quran, I
- 14:28S7: should say, um, uh, is uh, the only uncreated being
- 14:33S7: there is. Everything else is created. He's perfect. He's all knowing,
- 14:36S7: all powerful, all these things. He's the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael.
- 14:40S7: And on it goes. So they would say it's the
- 14:42S7: same line of, uh, the profits come from the same God. Um, now,
- 14:48S7: the issue, though, is that that God is described in
- 14:52S7: the Quran is very different in terms of his nature.
- 14:57S7: For example, God is not triune. It is a blasphemous
- 15:00S7: thing to say in Islam that God is one in
- 15:02S7: his nature and three in his persons, that he is incarnational.
- 15:05S7: He would never incarnate and limit himself in their words
- 15:09S7: to Jesus's body, and that would be blasphemous itself. And then,
- 15:13S7: my goodness, he would never die on a cross, because
- 15:17S7: to die at the hands of the very sinners you
- 15:18S7: created is an utterly shameful and weak thing. And God
- 15:22S7: is too great for that, because they say the phrase
- 15:24S7: Allahu Akbar. Um, so they would say that those things
- 15:27S7: are fundamentally different. So what we're doing is we're talking
- 15:30S7: about God, but we're having very different conceptions of who
- 15:35S7: and what that God is and what he's like. So
- 15:38S7: it's very different, the very things that I thought when
- 15:42S7: I was a muslim insulted God's greatness like the Trinity,
- 15:46S7: the incarnation and the cross. As I began to look
- 15:49S7: into these things over a nine year search of the philosophical, historical,
- 15:53S7: and scientific and other underpinnings of the various faiths, these
- 15:57S7: ideas of Trinity, incarnation, and cross, I thought they insulted
- 16:00S7: God's greatness. I've come to realize they actually demonstrate God's greatness. Wow.
- 16:05S7: So for so for example, the cross. If God is
- 16:08S7: truly the greatest possible being, and Muslims believe that, by
- 16:11S7: the way, they would say Allahu Akbar, God is greater.
- 16:15S7: He's the greatest possible being. But if God is the
- 16:17S7: greatest possible being, then he would express the greatest possible virtue,
- 16:22S7: which is love, in the greatest possible way. That just
- 16:25S7: stands to reason. And what is the greatest possible way
- 16:29S7: to express the greatest possible virtue with the greatest possible
- 16:32S7: way to express love is self-sacrifice. And Islam knows nothing
- 16:36S7: of that from the terms of God himself exhibiting that
- 16:41S7: greatest virtue. But we do it. And so God has
- 16:43S7: to do it better than we do, and we do
- 16:45S7: it for those who love us, but God does it
- 16:47S7: for those who hate him. Romans chapter five, verse eight.
- 16:50S7: And when I realized that, and then I saw that
- 16:53S7: whole philosophical argument encapsulated in just one verse, Romans chapter five,
- 16:58S7: verse eight. I thought, oh my goodness, this truly is
- 17:01S7: the Lord of language, the Lord of philosophy, the Lord
- 17:04S7: of love, and the Lord of sacrifice. And I gave
- 17:07S7: my life to him.
- 17:08S6: Oh, you know what, Abdou? That is the greatest witnessing
- 17:13S6: tool I've ever heard and I have. I have some
- 17:16S6: dear friends, neighbors that, uh, go winter in Pakistan and, uh,
- 17:22S6: they're restaurateurs, and they might even be listening right now. Um,
- 17:26S6: and I love them so much. And what a that
- 17:29S6: almost brings me to tears, bro. That's a powerful tool,
- 17:33S6: isn't it?
- 17:34S7: Well, it brought me to tears when I first realized it.
- 17:36S7: You know, I looked for nine years and I think
- 17:39S7: this is an important thing we have to recognize. Is
- 17:41S7: that what we're talking about, cultural issues or different religious
- 17:44S7: issues or whatever it is, the way the Apostle Paul
- 17:47S7: talks in Colossians chapter four is he says, make the
- 17:50S7: best use of the time. Let your speech be gracious,
- 17:52S7: seasoned with salt, so you may know how you ought
- 17:54S7: to answer each person. Not each worldview, not each issue,
- 17:57S7: not each controversy, but each person. So when Christians were
- 18:02S7: engaging with me, they were asking essentially the effective ones
- 18:06S7: were asking, what does Abdou care about? What are the
- 18:08S7: things that he deeply longs for that are legitimate? And
- 18:12S7: how does the gospel speak to it and answer it?
- 18:14S7: And so I, as a muslim, wanted to, uh, follow
- 18:19S7: a religion or follow a belief system that extolled God
- 18:22S7: as the greatest possible being, uh, that's the center or
- 18:25S7: center of Islam. And so various ways I saw that
- 18:29S7: the gospel over time, despite my resistance to it, started
- 18:33S7: to answer the things I needed to know were true.
- 18:37S7: It was Blaise Pascal who beautifully said that men despise
- 18:41S7: religion and they fear that it may be true. The
- 18:43S7: trick is to show them that religion is not contrary
- 18:45S7: to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. And then
- 18:48S7: he says, make good people wish it were true, and
- 18:52S7: then show them that it is true. And for me,
- 18:55S7: that's the big, the big, the big mesh. You mesh
- 18:58S7: someone's legitimate desire with the rational belief. And the Bible
- 19:02S7: does exactly that.
- 19:04S6: Dude, this is. You have hit on the most salient
- 19:07S6: point of witness to almost any worldview other than a christocentric,
- 19:13S6: self-sacrificing Jesus, because they all aim at something like this,
- 19:18S6: don't they?
- 19:19S7: They do. You know, people often say things like, all
- 19:22S7: religions are essentially the same. They're only superficially different. But
- 19:26S7: the reality is they're exactly the opposite. They're superficially the same, but, um,
- 19:31S7: but but deeply, profoundly different. Except in this one way,
- 19:35S7: Every system of belief in some form or fashion has
- 19:39S7: a sense in which your. You strive to please God
- 19:43S7: or to attain enlightenment, or even if you're an atheist.
- 19:47S7: If we have enough education and resource distribution and these
- 19:51S7: kind of things will manufacture a Star Trek like existence
- 19:54S7: where we'll speak to machines and food will pop out.
- 19:56S7: You know, there's always this sense in which we are
- 19:58S7: our own savior. Um, in Islam, for example, if you
- 20:02S7: do enough good works, your cosmic scale is weighed to
- 20:04S7: the balance where your good outweighs your bad and you
- 20:07S7: go to heaven. You still need God's mercy. Of course,
- 20:09S7: the Quran says that over and over again, but even
- 20:11S7: that mercy is earned. In one sense, it is only
- 20:14S7: the Christian gospel in sharp distinction to every other worldview
- 20:18S7: that says, you cannot be good enough, we cannot be
- 20:21S7: the solution because we are in fact the problem, and
- 20:25S7: therefore we need someone who's not us to save us
- 20:27S7: from us. And even the Quran itself. The book of
- 20:31S7: the Muslims says if God were to judge humanity according
- 20:34S7: to what it deserves, he would not leave on the
- 20:36S7: back of the earth even one living thing. That's how
- 20:39S7: deep and pervasive and destructive our sin is. So if
- 20:43S7: that's how bad we are, how can we fix it?
- 20:45S7: We need God's mercy. Of course. But we need God's solution.
- 20:49S7: And the cross is the solution that satisfies God's justice
- 20:52S7: and his mercy at the same time.
- 20:54S6: Mohammed had a moment of clarity there.
- 20:57S7: Yeah. No, absolutely. And because he was influenced by by
- 21:00S7: Christians around him, and there were Christians who who were
- 21:04S7: in Arabia at the time of Muhammad's advent. So he
- 21:07S7: did have some level of influence there. And so I
- 21:10S7: think here's the thing. I think, uh, is that every
- 21:14S7: system of belief at some point or other recognizes and
- 21:18S7: this comes from a secular source, Stephen Prothero. He says
- 21:20S7: every system of belief recognizes that something is wrong with
- 21:23S7: the world and something wrong with humanity. But we all
- 21:26S7: get to different. We get to different finish lines. We
- 21:28S7: have the same starting line, different finish lines. It is
- 21:31S7: the Christian faith that says the starting line dictates how
- 21:34S7: we get to the finish line. Because if something's wrong
- 21:37S7: with us, then we need someone outside of us. Other
- 21:40S7: systems of belief pay lip service to this. They do,
- 21:43S7: but they don't get you all the way there because
- 21:45S7: there's ultimately a humanistic central to those views. Um, and
- 21:50S7: it's the Christian faith in its irony which says that
- 21:53S7: human beings are sinful, yet we are beautifully and wonderfully
- 21:57S7: made in God's image. And so the cross reconciles and
- 22:02S7: bridges those two seemingly contradictory, but only paradoxical truths that
- 22:07S7: we are made in God's image. And because we're infinitely valuable,
- 22:10S7: made in his image, an infinite price needs to be
- 22:12S7: paid to redeem us, and that's why God Himself pays
- 22:15S7: it if we are infinitely valuable, but we try in
- 22:18S7: our finitude to pay the price, the price will never
- 22:21S7: be sufficient, because it's not infinite to satisfy our infinite
- 22:24S7: value in God's infinite justice and mercy. But the cross
- 22:27S7: is infinite because God Himself pays.
- 22:30S5: Wow.
- 22:31S4: Abdu Murray, our guest. And you're going. How can I
- 22:34S4: find out more about this guy? Text. Embrace. He is
- 22:37S4: the president of Embrace the truth. Just text embrace to
- 22:41S4: 800 555 7898. Embrace to 800 555 7898. Coming up,
- 22:49S4: we'll tackle this one. It's now common for people to
- 22:52S4: push back against the suggestion that there's a your truth.
- 22:56S4: My truth? That debate's been going on for a while.
- 22:59S4: But as we as you've been talking about in the
- 23:01S4: same vein, what's the most kind, loving, winsome way to
- 23:06S4: approach that question? Where it's not angry, it's not fist stomping,
- 23:09S4: but why can't we all have our own truth? Coming up.
- 23:15S1: You've got questions. They've got answers. It's Ask the Experts
- 23:19S1: week with curl and crew.
- 23:21S4: Well, right back to our Ask the Expert this hour,
- 23:24S4: Abdu Murray from Embrace the Truth. He is a speaker, author, attorney.
- 23:28S4: We're taking questions on faith, reason, culture, religion 800 555 7898.
- 23:35S4: You know, it can be tempting to be triggered or
- 23:38S4: get angry when somebody uses a version of your truth.
- 23:41S4: My truth? But what's the loving way to respond to
- 23:46S4: somebody who suggests that that's great, that what you believe
- 23:49S4: works for you? I believe something different that works for me.
- 23:53S4: Can't we all just get along?
- 23:55S7: Yeah. Well, the first thing I think in that kind
- 23:58S7: of objection is that, um, we don't believe things because
- 24:01S7: they work. Um, things aren't true because they work. But
- 24:04S7: oftentimes things that are true do, in fact, work. In
- 24:07S7: other words, it doesn't work because it doesn't. It's not
- 24:10S7: true because it works. It works because it's true. Um, now,
- 24:13S7: sometimes we have to realize that things that, uh, things
- 24:17S7: that are inconvenient are also true as well. So when
- 24:20S7: someone says my truth, you have your truth. I have
- 24:23S7: my truth. And let's settle it at that. Um, the
- 24:26S7: problem with that is that it sounds incredibly respectful. And
- 24:29S7: so what I want to say is the way to
- 24:30S7: lovingly approach this is to say, okay, I hear what
- 24:32S7: you're trying to say. You're trying to be respectful of
- 24:35S7: all points of view and give each point of view
- 24:37S7: an equal weight. But the reality is, truth by definition,
- 24:40S7: excludes that which is false. By definition, it's exclusive. So
- 24:44S7: it can't actually be a cosmic vacuum where everything can
- 24:47S7: be allowed. Because what if I say it's my truth
- 24:51S7: that your truth is false? Now what? Because if my
- 24:53S7: truth is that your truth is false, and your truth
- 24:55S7: is that all truths are true. Mm. Now we're at
- 24:57S7: an impasse. And so if you're going to respect my beliefs,
- 25:00S7: then you have to respect my belief that your belief
- 25:02S7: is wrong. Well, now, what do we do? Um. And
- 25:05S7: so that can't be the way it goes. That is
- 25:07S7: simply a recipe for chaos. Rather, I do what I
- 25:11S7: call giving people the dignity of difference. I take someone
- 25:15S7: else's point of view seriously enough to say I will
- 25:18S7: agree or disagree based on what you say. So for example, um,
- 25:22S7: it Christianity, we talked about this before Christianity. In Islam, um,
- 25:25S7: there's many things that are similar in their belief systems,
- 25:29S7: but there's enough things that are fundamentally different that we
- 25:32S7: would say this. If Islam and Christianity were similar and
- 25:36S7: were equally true, then what was the point of the
- 25:39S7: advent of Islam in the first place? Because why would
- 25:43S7: you need a new a system of belief to correct?
- 25:46S7: You know, in their view, Christian belief, if the Christian
- 25:50S7: belief in the in the Muslim belief were essentially the same,
- 25:52S7: what was the point of Muhammad in the first place?
- 25:54S7: What was the point of the Quran in the first place?
- 25:56S7: So I would say that I take a muslim seriously
- 25:59S7: when I disagree with them. I'm taking 1400 years of
- 26:03S7: tradition and saying, I looked at your views. They're different
- 26:07S7: than my views. Now let's talk lovingly and caringly about
- 26:11S7: why they're different. Because to say they're all equally true
- 26:13S7: and I have my truth and you have your truth,
- 26:15S7: is to invalidate the claims of the various founders of
- 26:21S7: the most influential belief systems in the world. Hinduism and
- 26:24S7: Buddhism are a good example. They sound so similar because
- 26:27S7: they both believe in reincarnation and karma. But Buddha actually
- 26:31S7: started Buddhism as a Hindu in rejection of the fundamental
- 26:35S7: idea that the Hindu believes, which is that the self
- 26:38S7: is God. Buddha said there is no self. Well, you
- 26:41S7: can't get more different than that. And to say that
- 26:44S7: Buddhists and Hindus believe essentially the same thing is to
- 26:47S7: disrespect thousands of years of both Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
- 26:51S7: So rather than disrespect them, why don't we lovingly come
- 26:54S7: to a common to to a statement that we can
- 26:56S7: disagree agreeably and say, what is the truth? Not what
- 27:00S7: is my truth? Because what is my truth? Insults other
- 27:04S7: other faiths? It doesn't compliment them.
- 27:06S4: Abdu Murray, our guest expert this morning taking your questions
- 27:09S4: 805 55 7898. Alma. First time caller from Chicago. Thanks
- 27:15S4: for calling in. Give us your question for Abdu Murray.
- 27:20S8: Hi. Good morning. Um, yes, this question is for Abdu. Um,
- 27:24S8: you mentioned the culture, um, a little earlier, especially in
- 27:28S8: the biblical era. Um, as you, having been raised in
- 27:32S8: that same culture, did that in any way shape your
- 27:35S8: view of the Bible or the way you interpret it?
- 27:38S7: Oh, I'm so glad you asked, alma, because absolutely it did.
- 27:41S7: Let me give you an example of how the Bible
- 27:43S7: can really bake your noodle. If you really look at
- 27:46S7: the the belief systems that it's addressing at the same time.
- 27:50S7: So we have this parable in Matthew chapter 20, we
- 27:53S7: have this parable of the generous employer where Jesus says,
- 27:56S7: this is how God's sovereign grace works, is that there's
- 27:59S7: these guys who are out there who are day laborers.
- 28:01S7: They're looking for work that day. And then, uh, the, the, the,
- 28:04S7: the master of a vineyard who is the proxy for
- 28:07S7: God in this parable, goes out and says, hey, I'll
- 28:10S7: take you, you and you. They negotiate for a, um,
- 28:13S7: a denarius, uh, worth of work for that day. And
- 28:17S7: they say that's a fair wage. And they go and
- 28:18S7: they work in the vineyard for the whole day. Then
- 28:21S7: the master goes out a second time and a third time,
- 28:24S7: and a fourth time, and a fifth time to hire
- 28:26S7: these laborers. Now in back then, just as today, if
- 28:30S7: you don't get hired in the morning, you're not going
- 28:31S7: to get hired at all. So they go home in shame,
- 28:35S7: in an honor and shame culture that they couldn't get
- 28:38S7: their get a day's wage to provide for their families.
- 28:43S7: But these guys stayed there. In fact, the master of
- 28:45S7: the vineyard says, what are you still doing here? Why
- 28:47S7: are you still here? And they said we had held
- 28:50S7: out hope that someone would give us a day's work.
- 28:52S7: So the master of the vineyard said, go work in
- 28:54S7: my in my, in my vineyard for even an hour,
- 28:56S7: and I'll give you a denarius. So the same amount
- 28:59S7: of money he paid the guys who worked all day
- 29:01S7: at the end of the parable, of course, the first guy,
- 29:04S7: the last guys get paid first, so the last. So
- 29:06S7: the first guy see it and they're outraged and they say,
- 29:09S7: wait a minute, we worked all day. These guys worked
- 29:10S7: one hour. You gave us the same amount of money.
- 29:12S7: That's not fair. And what does the master of the
- 29:14S7: vineyard say? The master of the vineyard. Who is God?
- 29:17S7: In the parable he says, friend, can't I do with
- 29:20S7: my money what I want? I've done you no wrong.
- 29:22S7: And didn't you agree for a denarius? It's about God's
- 29:24S7: sovereign grace. The last shall be first, and the first
- 29:26S7: shall be last. But here's the cool part. One. It
- 29:29S7: answers the question of God's sovereignty and human free will
- 29:32S7: that God can be sovereign. He can say, I will
- 29:35S7: give somebody a dollar or a denarius based on my
- 29:38S7: own sovereignty. But he says to those guys, and didn't
- 29:42S7: you agree for a denarius that's human free will? They
- 29:46S7: negotiated and they agreed of their own free will. So
- 29:49S7: God's sovereignty and human free will at the same time.
- 29:52S7: That's an that's an that's a sort of a thing
- 29:55S7: I get in the West a question I get in
- 29:57S7: the West. But what's cool is this I remember reading
- 30:01S7: this parable and someone shared it with me when I
- 30:02S7: was a muslim, and I thought, this is a terrible story,
- 30:04S7: it's so unfair. But then I saw my honor and
- 30:07S7: shame culture reflected in it. The guys who waited all
- 30:10S7: day for a job didn't want to go home in
- 30:14S7: shame and God, because of their faith, rewarded them with
- 30:20S7: a denarius the same day, same wage as a full
- 30:23S7: day's work, because their faith that God would redeem them
- 30:27S7: and save them from shame was credited as if it
- 30:30S7: was work. And that goes all the way back to Genesis,
- 30:34S7: where Abraham's faith was credited as righteousness, as if it
- 30:38S7: was work, for God's sake. And so you see the
- 30:40S7: Bible woven together. And when I saw that, I was
- 30:44S7: amazed that this Bible, which I thought was a white,
- 30:46S7: Western sort of individualistic book, actually speaks to my culture.
- 30:51S7: And that started so many questions for me about, oh
- 30:54S7: my goodness, maybe this Bible actually speaks to my people
- 30:58S7: as well as the West. And I often put it
- 31:00S7: this way Jesus has a passport with many stamps.
- 31:04S6: Oh, this is beautiful. Abdu Murray, our guests Ask the
- 31:08S6: Experts week. This is epic. If you've got questions, he's
- 31:12S6: got answers. 800, 555, 78, 98. Give us a call
- 31:16S6: or text right now. 800 Five. Five. Five. 78. 98. Abdou.
- 31:23S6: How many Muslims are like many Western Christians? I use
- 31:27S6: that in air quotes that are Muslim in name only
- 31:30S6: and really don't know theology. And they're just guided by
- 31:33S6: the cultural norms.
- 31:36S7: Oh, it's uh, it's just like every other faith system
- 31:39S7: and every other culture as well as that, you have
- 31:40S7: plenty of people who are Muslim in name only because, um, there's, uh, again,
- 31:45S7: that honor and shame culture dictates that they, um, identify
- 31:50S7: culturally or um, in terms of, uh, their society as Muslim, which,
- 31:55S7: which but they don't really know a deep sense of
- 31:58S7: their theology. There's a lot of them, I'd say even
- 32:00S7: probably the majority of most Muslims don't know their Quran.
- 32:04S7: They know a couple of verses, just like Christians know
- 32:06S7: a couple of verses that are that are pet verses
- 32:09S7: for them. The opening chapter of the Quran, the chapter 114,
- 32:13S7: which is a very short chapter of the Quran. They
- 32:15S7: know those by heart because they're required to. but, um. Uh,
- 32:19S7: the deep theologies and some of the deep history, they
- 32:21S7: don't really know. Um, and, uh, but they hear what
- 32:25S7: they get, what they hear. So but they adhere to
- 32:27S7: it because there's a cultural mandate to do so. Sam Solomon,
- 32:31S7: himself a former Muslim, once put it this way. In
- 32:34S7: the West, if you drew a square with a dot
- 32:36S7: in the middle, the dot is religious identity and the
- 32:40S7: square is you. In other words, your sense of individual
- 32:42S7: identity dominates. But in the East and in the Middle East,
- 32:46S7: it's exactly the opposite. The square that surrounds the dot
- 32:49S7: is religious identity, and the dot is you. You're a
- 32:53S7: small part of the full religious identity, which explains why
- 32:57S7: Muslims who are nominal, who might, you know, be Muslim
- 33:00S7: in name only, will engage with you in a sort
- 33:03S7: of verbal death match over whether or not Christianity or
- 33:06S7: Islam is true, even though they don't practice it, they
- 33:09S7: don't pray the five daily prayers. They might fast Ramadan,
- 33:12S7: which we're in the middle of, but, um, might not, uh,
- 33:15S7: you know, fully understand or live out their faith. The
- 33:19S7: other 11 months of the year. But they would still
- 33:22S7: engage in this, in this, in this debate with you
- 33:24S7: because it's part of their identity. They have an obligation
- 33:28S7: to maintain it in an honor and shame culture. And
- 33:31S7: that's that's what the barriers can be so big no
- 33:33S7: matter what they know or don't know.
- 33:35S6: Is it harder to reach the dot or the square?
- 33:38S7: Wow. Uh, um, it really does depend, because sometimes I
- 33:43S7: have to convince people who claim to be Christians that
- 33:46S7: they're not, um, in order to, like, tell them this
- 33:49S7: is who Christ really is. And they.
- 33:50S6: Think men.
- 33:51S7: You know, and so sometimes the dot is really hard
- 33:54S7: to convert because the dot thinks they're the square. Um, uh,
- 33:58S7: but I think oftentimes it's hard to convince. It's hard
- 34:01S7: to convince the square, um, because there's not a rational
- 34:06S7: reason to attend to that religious system. It's a personal reason.
- 34:10S7: There's intense consequences. There are identity issues. If I stop
- 34:14S7: being a muslim, then who am I? And when you
- 34:17S7: change your religious system in an eastern Middle Eastern culture, um,
- 34:21S7: it is one of the greatest sins you can you
- 34:23S7: can commit for the culture. You might as well drop
- 34:26S7: a grenade into someone's living room. That's how much damage
- 34:28S7: is done. Oftentimes when they convert to a different system
- 34:31S7: of belief, including Christianity. So it isn't the intellectual issues,
- 34:35S7: it's the consequences of what people hold on to, uh,
- 34:40S7: that are often the real barriers. So my job as
- 34:42S7: an apologist is to remove the intellectual barriers so people
- 34:46S7: can see the real thing that's keeping them from becoming
- 34:48S7: a Christ follower.
- 34:50S4: Abdu Murray, our guest expert taking questions on faith, reason, culture, religion.
- 34:55S4: Oh boy, this is good grace. If you want more,
- 34:59S4: embrace to 800 555 7898 embrace to 800 555 7898.
- 35:07S4: Coming up, I'm going to tell you a couple of
- 35:08S4: text messages that come in. We'll get to both of
- 35:11S4: them if we have time. How do we reconcile? God
- 35:15S4: is omnipresent, but hell is separation from God. We'll tackle
- 35:18S4: that one. Plus, who are the descendants of Ishmael? More
- 35:22S4: coming up here on Karl and crew.
- 35:24S1: Get in the know with life's biggest questions. It's Ask
- 35:27S1: the Experts week with Karl and crew.
- 35:29S4: Our guest expert this morning, Abdul Murray, has been tackling
- 35:33S4: questions on faith, reason, culture, religion. How about this one?
- 35:36S4: Who are the descendants of Ishmael?
- 35:40S7: Yeah. So, um, this kind of depends on who is
- 35:42S7: responding to the question. Um, Muslims will say that they
- 35:45S7: are that Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael, and it
- 35:48S7: goes through, um, Hagar or Hagar, um, and her line, um,
- 35:53S7: because she's Egyptian and, uh, they go through, uh, so
- 35:58S7: a muslim would say that, um, because Ishmael is the
- 36:00S7: father of the Arabs, as even is prophesied in Genesis 16,
- 36:04S7: and all these things, a great nation comes from him.
- 36:07S7: And so, because she's Egyptian, uh, Hagar is the Arabs
- 36:11S7: come from that line, and therefore Muhammad as a prophet,
- 36:15S7: essentially is a prophet in the line of the great prophets,
- 36:19S7: including Ishmael's father Abraham. And so that is a sense
- 36:22S7: to legitimize Muhammad's office as prophet, even though he's an
- 36:27S7: Arab and outside the family of the Jews. Um, or
- 36:30S7: the Hebrews at that point. Uh, so that would be
- 36:33S7: that would be the claim. Now, whether or not this
- 36:35S7: is actually genetically proven or not is it's a matter
- 36:39S7: of great dispute. It really is. But here's the thing
- 36:41S7: that's interesting, just for our purposes and really quickly, is
- 36:45S7: that let's assume for a moment the Arabs are the
- 36:47S7: descendants of Ishmael, and that Islam in some way has
- 36:52S7: some kind of a root ethnically, let's say, because Islam
- 36:55S7: is an originally Arab religion. Um, let's assume that's true.
- 37:00S7: The the thing that's beautiful about this is that at
- 37:03S7: some point, Genesis actually describes the Ishmael and his progeny
- 37:08S7: as being free people who are at odds, it seems,
- 37:12S7: with the surrounding people around them, but really are free
- 37:15S7: because the because Hagar, their their mother, essentially as an Egyptian,
- 37:19S7: was bound as a slave or a servant to Sarah
- 37:24S7: before she had children and even after. So the promise
- 37:27S7: to Ishmael and his descendants is that you will be free,
- 37:30S7: not that you will be constantly in opposition, but opposition
- 37:33S7: happens because of freedom in distinction to your mother, who
- 37:35S7: was a servant. So there's a blessing actually being given there,
- 37:39S7: so that those same people will have the freedom to
- 37:43S7: actually see that a descendancy from Abraham, whether it's ethnic
- 37:47S7: or not, is actually a blessing, because they are being
- 37:51S7: pointed towards the Messiah, who is the whole point of
- 37:56S7: Abraham's blessing to be the father of many nations. And
- 38:00S7: so instead of seeing them as our enemy, we should
- 38:02S7: see the descendants of Ishmael as people who are promised
- 38:06S7: that the Messiah will be for them as well.
- 38:09S4: Abdu Murray, our guest this morning. You can text the
- 38:12S4: word embrace to 800 555, 7898 for more details. 800
- 38:18S4: 555 7898 just text embrace back to the text message. Question.
- 38:24S4: How do we reconcile that God is omnipresent, but hell
- 38:27S4: is separation from God.
- 38:29S7: Yeah, and this comes down to how we have to
- 38:32S7: clarify our terms sometimes. And this is very important, is
- 38:35S7: that presence. We have to understand there are two forms
- 38:38S7: of presence. One form of presence is what theologians have
- 38:42S7: called in classical Christianity God's essential presence. And there's also
- 38:46S7: his relational or gracious presence. God's presence is that he is,
- 38:51S7: in fact, omnipresent because he is the source of all creation.
- 38:55S7: He is not a being among beings. He is the
- 38:57S7: source of all being, and therefore as the source of
- 39:01S7: all being, he is essentially present everywhere. Everything is sustained
- 39:05S7: by him. And since we do believe that God sustains
- 39:09S7: all things that exist, and people who are in hell
- 39:12S7: in fact, exist. He is therefore sustaining even their existence.
- 39:16S7: In that sense. So he is essentially present even in
- 39:19S7: a state of hell. But his relational presence, the presence
- 39:23S7: where we can feel him and understand him and have
- 39:26S7: communion with him that is absent. He withholds that because
- 39:30S7: we have rejected it. And so in hell we don't
- 39:33S7: feel his relational or gracious presence. We simply we just
- 39:37S7: don't feel it. And in that sense, it also masks
- 39:40S7: our ability to feel his essential presence. He is there.
- 39:44S7: He's just not there in relationship with those who have
- 39:47S7: chosen rejection of relationship with God. So, as C.S. Lewis
- 39:52S7: famously put it in a summarization, hell is sort of
- 39:54S7: locked from the inside. And it's not that God puts
- 39:57S7: people there at the end of the end of the world,
- 40:00S7: when we are judged God, there will be two people.
- 40:03S7: So those who will say to God, thy will be done.
- 40:06S7: And there will be those to whom God said, thy
- 40:08S7: will be done, and they will get what they want.
- 40:10S7: And if they wanted separation from his relational presence, they'll
- 40:14S7: get that. But God is essentially everywhere, so he's omnipresent
- 40:18S7: in his essentialness. He is absent in hell in terms
- 40:21S7: of his relationship or his graciousness to those people because
- 40:24S7: they've rejected it.
- 40:26S6: Abdu Murray, our guest. This is epic. Guys. If you're
- 40:29S6: getting this going, where can I get more? Text the
- 40:32S6: word embrace to 800 555, 7898. I'm talking videos that
- 40:38S6: highlight top 20 questions he's answered on university campuses in
- 40:43S6: adversarial situations. Epic content. Text embrace to 800 555 7898.
- 40:51S6: Abdu I don't know if your covenant or dispensational and frankly,
- 40:54S6: those brackets are too constricting in my view. Uh, but
- 40:58S6: where do you see modern Israel versus ancient Israel today?
- 41:04S7: Well, um, a couple of things. Is that the first
- 41:06S7: thing I want to make sure I understand? I push
- 41:08S7: all this from a biblical anthropology, and that anthropology tells
- 41:11S7: me that all human beings are sinners. Uh, ancient Israel
- 41:15S7: was full of people who were sinners, but also people
- 41:17S7: who did wonderful things. So when those people sinned, they
- 41:20S7: were judged. And we also have. And they repented. Um,
- 41:24S7: and when they did the right thing, God rewarded them
- 41:26S7: and applauded them. And so we ought to do the
- 41:28S7: same thing. So modern Israel is a country run by
- 41:32S7: people who are essentially or beset with sinful condition. So
- 41:37S7: when they sin, we should criticize. When they do right,
- 41:40S7: we should applaud, just like I do with myself and
- 41:43S7: any other country. Having said that, how I look at
- 41:46S7: this is that if Israel exists by God's, by by
- 41:50S7: God's providence, it exists for a purpose, and that is
- 41:52S7: to point people to the Messiah. Um, ultimately, the God
- 41:57S7: of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of Israel,
- 42:00S7: and that Israel definitely needs to understand who their Messiah is,
- 42:04S7: and it's Jesus who is from their line. And Israel
- 42:08S7: should exist to be a beacon and a light to
- 42:11S7: the world about who the Messiah is. And so that's
- 42:15S7: the ultimate fulfillment, and that's how the church should act,
- 42:18S7: as well as a beacon to who the Messiah is.
- 42:20S7: So that's kind of how I see it.
- 42:21S6: I love it. Yeah, I'm my conviction, growing conviction is
- 42:25S6: that Israel is Abraham, the father of all who believe
- 42:29S6: Abraham is. It's it's a portal into saving connection with
- 42:35S6: a loving God. And that's the greatest message that they carry.
- 42:40S6: They carried. And that goes on today. Couple of questions
- 42:43S6: here that are similar that are call ins here. Uh,
- 42:46S6: so I'm going to give Ellie the floor from Aurora, Illinois. Ellie. Uh,
- 42:50S6: what's your question?
- 42:53S9: Hi. Good morning. Um, I have a son who's a
- 42:56S9: senior in high school who has been evangelizing his friends
- 43:00S9: and really just stepping out. He's at public high school.
- 43:03S9: There's several Muslims at our high school because we're in
- 43:06S9: a big Indian area, and one of his friends kind
- 43:10S9: of jokingly expressed interest coming to church. But then use
- 43:14S9: the caveat, well, you're not going to convert me. I'm
- 43:17S9: just going to come for fun. What would you suggest
- 43:20S9: for my son as a way to reach his Muslim friends,
- 43:23S9: given the fact that, as you were talking earlier about
- 43:26S9: the square and the Dot, you know that cultural fear
- 43:29S9: of going against it? What would you how would you
- 43:32S9: encourage him to reach his his friend?
- 43:35S7: I am absolutely thrilled that he's doing this. And I'll
- 43:39S7: and I'll tell you his his friend who jokingly said
- 43:42S7: he'll come to church. And if he does say, you're
- 43:43S7: not going to convert me. I got to tell you,
- 43:45S7: that sounds not vaguely, but strangely familiar. I said the
- 43:49S7: same things. I did the exact same stuff, and a
- 43:53S7: muslim coming to church at all is actually kind of
- 43:55S7: a big deal. So don't don't, um, discount that his
- 43:59S7: attitude about sort of a resistance to these things is, um,
- 44:03S7: a shield in some way that can't be penetrated. The
- 44:06S7: fact that he's willing to come at all is kind
- 44:07S7: of a big deal. So your son's doing the right thing.
- 44:10S7: He's becoming aromatic. He's becoming the effervescence of Christ such
- 44:14S7: that someone could say, I'll go to church. You won't
- 44:16S7: convert me, but I'll go to church. Well, it took
- 44:18S7: me nine years to become a Christian, and it didn't
- 44:21S7: take me nine years because the answers were hard to find.
- 44:24S7: It took me nine years because the answers were hard
- 44:26S7: to accept. Um, and it was a bunch of Christians
- 44:30S7: over time who witnessed to me, who gave me great
- 44:34S7: reasons not only to believe what the Bible was saying
- 44:37S7: was true, but that they were living it out. So
- 44:39S7: your son may be one link in a long chain
- 44:42S7: that essentially connects Muslims to Christ, including this guy. So
- 44:46S7: ten years from now, he might come to faith and
- 44:49S7: he'll have your son to thank for introducing him to
- 44:52S7: the church life in the first place. So it's not
- 44:54S7: that conversion will happen immediately, but it's just keep it up.
- 44:58S7: Because if he is doing this and they think I'll
- 45:00S7: go to church. Don't worry about the seeming resistance. Oftentimes
- 45:03S7: I'll tell you this real quick. The more times people
- 45:06S7: seem resistant, the more you're getting to them. That's what
- 45:08S7: I did. I got more resistant the more they were
- 45:11S7: actually getting to me. So take heart and keep it up.
- 45:14S6: That's Agrippa esque. You know, we don't know if he's
- 45:17S6: going to turn, but boy, you got to Pauline theology
- 45:20S6: would say, put it out there. You don't know what
- 45:22S6: God's going to do. Okay, uh, quick question. Um, we
- 45:26S6: got this thing called share coming up. We got a
- 45:29S6: whopper goal next week, and I do. I want to
- 45:32S6: hear from your heart. Why would you say to those
- 45:35S6: that are in the boom crew listening to all this
- 45:37S6: content all week long, why get behind Christian radio? And
- 45:41S6: you might say, yeah, don't do it.
- 45:43S7: No, I'll say definitely do do it. Um, and, and
- 45:46S7: here's why. And I'll make it very personal for me.
- 45:49S7: When I was not a Christian, when I was a muslim,
- 45:52S7: and I started hearing some things about the gospel, I
- 45:56S7: tuned in to Christian radio. I hit the scan button
- 45:58S7: back before there was iPods, I actually used my radio
- 46:01S7: and hit the scan button.
- 46:01S6: We got 40s subdued heads up.
- 46:04S7: I heard Chris. I heard a Christian message that was
- 46:07S7: so credible and so compelling on Christian radio as a non-Christian,
- 46:11S7: that it started me thinking, this is actually not as
- 46:14S7: dumb as I thought it was. And it started a
- 46:16S7: part of that journey. So Christian radio reaches non-Christians. You
- 46:19S7: might not think it does, but it does. So keep
- 46:21S7: up the good work.
- 46:22S6: Oh, okay. That's a banner ad right there. Ali.
- 46:26S4: I want you to learn more about our guest expert.
- 46:29S4: I know you've enjoyed this hour as we have Abdu Murray.
- 46:32S4: Just text embrace to 800 555 78, 98. Look for
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