Resurrection: Bible Storying for Muslims: Dr. Cashin Lecture
Dr. David Cashin delivered a series of lectures on chronological Bible Storying for Muslims during a CIU course. Here, Cashin presents the final lesson on chronological bible storying of Matthew 28 or any of the other resurrection passages with Muslims.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. David Cashin Lecture:
Welcome to lesson 18 of chronological bible storying for Muslims and, today what we’re gonna do is really do our final lesson and we’re going to be looking at the last two lessons, lessons 9 and 10 in chronological, story for Muslims. Now, you’ll notice that this particular set of lessons is very short and, the reason is that this is your opportunity to be creative. I’ve pretty much given you the passages and the important study questions in the first eight studies that we did. 5 in the old testament and 3 thus far in the new testament. Now, I wanna give you just very briefly some thoughts on the final two lessons, to do with your Muslim friend, but I’m not gonna spell it all out for you.
What I’d like you to do is prepare materials on your own, and begin to think of ways to work with your Muslim friend. I’m assuming at this point that having done 8 studies, you’ve already spent 2 months with your Muslim friend, talking together, reading the Bible together, looking at issues concerning God’s way of salvation and who is the the Lord Jesus Christ. And I also assume that you had times of prayer together and you’ve come to the place perhaps of understanding your Muslim friends culture a lot better. So at this point, I think it’s your opportunity to begin to design your final two lessons yourself on what it is that you think your Muslim friend needs to hear. Lesson number 9, should be on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I would make, the suggestion, that you use Matthew chapter 28, although you can use any of the resurrection narratives if you’d like. And there are just a couple of key questions I think that you should ask, of these passages. One of them is, what does the resurrection indicate? What does it mean that Jesus has been raised from the dead? And I think the important point from the Muslim, perspective is that the resurrection indicates that God has accepted what Jesus has done.
That is the kafara, the atonement that Jesus has made on behalf of humanity has been accepted by the father and the father has raised the Lord Jesus Christ back to, from the dead, has given him victory over death, and has provided through him a word of hope to all of humanity. That now the way is open for you to come to God and you have the hope of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Those who have believed on the Lord Jesus and put their trust in him, they have passed out of death into life and that is what the resurrection indicates. Then, I think the other point that is important to make and that’s one of the reasons why I picked the Matthew 28 passage is the commandment that Jesus gives to his disciples. Matthew 28 verses, 18 through 20 gives this message of Jesus, his final message to his disciples to take this good news concerning him to the ends of the earth.
And I think it’s worthwhile to mention to our Muslim friend, the reason why I’ve been sharing with you from the Bible is because Jesus commanded me to do this. He commanded me to tell the whole world about the story of his life, the story of what he had done, and to give people the good news that they can know God intimately and personally and God has made a way for them to come to him through what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. Now beyond that, you have the opportunity to be creative and, to look at ways that you wanna express that as you read through the passage. Pray for the holy spirit to lead you. The spirit may lead you to lift other aspects out of that passage to share with your Muslim friend.
But I want you to be creative at this point and, make your own lesson 9 on the resurrection of Jesus. The final lesson you need to cover, lesson 10, is the challenge to receive Jesus. Now, by the time you get to this point, you have actually spent 9 weeks with your Muslim friend, and you have set a foundation upon which to challenge him or her to receive Christ as savior and as Lord. How do you do that? Well, you know, frankly, we have all at different points in our lives learned different challenges about how to receive Christ.
Some people, have used the John 316, one verse method, where, God gives that invitation, to turn in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. For God, you know, sent his only begotten son that whomsoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Very simple invitation can be built on a one verse method of saying God is giving this calling to you. Would you like to receive the Lord Jesus as savior and Lord? A method that I learned as a brand new Christian, when I was in high school, got led to Christ by the campus crusade for Christ, I used the 4 spiritual laws.
Now, many people will say, oh my goodness, 4 spiritual laws. That’s for a Western American cultural context. Well, that’s true, but if you’ve laid these 9 weeks of foundation, this is a good point to reiterate and the 4 spiritual laws does an excellent job of reiterating the 4 basic points. The love of God and plan that he has for your life, that you should know him intimately and personally. Secondly, the fact of sin, how that separates us from God, how that breaks that relationships. resurrection
Thirdly, how God has provided a means through the Lord Jesus Christ, something that he predicted and showed by symbolism in the Old Testament and then it was realized in reality in the New Testament that Jesus died for our sins and then the 4th law, which is really the same as the challenge of John 316 is simply this, that it’s not enough to know these things about what the Lord Jesus has done. We must each individually pray to receive him and make him Lord in our lives. There are other illustrations. Billy Graham Association uses the bridge to God illustration. Navigators also do that kind of thing.
I think it’s important that you be bold at this point. One of the things I notice about Muslims who come to faith in Jesus Christ is they tend to be very bold about their faith. Unfortunately, a lot of westerners are pretty namby pamby and oh my goodness, self depreciating and would never think of challenging someone to receive the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, Muslims will respect that kind of a challenge even if they don’t accept the fact that you believe enough in the Lord Jesus that you’re ready to invite someone to receive him as savior and Lord. You’ll find that there are Muslims who are not at all bashful about inviting you to say the shahada, that is to make the confession of faith in Islam.
As Christians, we should not be ashamed to challenge people to con- to actually pray to receive the Lord Jesus Christ and receive the salvation, which he offers to everyone freely. Now, what happens if your friend receives Christ? And there are some of you who will have this experience. I’ve had this experience of having a Muslim a Muslim. Pray to receive the Lord Jesus Christ with you.
Just a couple of main points, we need to think about if this happens. First of all, discipleship. You need to continue meeting on a weekly basis and in part of a small group may also be a good thing to do, incorporating your Muslim friend into a small group, you need to be studying the Bible on a weekly basis, basic discipleship studies, because as you do so, you are reorienting his worldview in the light of the gospel. There’s a lot we could say about this which you don’t really have time for, but you will notice as you study the word with your Muslim friend, there are many issues that he or she is working through. What is prayer? resurrection
How is Christian prayer different from Muslim ritual prayer? What is fasting? How do Christians fast as compared to the Muslim way of fasting during the month of Ramadan? What is worship? Is worship ritualistic formulaic prayers that I say?
Or how do I actually worship God? The whole area of fellowship with other believers. What does it mean to trust? What does it mean to love others? What does it mean to give testimony to Jesus, publicly and to lift him up before non believers?
What is my relationship to my family? What kind of family relationship should I have now? How do I deal with potential rejection from my family because I become a Christian? All of these issues, must be worked through. If you receive a Muslim who’s come to faith in Jesus, you have a huge task ahead of you.
And hallelujah, that’s the way it should be. That’s what Jesus did. He took 12, people around him as disciples and he discipled them for 3 years. And, you will have a similar responsibility to your Muslim friend who comes to Christ. And by the way, as I said at the very beginning, remember how I talked about the importance of hospitality? resurrection
Muslim culture is wonderful in the area of hospitality. American culture is not very good at that. So hospitality and opening your home is very important, and community is essential. Remember, your Muslim friend may very well be rejected by his family and her community because they’ve become followers of Jesus. You must supply that new place of community for them.
Now, there’s much more that we can say about this and if you have any questions or want to talk to me, my email is dcashin, that’s dcashinciu.edu. Again, that’s dcashin, dcashin@ciu.edu. Or, you can call me at my, home phone number, actually office phone number, which is 8 038075326. Again, 803807532 6. I’ll be happy to talk with you about how best to reach your Muslim friend and to disciple him or her, for their new faith.
Now, there’s a possibility that your friend does not receive Christ. What do you do then? Well, first of all, ask if they would like to continue to read the Bible with you. Sometimes it takes a while for a Muslim to come through the faith in Christ. Sometimes they come quickly.
Sometimes they come slowly. But we should always be open and willing to continue the Bible study that we begin with them. You might wanna study the book of John. Just go right straight through that whole book and look at who Jesus is in a deeper way. I I deeply believe in the power of the scriptures to touch a Muslim’s heart.
If you wanna do certain passages, there are a number of passages that I could suggest that tend to speak to Muslims. Sermon on the Mount is something very attractive to Muslims, particularly Jesus’ teaching on loving your enemies. Matthew 5, verses 43 to 48. But the entire Sermon on the Mount, which talks about the fact that external religion is not the important thing. It’s the internal attitude of the heart.
Matthew 11, where Jesus talks, come unto me all ye who are heavy laden and burdened and learn of me. Take my yoke upon me for my yoke is easy, my burden is light. It’s a wonderful passage for Muslims. A woman taken in adultery. John chapter 8 verses 1 to 9. resurrection
The reason why this passage is powerful is because the very same thing happened in the life of Muhammad. In the hadith, it describes how a woman was brought to Mohammed guilty of adultery. And the long and the short of Mohammed’s answer was take her out and stone her to death. That’s Islam. The law.
Keep the law. Go to heaven. Break the law. Suffer the punishment. There are other passages the way of sonship versus the way of slavery.
Romans chapter 8 and Galatians 4 that we’ve already spoken of. I do encourage you to continue to faithfully witness to your Muslim friend, and to lift up the scriptures and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And please let me know about how things are going with you. I would love to be praying for you. Remember that prayer is the foundation to all of this, and it’s through prayer that God touches the hearts of Muslims and brings them into relationship with himself. resurrection
We will stop at this point. Blessings on you.