[Day 22] While some Muslims know that Jesus is referred to as the Word of God in the Qur’an, the vast majority do not know what it means and even fewer realize that the same title is given to Jesus in the Bible. Some believers have used the “Word of God” texts in the Qur’an as a starting point for proclaiming the Good News of the Messiah to Muslims.

[Day 03] Muslims almost always object to using the title “Son of God” concerning Jesus. The main reason is that many Muslims believe the phrase “Son of God” implies that God the Father had sexual relations with Mary and that Jesus (the Son) was born of this union.

For Muslims, man is the high point of God’s creation. Religious activity such as ritual prayer, pilgrimages, alms giving, fasting and reciting the Muslim confession of faith are at the heart of Islamic religious experience. But for Christians, sin is not simply a matter of making mistakes, but rather of living in opposition to Godly character.

Seekers and believers from Muslim backgrounds regularly single out the term ‘Son of God’ as the biggest obstacle to reading the Gospel. Worse yet, many Muslims are so frightened of this term that they refuse to read or listen to any text that asserts it.

There is a long history of trying to explain ‘Son(s) of God’ to Muslims, and explanations have usually failed to overcome the entrenched meaning of the phrase. Luke did not “remove” ‘Son of God’; he simply translated the meaning of the original Hebrew phrase into Greek—in three different ways. When Western missionaries hear ‘Son of God’ explained or translated as ‘the Christ’, they sense a loss of content.

Most Christians are fairly uninformed about Islamic beliefs. In a similar way, many Muslims do not understand or are ignorant of Christian teaching about Jesus. Muslims claim that Jesus did not die on the cross – such a death is considered to be unworthy of such a good prophet. They affirm that Jesus was taken up to heaven without dying.

Muslims believe that God is only one and He has no associates. Christians do not believe that Jesus is an associate of God but that He is God in the flesh (John 1:1-18). Knowing God as a Trinity is a profound thing. In the words of Francis Schaeffer: Love, communication and friendship have always been present between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity gives us an example of how to live.

The abundant references to Biblical characters in the Qur’an definitely show that Mohammed (Muhammed) was influenced by many aspects of Jewish and Christian teachings. However his idea of God does not include very significant Christian concepts about God. For example…