THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
To know the only true God, honor and obey Him, and make Him known.
Strategy
The People of the Book is taking an "insider approach" to working with Muslims. This means that we do not want to harshly extract them from their family and culture. We want them to come to saving faith in Christ, but stay inside their culture to be able to share Christ with family, friends and the rest of the Muslim world. We do not, of course, approve of any form of syncretism.
If we desire to have an effective ministry to Muslims, we must, in a sense, become as a Muslim to the Muslim world. The goal is to share the Gospel in a way that it can be understood and embraced by them with all their heart and mind. If we do not spend time with them, living among them, how will they ever see the Gospel being lived out in real life?
John Gilchrist makes the following comments in his book
Communicating the Gospel to Muslims:
part B - The Biblical Approach to Muslims
section 3 - Paul's preaching at Athens and Corinth
"When Christians take a traditional evangelical line of approach, simply setting Jesus forth as the Lord and Saviour of all men, Muslims find security in dismissing the message as simply an exposition of Christian doctrine and belief, and they comfort themselves by resting in the doctrines and tenets of Islam instead. We need to penetrate, we need to challenge the Muslims where they are and stimulate a process of reflection by presenting the Gospel against their own background, against the Muslims' own views of Jesus and the prophetic history leading up to him.
Not only so but, as we have seen in the example of Paul, we have a clear Biblical sanction for quoting their own scriptures to make our message relevant. Paul did this with telling effect in Athens by quoting Greek poets and it is quite amazing to behold how, by quoting passages from the Qur'an as well as the Bible, a Christian can make the Gospel message thoroughly relevant to a Muslim. I intend to give numerous practical examples later in this book, but let it suffice for the moment to say that we have, here, a clear Biblical authority for this method."
Mr. Gilchrist adds the following comment in section 4 - Becoming a Muslim to the Muslims:
"What, then, is the Biblical approach to Muslims in the light of this method into which the great apostle allows us to enter? It is simply this - in the same way that he became as a Jew to the Jews, so each of us must become as a Muslim to the Muslims. We must discover the beliefs of the Muslims, their view of prophetic history, their assessment of Jesus Christ, and their overall religious perception of life, and present the Gospel against that background. Samuel Zwemer, one of the most famous missionaries to Muslims, sums this up perfectly in saying: 'We must become Moslems to the Moslem if we would gain them for Christ. We must do this in the Pauline sense, without compromise, but with self-sacrificing sympathy and unselfish love. The Christian missionary should first of all thoroughly know the religion of the people among whom he labours; ignorance of the Koran, the traditions, the life of Mohammed, the Moslem conception of Christ, social beliefs and prejudices of Mohammedans, which are the result of their religion, - ignorance of these is the chief difficulty in work for Moslems. (Zwemer, The Moslem Christ, p. 183).'"
We believe that it can be very effective to use the Quran as a tool to share concepts that are familiar and acceptable to Muslims, and that support Biblical principles. There are many concepts that are very compatible with the Bible and there are other Quranic teachings that may actually be misunderstood by Christians and Muslims. Of course, the Holy Bible is the only and complete authority for everything pertaining to doctrine and lifestyle.
We believe that it is perfectly acceptable to use the name Allah, both in the Bible that we use to minister to Muslims, as well as materials that we distribute. It is the translation of the word "God" in Arabic. Joshua Massey has written an excellent summary about this topic. This does not mean that Allah in the Qur'an is exactly the same as the God of the Bible.
Pray that God raise up Muslim men and women who are committed to sharing the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in an appropriate and contextualized manner.
If you would like to read more on this topic please go to strategy quotes.
Download the PofB strategy as a pdf file.