Bible and Mission

Lesson 5: The Religion of Warfare In this lesson, I will repost two articles of mine from 2015.   The first provides quotations from the Quran, and the second quotations from Islam’s Sahih Bukhari .   From these, readers can see that Islam is only a religion of ‘peace’ if one understands peace as the result of submission —submission to Allah and to Islam.   More honestly, it is a religion of submission that engages in jihad as a matter of course to make others submit to it.   Of course, this applies more to some than to other Muslims.   Yet this fact does explain much of Islamic history and the present day Islamic terrorist groups in various parts of the world.   The purpose of this lesson is to identify some of the important and authoritative texts that undergird the understanding of Islam as a religion of warfare. What Does the Quran Say about Treatment of Jews and Christians? (3 February, 2015) The Quran seems to offer different advice on what to...

Lesson 4: Ethical Considerations on Israel’s Clearing of Canaan from its Inhabitants Introduction What shall we do with Old Testament texts dealing with Israel's clearing of Canaan from its inhabitants?   While not the least surprising in the history and culture of the Ancient Near East, the story poses a potential ethical challenge when it appears in Holy Scripture and as an event called for by God.  Putting people to the sword hardly sounds moral.  It sounds like an evil military force like ISIS or Hamas.  We might view it as ethnic cleansing and genocide. Ancient Near Eastern peoples practiced people displacement and annihilation.  For example, in 1595 BC, Mursilli I (a Hittite) captured Babylon.  He removed the temple treasure and scattered the people.  This was a pattern throughout the region and over many centuries, one more familiar to us when the Babylonians did the same to Jerusalem in 587/6 BC.   The stories of such practices are ...