Would you read the Koran?

[TheIndianGirl]

Would you read the Koran, Buddha's teaching, etc. for educational purposes? If you think Catholicism is another religion, what about reading the Apocrypha? Why or why not?
What does the Bible say about this?

I think it should be okay to read them for educational purposes (not for wisdom, etc.). I think it is helpful in understanding another culture.

 

[Dino246]

I intend to read the Qu'ran, and purchased an English translation to do so. There are many Moslems in this region, and I want to have a basic understanding of their book so that I can witness more effectively.

 

[Live4Him]

Would you read the Koran, Buddha's teaching, etc. for educational purposes? If you think Catholicism is another religion, what about reading the Apocrypha? Why or why not?
What does the Bible say about this?

I think it should be okay to read them for educational purposes (not for wisdom, etc.). I think it is helpful in understanding another culture.

Personally, I would not.

Those teachings are doctrines of demons, so why would I want to fellowship with the same?

I actually had God rebuke me many years ago when I was studying the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses in order to better refute them.

Paul said:

"For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil." (Rom. 16:19)

As Christians, we should be "simple", as in simpletons, "concerning evil" and "wise unto that which is good".

In other words, we need to be grounded in the truth, and not studying the errors of others.

Many years ago, I was visiting my friend's uncle in a hospital in NYC. As it turned out, the other patient in his room was a Jehovah's Witness. He apparently saw either my Christian-themed shirt or hat that I was wearing, and he eventually sprung up in his bed and preached his doctrine to me for about 20 minutes straight. I didn't say a single word to him until he was done. When he was finished, I didn't address a single thing that he had said unto me, but, instead, I preached the gospel to him. When I was finished speaking, he said to me, and I quote:

"All that I can say to you is that if what you just told me is true, then I'm doomed."

In other words, the truth, in and of itself, exposed and condemned his error, and I didn't need to study any of his beliefs or even refute a single one of them.

Hopefully, this makes sense.

 

[TheIndianGirl]

Personally, I would not.

Those teachings are doctrines of demons, so why would I want to fellowship with the same?

I actually had God rebuke me many years ago when I was studying the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses in order to better refute them.

Paul said:

"For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil." (Rom. 16:19)

As Christians, we should be "simple", as in simpletons, "concerning evil" and "wise unto that which is good".

In other words, we need to be grounded in the truth, and not studying the errors of others.

Many years ago, I was visiting my friend's uncle in a hospital in NYC. As it turned out, the other patient in his room was a Jehovah's Witness. He apparently saw either my Christian-themed shirt or hat that I was wearing, and he eventually sprung up in his bed and preached his doctrine to me for about 20 minutes straight. I didn't say a single word to him until he was done. When he was finished, I didn't address a single thing that he had said unto me, but, instead, I preached the gospel to him. When I was finished speaking, he said to me, and I quote:

"All that I can say to you is that if what you just told me is true, then I'm doomed."

In other words, the truth, in and of itself, exposed and condemned his error, and I didn't need to study any of his beliefs or even refute a single one of them.

Hopefully, this makes sense.

I would definitely make sure my faith is strong/grounded before I read the Koran or another text. Personally, I would make sure that I have read the whole Bible first and have a good grasp of everything in the Bible before I pursue something like this. I think reading the Koran may help us to understand Muslims, how they view others including Christians, understand their history, and perhaps help us to sharpen our own faith if we see something questionable/though-provoking in their book. Obviously I would not meditate on the Koran but it may be helpful to read it from an analytical perspective.

 

[Blackpowderduelist]

I don't have time for it. It's hard enough for me to find time to read all the Christian writing that I am interested in.

 

[ewq1938]

Only a mature Christian should ever read non-Christian religious texts.

 

[Nehemiah6]

Would you read the Koran...

I have read the Koran, and I would definitely not recommend it to Christians for "so-called" educational purposes.

Most Christians are not even totally familiar with the Bible and how everything fits together. So the first order of business should be a serious and systematic study of the Bible. I wonder how many here have memorized the books of the Bible?

Even reading the works of Shakespeare for educational purposes would be better. But now the "woke" black activists want to "cancel" Shakespeare because apparently he is a White Supremacist! Did you ever hear such nonsense before? And now demanding correct answers in math is also another aspect of White Supremacy. So education has become a farce, and the only thing that matters is Black Leftist propaganda.

 

[Nehemiah6]

I think reading the Koran may help us to understand Muslims, how they view others including Christians,

By now everyone should have a general understanding of Muslims and Islam, after everything that has happened since 2000 and even earlier. Islam is at war with the West. Radical Islam has declared Jihad, and moderate Muslims cannot object to that. Indeed they have flooded the West as another aspect of Jihad (which is to infiltrate and take over the West through the building of mosques and the changing of the culture). The goal of Islam is to establish a worldwide Caliphate and that has not changed.

 

[TheIndianGirl]

By now everyone should have a general understanding of Muslims and Islam, after everything that has happened since 2000 and even earlier. Islam is at war with the West. Radical Islam has declared Jihad, and moderate Muslims cannot object to that. Indeed they have flooded the West as another aspect of Jihad (which is to infiltrate and take over the West through the building of mosques and the changing of the culture). The goal of Islam is to establish a worldwide Caliphate and that has not changed.

I think this only pertains to extremist Muslims. I know a few Muslims who married nonMuslims (including Hindus and Christians). The children are brought up as Muslims but they do not require the wife to convert. One of the great Muslim kings, King Akbar of India, prided himself on having Muslim, Hindu, and Christian wives (and also built a house of worship for each). Surely they do not believe the nonMuslim wives would go to their hell.

 

[Lanolin]

I think you need to be able to read Arabic to read the Koran.
Apparently any translations in any other language are frowned upon by muslims.

 

[Nehemiah6]

I think you need to be able to read Arabic to read the Koran.

That is totally incorrect. Muslims have several translations of the Koran into English.

 

[Nehemiah6]

I think this only pertains to extremist Muslims.

Extremist Muslims are fully supported by the moderates. If the moderates speak out they are immediately under a death threat. Salman Rushie is still under a Fatwa.

 

[ewq1938]

Most Christians haven't even read the bible enough...

 

[GandalfTheWhite]

God said we should not even mention other gods or speak their names... so no I am not interested in the Quran. Holy Spirit will guide you to witness to a Muslim if you have to.

 

[Lucy-Pevensie]

I have read much of The Koran & The Hadith. They are antichrist in nature.

 

[posthuman]

By now everyone should have a general understanding of Muslims and Islam, after everything that has happened since 2000 and even earlier.

i've read the Koran. i've read several Buddhist sutras and a bit of the book of Mormon, too.
i worked and went to school with a lot of Muslims, know not a few Buddhists, and had Mormon missionaries hovering around my house for a while. how am i going to talk to them about their beliefs if i am clueless about the foundation of those beliefs? likewise we have no business trying to witness to Jews if we don't even know what the law and the prophets say. we'd be likely to do more harm than good.

i don't consider that learning about something from people who hate it is a good way to get an education about it.
they generally present a very skewed version and misrepresent it. for example Nehemiah you are IMO definitely not a good source of information if i want to know about the thoughts & policies of democrats in the US. you are biased. and if we were not Christians, do we think that Muslims who have never picked up a Bible would do a good job of explaining Christianity to us? read the threads here bashing Calvinism -- do they accurately represent reformed theology?

imagine all you knew about Christianity was what you read in the secular news. would you have a good grasp of it or no?

He that answereth a matter before he heareth it,​

it is folly and shame unto him.​

(Proverbs 18:13)​

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[posthuman]

I think you need to be able to read Arabic to read the Koran.
Apparently any translations in any other language are frowned upon by muslims.

many Muslims will tell you this, yes. regardless of the fact that translations exist. they will say you can get the sense in your own language but the poetry of the language and many specifics of grammar and meaning are not translatable.

it is the same with us -- many Christians will tell you, translations are good, but to really understand the scripture we ought to learn Greek and Hebrew. it's not strictly necessary and of course the Spirit is able and guides us into truth, but many nuances of language are lost whenever translation is done. sorry kjv guys; it's true. why do you think Strong's concordance exists eh

 

[Adstar]

Would you read the Koran, Buddha's teaching, etc. for educational purposes? If you think Catholicism is another religion, what about reading the Apocrypha? Why or why not?
What does the Bible say about this?

I think it should be okay to read them for educational purposes (not for wisdom, etc.). I think it is helpful in understanding another culture.

Yes if i was thinking of specializing in witnessing to people of that religion..

I would not be reading any other religious book unless you have first read the Bible from cover to cover..

 

[posthuman]

it is the same with us -- many Christians will tell you, translations are good, but to really understand the scripture we ought to learn Greek and Hebrew. it's not strictly necessary and of course the Spirit is able and guides us into truth, but many nuances of language are lost whenever translation is done. sorry kjv guys; it's true. why do you think Strong's concordance exists eh

A really obvious and clear example of this occured to me - names. Names of people and places. They are very often very significant - many times in the Bible they are translated for us, just to make sure we get it. Like John 9:7 fo example, where the man born blind was told to go wash in the pool of Siloam. John is writing in Greek and tells us Siloam means "sent" - he knows this is important and makes sure the reader knows it, because people who don't speak Hebrew are going to be reading his gospel. If we spoke Hebrew we would already know immediately what Siloam means.

So we're reading English, we do not get all the information in the scripture. Not even the venerated KJV tells us that the name Jesus means "Yah is Salvation" - - but we would know that if we understood the original languages the Bible was written in.

Not strictly necessary, but very advantageous for wisdom.

 

[Magenta]

Three Qur'an Verses Every Christian Should Know

Islam is often presented as a very simple religion: it is just submission to Allah. But if you dig a little deeper you find out in the Qur'an, Sura 4 verse 65, that submission to Allah requires complete obedience to all of Muhammad's decisions, and that is where Islam gets a lot more complicated, because Mohammed's decisions are spread across thousands of stories in the Hadiths.

Most Christians don't have the time, or the sources, or the desire, to go through all this material, and figure out what Islam teaches. No problem. That's what we're here for, and we are happy to serve that role in the body of Christ.

But we should all keep in mind that there are more than one 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and that Islam places a strong emphasis on preaching, and winning converts. Chances are, we are we are not going to be there when your Muslim friends preach Islam to you, or when your children go off to college, and hear about how wonderful Islam is, not only from their Muslim friends, but also from their professors.

It seems then that Christians in general need to know something about Islam. Rather than throw everything at you at once, I'm going to give you three simple verses. Now I would love to see Christians around the world learn maybe a dozen or so Qur'an verses that I think are very important. But if I were to narrow down the list to just three verses, these would be the three.


First: Surah 4 verse 157 (by the way those are basically chapters) Chapter 4 verse 157.
This verse gives you the Islamic View of Jesus' crucifixion. Let's read it.

They said in boast (they here are the Jews) we killed Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah, but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of assurity they killed him not.

Notice that Jesus was not killed; He wasn't even crucified. Islam denies that the crucifixion of Jesus
ever took place. But if Jesus was never crucified, why do people believe that He died on the cross?

The Islamic view is that Allah miraculously disguised someone to make him look like Jesus, and it was this other person who was crucified, not Jesus. The reason you believe that Jesus died, according to Islam, is that Allah did an excellent job tricking everyone.

It is interesting to ponder the theological depths false prophets will go to to in order to deny what Jesus did for us.


Second: Sura 5 verse 47

Muslims often claim that the Bible has been corrupted, but there are plenty of verses in the Qur'an
which show that if the Bible has been corrupted, Allah certainly doesn't know anything about it.

5:47 is one of these verses. In 5:47 Allah commands Christians to judge by the gospel. He says, let the people of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. If any do fail to judge by the light of what Allah hath revealed, they are no better than those who rebel.

Allah commands us to judge by the gospel, and he says that we are rebels if
we don't. Clearly we can only judge by the gospel if we actually have the gospel.

So the Qur'an assumes that we have reliable Scriptures. Of course if we obey Allah and we judge by the gospel, we have to judge that Islam is false, because Islam contradicts the gospel. The gospel says that Jesus died on the cross; the Qur'an Sura 4 verse 157 says that he didn't. The Qur'an tells us to judge by the gospel. Therefore, if we listen to the Qur'an, we have to reject the Qur'an.


Third: Sura 9 verse 29. If you have never understood why Christians and other religious minorities are so horribly mistreated in places like Iraq, and Egypt, and Pakistan, the reason for the abuse is found in the Qur'an. Allah commands Muslims, once they are in the majority, to violently subjugate Christians and Jews.

Allah says in 9:29 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day (notice it says, fight those who do not believe, not fight in self-defense. This is a command to fight people on their beliefs) nor hold that forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and his messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of truth from among the people of the book (people of the book are Jews and Christians) until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Muslims are commanded to fight us until we pay tribute to them and feel ourselves subdued. We have to acknowledge our inferiority, and accept our status as second-class citizens who don't have the same rights as Muslims. This command has probably led to more oppression than any other command in history.

If you watch my (David Wood's) videos you might already be familiar with these three verses. I would encourage you to pass this video onto your friends. Islam's most powerful asset in the West, with the possible exception of political correctness, is ignorance. If people don't know anything about Islam, then Muslim preachers, along with groups like CAIR and ISNA, can pretty much say whatever they want to say about Islam, and nobody will know any better. But if certain facts about Islam become common knowledge, our discussions with our Muslim friends will be much more productive.

Thank you, David Wood!