Hello Muhammad, thanks for responding.
You said:
“I guess we can agree to disagree, I humbly request you to keep seeking truth and pray to God to show you what is truth ( status quo, history and culture should not stop us from seeking out what is truth — I think we can agree on this part”
My friend, truth is not something we can agree to disagree on.
Do you think God will ask us our preference on how we think salvation should work? Do you think God will let us pick what should have been the truth?
Of course not.
What’s true is what’s true. We should be able to have respectful and open conversations about what’s true, but we can’t pretend like the truth itself doesn’t matter.
I have been seeking truth all my life. I’ve been praying that God will show me what is truth.
That’s why I’m telling you what I have found.
Jesus is the Truth. Jesus Himself said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.”
My friend, I want you to be in Heaven with me. I want you to know the truth and let the truth set you free.
That’s why I engage in these kinds of debates. They are of eternal importance!
You said:
“here are stats of Christianity decline in US:https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/”
That’s only one country — the United States.
Around the world, Christianity is surging. It’s growing rapidly.
Certain segments of Christianity, like the Pentecostals and Charismatics, are growing faster than Islam!
I wrote a few articles talking about these stats: https://medium.com/hope-youre-curious/christianity-is-taking-over-the-world-through-evangelism-2bc4884d23b0
You said:
“I guess you did not get a chance to read my article ( https://mfakhar2000.medium.com/jesus-was-none-but-a-prophet-b26aea21247e) but here are the verses where Jesus claim to be son ( contradictions to other verses)”
My friend, “son” does not mean what you think it does.
To most Muslims, “son” means “offspring.” They think it means that God had relations with Mary and they sired Jesus together as a child.
That’s wrong.
“Son” means something very different to a first-century Jew.
Remember that the New Testament Gospels were written in the first century, in Israel, to a Jewish audience, for the most part. They use phrases as Jewish people understood them.
To a Jewish person, “son” means “the equal of his father.”
Every male child was a “boy” until they came of age. At their bar mitzvah, when they became an adult, they could now be called a “son” for the first time.
Why?
Because only now were they the equal of their father: both were adult human males.
To be a son is the be the equal of your father, in Israel.
That’s why, when Jesus claims to be the Son of God, His audience understood that He was claiming to be God. To be the Son of God is to be equal to God.
That’s why crowds tried to stone Jesus when He claimed this. They understood what He meant.
To be the Son of God is to be equal to God.
You said:
“your example body, mind does not work because end of day we are one as a whole , our body cannot manifest on its own without mind; and so does mind cannot be find outside the body”
Exactly!
The Son never exists without the Father. The Spirit never manifests on its own without the Father and Son.
The body, mind, and soul example works perfectly. They are not independent. The mind cannot exist without the body. Just so, the Father, Son, and Spirit are not independent. They are one God. They are not three gods. They are not independent of each other.
They are one God, just as you are one human.
You said:
“No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. (John 1:18)”
Exactly.
Why can Jesus make God known?
Think hard about this, my friend.
Why can Jesus make God known, when no one else can?
Why is Jesus unique? Why can only Jesus make God known?
Because Jesus is the Son of God. To be the Son of God is to be equal to God.
That’s why Jesus can make God known: because Jesus is equal to God. If you know Jesus, you know God.
Jesus said so Himself:
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:8–9 NIV)
If you saw Jesus, you saw the Father.
Why?
Because Jesus is equal to the Father.
You said:
“He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18)”
To be the Son of God is to be equal to God.
That’s one of the many ways we know that Jesus is God.
You said:
“For to which of the angels said he at any time, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? (Hebrews 1:5)”
Again, to be the Son of God is to be equal to God.
Calling Jesus the Son of God is saying that Jesus is God.
If you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father, because Jesus is equal to the Father.
You said:
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9)”
Jesus is the manifest love of God.
Why?
Because Jesus is God. Jesus is God’s love made manifest. Jesus is God in flesh, Immanuel, “God with us,” as the Bible says.
You said:
“you can also search lot of Pastors converted to Islam ( and hear their stories) and most of time reason is of core belief which make them confuse ( I am not asking you to convert obviously) but may be they can help articulate the message I might not be able to ( you can argue and send me videos where Muslims are converting to Christianity — but few I have seen is mostly not because of core belief ; they will compare West and Muslim countries and say women right is problematic in Islam or its more violent and so on; most people would look at Muslim to say that what Islam teaches instead of reading the book and making a sense out of it)”
My friend, Muslims are converting to Christianity by the millions.
In Iran, one million Muslims are becoming Christian every year.
If you want videos, here’s a playlist of 54 videos of Muslims leaving Islam and becoming Christians: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLezapmPtXFgDo0OUlAGmZeypYmxrKtMNd
You said:
“You correctly said earlier ; I have not read the bible ( may be I should) , most of my argument/knowledge is from this guy channel ( who is a convert)”
This is the problem of taking your arguments from someone else: you repeat their mistakes, and don’t recognize they are mistakes.
This man does not know his Bible.
You need to read the Bible, my friend. Read the entire thing. Ask God to open your eyes to perceive its truth.
There are wonders waiting for you — absolute wonders!
