Islam and the Kingdom of Heaven I have written this for Muslims who have had a vision or dream of Jesus, Son of God. I must emphasize that you have had these experience BECAUSE of Islam and not IN SPITE OF Islam, As it is written in Psalms 19:9 The Fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. Like the pagag Cornelius in Acts 10, your prayers and your charity have risen as a memorial before God and you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Renaissance of Islam envisioned by Zeba Kahn has begun with you, To review certain elements of this commentary, Sura 74:30 “And above it is nineteen” confirms the divine nature of the Quran. However, this Sura reveals that the Quran is a parable that was either largely misunderstood by Mohammad or that its meaning and intent was ignored by him. For example, the meaning of Sura 74:30 is “Before the Quran was, 19 is”, which is to say, first, the Quran is a created artifact of the revelation and, second, that Arabic is superfluous to the transmission of its meaning. Number is the language of the mind of God and 19 is the key to the Quran. The task Gabriel with which charged Mohammad was to lead the Children of Ishmael to Jesus and out of the bondage of ignorance and lawlessness. In this, Mohammad was partially successful, in that he gathered the tribes of Araby into a cohesive polity but only by appealing to the cultural blood lust of the desert through the apostasy of the Jihad of the Sword. Gabriel indicates this apostasy withholding the bismillah from Sura At-Tawbah (sometimes known as al-Baraah) because of the Sword verse (9:5) and the appeal to idolatry in 128 – 129. As a result, Mohammad is something of a cross between John the Baptist and Moses. He is like Moses in that he led his people out of bondage and into lawfulness but with the taint of corruption that prevented him from crossing the Jordan River, figuratively speaking, by being buried in Medina instead of Mecca. He is like John the Baptist in that he has prepared the Way for the Children of Ishmael to eventually come fully into the covenant of Abraham, which your experience of Jesus reflects. The fact that Mohammad demanded he be buried in Medina demonstrates that he realized his own inequity and was, in the final analysis, truly repentant. The piety and righteousness that produced your personal vision of Jesus is a blessing unto him. 19 has also revealed that Sura Maryam is the Pearl of Great Price in the Quran. 19:1 - 19:22 validates Luke’s version of the nativity and 19:19 connects this nativity with an artifact of the historicity of Jesus’s crucifixion in John 19:19, while the summary of His life in 19:22 reflects the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet and the 22 stations of the Tree of Life associated with Jewish numerology. In this regards, Psalm 19 is the manifesto of the Hebrew Bible and, along with the Sermon on the Mount, the essence of Jesus’s ministry. Finally, Sura Yusuf is the final invitation Gabriel offered Mohammad to seek out the meaning behind the parable of the Quran from Jewish believers. 19 reveals that the Gospel of Matthew was prepared by the Holy Spirit in anticipation of the emergence of a Messenger to the Children of Ishmael. The conventional wisdom of current Biblical scholarship is that Matthew wrote this Gospel in hopes that it would convince a Jewish audience of the essential compliance of Jesus to the Law of Moses. The short answer is that Matthew had his agenda and the Holy Spirit has his and the Gospel of Matthew is proof that God was waiting for Mohammad in the same way Jesus was waiting for you. Sura Yusuf is the only Bible story told in its entirety and the journey of Yusuf, one of the Bible’s blameless men. Into Egypt, anticipates the journey of Jesus, the Bible’s other blameless man, into Egypt as part of Matthew’s nativity. Which really brings me to the subject of this commentary: engaging the Gospels, generally. In Matthew 18:3, Jesus observes: Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Just for the record, the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God are equivalent. Jews don’t like to say “God” or YWHW, so they substitute LORD or Heaven as necessary in normal conversation. Now, what does Jesus mean by “little children”. I’ve read Muslim commentary that children should be meek and humble and pious in this regards, with which I suppose a number of Christian commentators would concur. And that may be appropriate for children 7 years and older, but I don’t think that is what Jesus meant. Or, he meant something in addition. The core value of the economics of Jesus is captured in Mark 9:37 and it is illustrated most dramatically in the retail sales associated with Christmas. Although there are some Christians and most atheists who share the sentiment that Christ needs to be taken out of Christmas, the fact is that they are missing the point: as an engine of economic activity, the Baby Jesus is one of the most important drivers of material wealth beyond the mechanisms of the military industrial complex. I am not proposing that economics represents the kingdom of heaven, but it is an indicator of its presence as a cultural bias. I believe what Jesus has in mind is the relationship of children between 2 years and 5 years old and Santa Claus. Children at that age totally understand their place in the universe and completely embrace the bounty that it promises to deliver. Now, those who may complain that this represents idolatry misunderstand the nature of pediatric psychology, for this is the product of magical thinking which will subside naturally as their capacity for discrimination matures. By the time they are 9 years old or so, they will have discovered that Santa is just a fiction and generally convert their disappointment in the nature of reality into scorn for their former credulity and/or forays into sadism with younger siblings and friends by revealing the fraud. We all grow up and most of us replace the magic of the season in various ways. But some of us become parents and, in my case, I was witness to the magic of season through the obvious enchantment it cast upon my daughter and her friends between 2 years and 5 or so years old. And it was this vicarious entry into the Never-Never Land of a Child’s Christmas Where Ever that I came to realize it was this total authentic uninhibited pedal to the metal investment in all things Christmas that Jesus meant when He said it is only as a child that one can enter the Kingdom of God. The fact is, for that period when Christmas begins to dominate a childs imagination until the fall asleep with their favorite toy cuddled beneath their chins, they are fully citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. And, as long as they are in that especial state of mind, we, their parents, are in it with them. And, for that brief moment, the magic of the Star of Bethlehem transforms the world around us. The fact it goes away is not nearly as important as if it was never there. But that’s not what this essay is all about. Paula Gooder is an Anglican scholar with a number of YouTube videos discussing each Gospel, Heaven, Hell, the epistles and various other subjects. She is not what I would call a Christian apologist, but a Christian enthusiast (with apologies to the English disinclination to religious “enthusiasm” since Cromwell). It is obvious that she has had children, for she approaches her subject with the same expectation of delight as a child listening for reindeer on Christmas Eve. Her inquiry into the mystery of Jesus is a journey into the Kingdom of Heaven. And this is the purpose of this essay is all about. If you have had a vision of Jesus, your soul is likely on fire and I want to throw gasoline on that fire but I also want to respect the intellectual tradition of Islam with a credible guide towards this unfamiliar horizon and I am not competent in that regard. I have too many axes to grind and may not be entirely sound, theologically, and that is important for your evolving relationship with your Muslim community as an agent of Renaissance. In this regards, I can recommend Paula Gooder without qualification. On a related subject, Acts 10 has Peter’s vision in which the Holy Spirit purifies all foods. Mark 7:20 echoes this revelation, but Matthew leaves it out because he didn’t want to offend the kosher impulse of his Jewish market. This is an important element of Christianity. For this reason, I can recommend a YouTube video by David Pawson on the Letter to the Galatians which has a very uncluttered discussion, with a diagram, to illuminate this element of Christian dogma. This is an area of considerable confusion in the Muslim community that Ahmed Deedat routinely mischaracterized for his own purposes but the schematic Pawson offers will clarify the issue and reveal the essential dishonesty of Deedat’s presentation. In some ways, your spiritual life is like the three stage rocket that put man on the moon. Your faithfulness in prayer was the first stage and took you to the place where you could break free of the atmosphere or fall back to earth, Your vision of Jesus ignited the second stage and the first stage has broken away, having served its purpose. And now, with your soul on fire, I hope to feed your second stage until it falls away and you enter into a third stage of relationship with the Holy Spirit that will convey you beyond the horizon of my limited perspective and into the Kingdom of God. And that’s the truth. Amen.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 12:19:00 +0000
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