Colossians 3 in P46, Hagmann's Take on the Dialogue, Beginning of Review/Response to Abu Zakariya

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White, and we're back here. This morning I thought it was Friday. It's like, oh no, I've actually got an extra day. That's good. It's been a long week, to put it mildly.

Colossians 3, P46, and the Call to Set Your Mind on Things Above

So I want to start off with something edifying before we get to anything that's not edifying today. I try to make everything edifying as best I can, obviously. That's an interesting shot. We brought it out far enough now that you can see the Borg cube and the Enterprise.

That's good. Some people on Twitter this morning were saying that we need to get to the real sinful issues with James White, and that is Coogee sweaters, bow ties, and Star Trek. Oh, and you say amen.

Thanks. Appreciate that. Really appreciate that a lot. I'm not going to go there. Anyway, last evening I spoke at church, and I've done last two Sundays and last two Wednesdays, and I was struck by the text that I was dealing with.

And let me send you this real quick. The website's throwing me a curve, but that's okay. We'll get it fixed here. There we go. Come on. There we go. Are you getting that? Window, Chrome, Manuscript Workspace.

I'll let you play with that. If we can't bring it up, can't bring it up. But I chose last evening to speak from Colossians chapter 3, and what I'm putting on what I have on my screen anyways, evidently it's not working appropriately for some odd reason, but is P46, Papyri 46, the 175 to 200 papyrus that is a collection of Paul's writings, Paul's major writings.

And interestingly enough, after Romans comes Hebrews, then Ephesians. There you go. And we could actually zoom in on the papyrus if you want to as I get to it. And I brought this up not because I'm going to be showing you any textual variance or anything like that.

It's just, to me, when talking about a text like this, it is nice to be reminded of the fact that what we are reading is exactly what came from the Apostle himself and has been transmitted to us down through the ages.

Despite the hatred of mankind, you can see this here. And what's interesting is it sort of starts here at this line, right? Ah, stop that. This line, don't do that. Right here. And that's the beginning of verse 1.

So it's almost like Stephanos got the verse division right there and it was predicted by the writer of P46 many, many years ago. But what it says, it starts off with if underneath the Alpha and Omega symbol there.

Let me see here. Did I just, there we go. Drag that down there. Yeah. If therefore you have been raised together with Christ. See, there's the Chi Omega with the line over top. So it's a Nomina Sacra.

So if you have been raised together with Christ. And the use of I here, if, in the original language is not introducing something like, well, we're not sure, something like that. It's since. Since it is the established reality that you have been raised together with Christ, therefore do something.

Well, what are you supposed to do? Well, you are to be thinking upon the things that are above. Set your mind on the things that are above. And what I basically raised to folks last evening at PRBC was the connection between what Paul says here and what I had preached on Sunday.

Sunday morning specifically from John chapter 11. And I had been struck by a connection that I had not seen before. Which is one of the good things, I think it's good for ministers to, even if, I'm not one of those folks that says, sorry Steve, but I'm not one of those folks that says every single sermon has to be a verse-by-verse exposition.

I mean, that's normally what I do, that's what I'm most comfortable with, but I'm not going to be one of those folks that says every single sermon has to be this. But it's awfully good to do that, because when you do that, you are forced into the text to a much greater depth than when you're doing merely topical-type sermons.

And I was struck with some things on the Lord's Day from John chapter 11, especially, and I didn't have time to grab P66 or something like that and pull up John chapter 11 and look at the manuscripts there, but especially Jesus' words, the one living and believing in me.

And I often warn people when we're extremely familiar with a particular passage. When we, in John chapter 11, we've all heard it used in sermons at gravesides and funeral homes, and we know it so well that there's a great danger that we will not hear it because we know it.

And I was struck with the one living and believing. Two present tense participles, articular participles, so they're functioning in a substantive fashion, functioning as action nouns in essence. The one living and believing in me.

Now, believing in me, that was used in the preceding verse. That's fairly easy to understand. It's ongoing action, which in John is very significant, over against point action, where you don't have the continuous belief.

And in John, that point action belief is almost always non-saving faith. But it struck me that the living is also in me. The living and believing in me. It's not just the one living out there someplace, and then believing in me.

Both are connected together. So it's the one living and believing in me. The one living in me. What does that mean? How are we to understand that? How do you describe someone as the one living? The one living in me.

The one living in Christ. And really, when you think about it, the Apostle Paul picks that stream of Jesus' teaching up and incorporates it tremendously. And I think here's a good example of that. Because what Paul is saying in this text is that you have died, and you have now been raised up with Christ.

Since there is this new reality, this new reality of what it means to be a Christian, is that you've died, and you have been raised up with Christ. There is this new spiritual existence that is that of the redeemed, the elect of God in Christ Jesus.

Union with Christ, spiritual resurrection, all of this clear Pauline theology. Since you've been raised up with Christ, then you are to set your mind upon, be thinking upon the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.

And then he goes on to say that we are to seek after. So we are to think upon and seek after the things that are above. And the reason is because that's where Christ is seated, the right hand of God the Father.

And so if we are in Him, then we will be seeking the things that are where He is. He will define what the focus of our reality is, not the things upon the earth. That's one of the real problems with the word faith, prosperity, garbage, is that it's focused upon us, rather than recognizing that we are to be focused upon where our life is.

And that then leads us to Colossians 3 .3. For you have died, and your life has been hidden together with Christ in God. And you can see that right here. Yeah, you can see the thing moving right there.

You've died, and here's the... Maybe I can... No, it won't let me do that. I was going to try to draw something on it, but it's right here. Kekrepti. Kekrepti, right there. Yeah, there it is. Kekrepti has been hidden together, sunto Christo, with Christ in God.

So, here's the now and the not yet, the realized, not yet realized, eschatology, all of that kind of stuff. You've died, yet you're living. As Paul says to Galatians, I've been crucified together with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

So where is my life? Well, it's not here on this earth. And therefore I should not be investing my life in the things of the earth, but the things that are above, because my life has been hidden together with Christ in God.

That's the message of this tremendous text. And here, I could be wrong about this, but I think it's a fairly safe guess that that's probably the earliest example we have of those words. I don't have my text in front of me to see if there's any other papyri that would have this.

But it's certainly one of the earliest, if not the earliest example we have, of these particular words. They go all the way back to that point in time. And they continue to have reality to us today. You have died, and your life has been hidden together with Christ in God.

Anything that touches your life, good or bad, has to have been allowed for a purpose, because your life has been hidden with Christ in God. That's an amazing thing to consider. It's an extremely encouraging thing to consider for the believer.

And it's right there in the text in front of us. So I shared this with the folks last night, and it connects together very much with Jesus' words, the one living and believing in me, that union with Christ, which is then going to come out even more explicitly in John 17.

You and me and I and you, the spirits indwelling us, John 14, verse 23. A text like that. Once again, the beauty of the many themes woven together in Scripture, this is really where you find the beauty of Christian theology.

Unfortunately, certain views of Scripture prohibit you from being able to see these things. Because if you're taught, you cannot connect these things. If you're taught, you cannot see the same truth being spoken in different words by Paul or Jesus or whoever in the New Testament, then you're really left without anything to address at that particular point in time.

So think on these things. Our lives, no matter how much we are focused upon the things that are going on, and it's right for us to do the things that God has called us to do. It is necessary for us to do the things that God has called us to do.

We are to take care of our business in this life. We are to take care of our families, and we're to pay our bills, and we're to be people that bring honor and glory to God. I get that. That's all perfectly, totally 100 correct.

That's not the same thing as setting your mind on the things that are below. We mind those things and do the things that are necessary to be in obedience to God. But you know what you think about in those down times.

You know what you think about when your mind wanders. What is it that you focus upon? What is it that really means the most to you? That's the question that you have to ask. And our minds should be focused upon those things that are above, where Christ is, the worship of Christ, those things like that.

So just some devotional thoughts to get us started here. I know I need to think upon these things because it's been an interesting couple of weeks. I've learned a lot over the past couple of weeks. Learned who my real friends are and how many people.

There are certain people who say, we have great respect for Dr. White, but they're sitting around just waiting, just waiting. If they sense any blood in the water, they're going to be piling on, just piling on.

And you learn a lot at times like that. You really, really do. And I have over the past few weeks. Now, toward the end of the, you know, in a fairly short period of time, I want to start, and it's going to be difficult to do this, but I want to start giving a response to, I'm going to have to move this over here so I can get it tall enough to be seen.

There we go. I went and turned that thing off. Sorry about that. Fire it back up and give you a window and give you that and there. I've mentioned that I want to interact with and provide a response to a book that came out, published by IERA, titled Jesus, Man, Messenger, Messiah by Abu Zakaria.

And I think that a hard or a paper copy is available, but it was made available in electronic form first. And so here's the cover. And I want to respond to basically the first 40, 50 pages, because that's where you have the interaction with Christianity, mainly the foundational stuff.

Actually, most of it is rather interesting as far as what it deals with. But I think once we get through that amount of material, we will have dealt with what we need to deal with. And my hope is to do so in such a fashion that the people listening will be edified in the interaction with Abu Zakaria's discussion specifically of the doctrine of the Trinity and the early history of the Christian church.

I've taught church history a number of times, teaching church history right now. Just last Sunday, for example, was teaching on the aftermath of Nicaea, the time up to the Council of Chalcedon, Eutychianism, Nestorianism, Apollinarianism, etc., etc.

So this is sort of one of my areas, and hence I found Abu Zakaria's discussion of it quite interesting. Obviously, I disagree. But it seems providentially appropriate at this time to address a subject like this, because of what I have seen, especially over the past couple of weeks, in the attitudes and behaviors of people who call themselves Christians.

Now, I can't judge their hearts, but they claim to be Christians, and yet have extremely unusual views in regards to truth, in regards to Christian behavior, in regards to Christian evangelism. I have seen, over the past couple of weeks, the dark underside of the Christian web.

There are those out there that very, very plainly are extremely afraid of there being any kind of demonstration of respect toward people that we would believe to be in error, theologically speaking. There are many, many people who really believe that it is an act of apostasy to be kind, respectful, especially to even learn from someone who has a different view than your own.

They believe that that is an act of compromise. Now, I'll admit, the vast majority of these people don't engage in presenting the gospel outside of, in a very minimalistic fashion, in their own context.

They're not doing apologetics, they're not going out to other people. Or if they do, they sort of think that throwing verbal bombs and insulting people is the same thing as evangelism. And so I'm very much reminded of the street screechers in Salt Lake City.

Some of you don't know what I'm referring to, but we used to go to Salt Lake City, the General Conference of the Mormon Church, every six months. And we did for 18 years. And we would pass out tracks and have lengthy conversations.

And then, all of a sudden, these street preachers showed up. We called them street screechers because they really weren't preaching. And literally, these men would stand there with signs and yell at the Mormons that were walking by, It shouldn't be Mormon, it should be moron.

And they think that's preaching. And when people become offended, shockingly enough, they would think they were being persecuted for righteousness sake. And so that's why they were there. That's why they were doing what they were doing.

They thought they were serving God by offending people in that way. And it destroyed the outreach. The Mormons had tried to find a way to stop us. It took the King James-only Fundamentalist Baptist to actually do it.

Very same attitude. Those people knew next to nothing about Mormonism because they would consider it to be an act of spiritual apostasy to take the time to study meaningfully what someone was saying from the Mormon perspective.

To even read books. Because if you're reading someone's book, you, in essence, are investing your time and listening to someone that you would identify as a false teacher. As someone who is not speaking the truth.

But the motivation for that is so that you can speak the truth more effectively to someone who shares the same perspective. Especially if it's the author of that book or something like that. And it just seems like second nature to me.

But obviously, I'm in the minority and been proven to be in the minority. It seems like second nature to me that we would want to have accurate knowledge of the people to whom we are witnessing. Because, again, it's second nature to me that it is not only respect for the person you're talking to.

And I guess many people don't think you should respect the person you're talking to. But it's also respect for the truth, for God, for the gospel. To do your presentation in such a way that you are truthful in what you're saying.

So that you do not erect even further barriers between that person and faith in Christ. Seems fairly basic to me. But I've learned once again, and it's not that I didn't know this, but I've just had it so strongly emphasized to me over the past couple of weeks that for many people, that's utter foolishness.

That's utter foolishness. When I was asked by a reporter less than a week ago, why did you sit down with a Muslim imam? And I'm like, so that he could accurately explain what he believes? And the first words out of his mouth, this is a reporter, first words out of his mouth were, you sure are naive.

You sure are naive. And I was like, really? Okay. And you're a reporter. Okay. Well, he was a reporter, but then later on, I found out he's written books on the immigration crisis and stuff like that.

Might be a reporter, but he has some place where he's going. Anyway, all these things that I thought were second nature, I just have to keep reminding myself. They've been good reminder that they're not second nature to many people.

And that's why this ministry will always be a small ministry that will only be relevant to people who have the same presuppositions we do. And those same presuppositions are based upon having a holistic, whole consistent view of truth and a Christian worldview.

Ironically, some of the people using that phrase worldview are the worst people when it comes to actually being truthful about things as well. And so anyway, I've learned a lot over the past couple of weeks.

I was informed of the fact that Brandon House appeared on the 19th. This is only three days ago. On a, I guess it's a television program, web-based television program, something. I don't know. I've been having some small amount of attempted communication.

I've certainly discovered that you can't really accomplish much on Twitter because you may respond to somebody. I even wrote one of those tweet short things where it's a big long paragraph and you go way past 140 characters type thing and it just links to it.

You might as well just, it's like throwing a cup of water on the sidewalk in Phoenix over the past week. It doesn't, it just, gone. You know, almost, no, no, that's not, no, no, no, no, no. Don't, don't go there.

Don't go there. He's, he's looking like a Rhodes Scholar these days in comparison to a lot of people we're talking about. But this fella named Douglas Hagman, the Hagman Report, had Brandon House on. And why I'm playing this for you is I want you to understand how powerful poisoning the well, spinning the narrative, setting the parameters is when people have not been trained to think critically and clearly.

When people have not been trained to think critically and clearly. And we see this in politics. We see this in our society right now. In the educational system today, unless you're getting a good homeschool education, unless you're getting, you know, unless you've got textbooks on logic and reasoning and things, you're not getting that in the, in the public school system anymore.

And so what we're seeing is an entire generation of people coming up that if you can set the parameters, if you, you post a video, you put a title on it, you put a description on it, people will hear in what they see and listen to, what you've told them to hear.

And even if what you play says the exact opposite of what you've described as, they'll still hear it that way. That's frightening. I mean, that's 1984 frightening. That's brave new world frightening. But that requires people to read books and literature, which doesn't have much anymore either.

So even amongst Christians, amongst those who call themselves Christians. So what happens on this, this report is Brennan House provides the opening few statements that I made in the first night of the dialogue.

And yeah, I will. By the way, you know, some of you are saying, well, I, you know, I certainly hope you, yeah, I certainly hope we've got it. I've got a floor director now. I'm not used to having a floor director, but I have one now.

I bet you, I bet you these things can have little red lights on them. I really bet they can. And, and you like toys. You like toys. So you should, I wonder what my foot was hitting. That's what my foot was hitting.

We'll, we'll find, we'll find an appropriate place. I wonder if, I wonder if Summer would like it. Summer would love that. Her dad and her pastor. I'll have to, I'll have to take that over to Summer's place and she'll appreciate that.

Anyway, what were we talking about? So Moses was in the bulrushes and yeah, some of you have been saying, well, are you glad you've learned your lesson? I'm, I hope you, you know, that'll never happen again.

Yes, it will. Yes, it will. I'm not going to, I am not going to allow the rage of men and the willingness of people to grossly misrepresent and lie about the intentions and words of others to keep us from continuing to have meaningful dialogue and discussion with people.

And in fact, we'll go, we'll go more in depth. We're going to go more in depth on even more controversial issues and we're planning it, we're planning it. I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be stopped because no one has yet, I'm sorry, all the quote unquote biblical argumentation that I've seen so far has been sad.

I ain't marrying Muslims, not being yoked together with them and having discussions about things we don't agree on any more than it was when I was debating them in the same way for crying out loud. And all this stuff about spiritual enterprises and all the rest of the stuff, man, talk about stretching.

I mean, if you had anything worthwhile, I responded to one brother, I said, if you want something that's directly about this, let's look at what Peter said in 1 Peter 3. There's these words at the end of his exhortation, with gentleness and reverence.

It's fabos there, but when joined with gentleness there, we know where in the semantic domain that particular translation is. With gentleness and reverence, and I'm going to tell you something, 98 of my critics have thrown that biblical command out the window, not only with how they have treated me, but especially with how they've referred to Yosser Khadi.

Gentleness and reverence? Ha! If you're going to look at me and accuse me of sin for obeying that commandment, go ahead. I don't care. You are not my judge. God is. You're the one that gets to answer before him for your ignoring that command.

Oh, and by the way, the fellow, because now that we're on this camera and that reminded me of it, some fellow took a clip from the last program, took it out of its context. I was talking about the fact that I was being criticized for not preaching the gospel, and I made the comment, is there anybody doing debates that works harder at getting the gospel into their presentations?

I mean, there's only a few of us that are doing this stuff, so it's pretty easy to go get other people's debates, put them together. There's consistent gospel presentations in their debates. And this guy puts that up.

I can never support this man again because he's so arrogant. So, if I demonstrate that an argument that is being made against me, saying I should step down and stop doing what I'm doing, is actually full of hot air, that makes me arrogant.

I'm like, what? That was bad enough? I'm going to name names here. JD Hall decides to comment on Facebook saying, I had just thrown all Arabic Christians under the bus, calling me a YouTube apologist, as if I was even addressing the subject.

Hey, I guess it doesn't really matter. JD is good at misrepresenting the Pope, and me too. It's just an equal opportunity thing. Talk about piling on. Oh, good grief. So, anyway, it's just, the past couple of weeks have been fascinating.

So, we go to the Hagman report here, and I'm going to stop and start it, because I am so thankful that I said the things I said right at the beginning, because everyone just has to ignore it, or twist it.

Here's what I said, and I'm actually going to play it at normal speed.

The tentacles from that. I had a clip from WorldViewWeekend .com. Listen to this opening statement. This is about some interfaith. I'm just going to call it interfaith deception. Listen to this. High tech.

High tech. I'm just playing it the way it came across. I've been looking forward to this evening for a very, very long time. It has been my desire to engage in this, and when the opportunity came that I'd be coming into this area, I contacted Dr. Cotty, and I put out the call, and the church here was so kind to respond and to join with us in providing a place for us to have our conversation this evening.

I want you to understand what our motivations are this evening in coming together. This is not a debate. Now, I'm so thankful that I started off right there. I knew there would be some pushback. Never dreamed it would be like this.

And yet, I started off by saying, okay, what are our motivations? Now, dishonest people are going to ignore what I say. They're going to accuse me of being a liar, a dupe of Islam, whatever else. What has been extremely bothersome, some of my own fellow Reformed Baptists, who you would think the default is going to be years and years as an elder in the church, hundreds of sermons, has taught all around the world, done numerous debates.

Default might be, I should probably trust what he has to say. That's his intention. Even if you disagree, obviously, the participants did not believe for a second that they were engaging in ecumenism, compromise, anything like that at all.

You would think that would be the default. It hasn't been for everybody. There have been few. I'm thankful for the few of you who have stood up. And let me publicly say right now, if you listened yesterday, I was on Line of Fire with Michael Brown.

In the first hour, we talked about this whole situation. At one point, I was fairly animated myself during that period of time, but Michael got animated. 90 of the stuff he read on the air, I had never seen, the attacks.

I don't go looking for this stuff. I've had so much of it thrown at me, I don't even need to go looking for it. But he read someone mark this James White out, and apostasy, and false teacher, and all the rest of this stuff.

And there's Michael Brown saying, you want to mark him out, and the people who support him, well mark me too. Mark me out too. Just saying, I'm with this guy on this. It would be nice if a few folks on my side of where Michael and I disagree had been quite that bold, but that's how it's been.

But we press on anyways. So from the start, I'm saying this is why we're doing this. This is not a debate. Some of you have seen debates that I have done around the world. Now this guy, this Hagman guy, I can fully understand why he might not have a clue who I am.

But if you hear someone saying that you've done debates around the world, maybe that would stop you long enough to go, maybe I should find out what these debates have been about. As a Christian, I don't want to attack someone who's actually been very actively involved in defending the faith and doing so faithfully for years.

I don't want to be careful in what I say. You would think from a Christian perspective that's what you'd do. But if you listen carefully, you can actually hear typing in the background. I don't think he's listening.

I don't even think he's listening. Brent House has said, hey, there's this apostate guy, and his comments are going to point that out. This is not intended to be a debate. We are going to, of necessity, discuss differences that we have.

Differences that we have, of necessity. Yeah, we can't have conversation without talking about differences. He is a faithful Muslim. He believes. I saw a note on Facebook from Yasir Qadhi, and last night, if you're not aware of this, it's Ramadan right now, and last night is, let me explain this real quick, because people do find this interesting.

I've talked about it before. Might as well do some edifying things here in the midst of the silliness. Last night was the 27th night of Ramadan. And one of the fascinating beliefs about Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.

Remember, the Muslims use a lunar calendar rather than a solar calendar. So Ramadan moves forward in our year by 10 days, 10, sometimes 11 days each year. And so, Laylat al-Qadr is called the night of power.

Qadr is a fascinating Arabic word. It can mean just power, but it also means like predestination. And there's a lot of fascinating discussion amongst Muslims, just as there is amongst Christians, as to the relationship of the free will of man and the predestination of God.

It's just as live an issue amongst Muslims as it is amongst Christians, interestingly enough. And, ostensibly, it is the night in which the Quran was sent down to Gabriel. And then, the angel Gabriel, and then Gabriel then delivered it over time to Muhammad.

And, so, prayer and worship done on the night of Laylat al-Qadr is worth a lifetime of worship. In other words, if you worship on a night other than Laylat al-Qadr, then you get the benefit of just that one night's worship.

If you worship on Laylat al-Qadr, you get a lifetime's worth of benefit for that one night. So, you can imagine if you do it every year of your life, you're getting 70, 80 lifetimes worth of, not so much merit, but blessing and reward.

There's a strong reward concept. Scales, we've talked about a lot of this stuff before. And again, this is upon the theology of Islam more than the politics of Islam. They get rather messily intertwined at times, as we've pointed out.

Anyway, so, Laylat al-Qadr is one of the odd nights. Muhammad had an odd fixation upon odd numbers. For example, he'd only eat an odd number of figs. So, there are Muslims who will only eat an odd number of figs.

Because that's what Muhammad did. And so, 21st, 25th, 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th night of Ramadan. Why don't we know which one? Well, there is a hadith that indicates that Allah told Muhammad which night was Laylat al-Qadr.

But when he came into the mosque, there were people arguing about a financial issue. And it so bothered Muhammad that Allah took the knowledge of Laylat al-Qadr away from him. So, basically, faithful Muslims will make sure to spend the nights of the 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th, so four nights, nights of Ramadan in worship in the mosque.

And that's why, for example, the man with the van that ran into people in Finsbury Park in London. That's why it was so late. It was because of the primarily evening things that were going on. Fasting during the day and then the evening things going on in the mosque.

So, last night was the 27th night. So, Ramadan is just about over. Last night was the 27th night. And, so for many, that's there's actually a difference between the Sunni and the Shia on this. But for most Sunni Muslims, that's the probable night would be the 27th.

So, last night was probably for most Muslims Laylat al-Qadr. And, so there would there have been a lot of activity going on at that particular point in time. Now, how did I learn about that? Are there books about that?

Yeah, but I learned about it first through a lecture by Yasir Qadhi about Laylat al-Qadr. And for some people, can't do that, can't do that. Anyways, I'm not sure how I got there, but let's go ahead.

Differences that we have. The thing that makes this wonderful and the reason that I sought out Dr. Qadhi, aside from the fact that I have learned so much from him. And again, if you think I am going to be embarrassed by admitting that I'm a person learning, I'm not going to be.

I am not impressed by people who claim to be experts, who behave the way that people that I have encountered during the past two weeks behave. There are people who know more about Islam than I do. There are people who know more about anything than I do.

And if you think you know everything, you scare me. Okay? I've done a lot of studying. I continue doing a lot of studying. But if you think it's somehow necessary for someone to be infallible in a particular area, well, good luck with that.

That's sort of how cults start. Over the years, that he's been a primary influence in my study of Islam. I am a student of Islam, and I've learned much from him. But the reason I specifically sought him out is because I sense in him such a kindred spirit on the other side of the chasm that divides us in regards to our theology and our beliefs.

Now, I don't know if you can hear the typing in the background now, but did you notice what I said? Many people have focused upon the kindred spirit statement. What I was saying is, on the other side of the chasm that separates us in regards to our theology and beliefs.

There is no whitewashing. There is no saying, oh, we're all on the same side. The kindred spirit is the fact that he attempts to be a consistent Muslim. He's not just doing it because that's what he was raised in.

I've told the story of why. Why should we teach our children a book and a language they don't know if they don't actually live out its precepts? Hey, if you want to unthinkingly close your mind and not listen to that kind of stuff, more power to you.

Don't worry about me. I have absolutely no benefit to you whatsoever because my understanding of Christian apologetics is based upon a concept of truth and accuracy and consistency. If you don't see the necessity for that, there are, unfortunately, plenty of people you can go to and get much less complex, easier to understand arguments.

Go. Don't waste your time with me. He is a consistent Muslim. He believes what he says. He wants to seek for consistency amongst his people and his own practice. I can assure you that's what I was exactly thinking of at that very point in time was that story I've told you.

Listening to him on that bike ride, listening to him saying to his people, we need to be consistent here. And so when you have two believing people, one Christian, one Muslim, and this is where people just don't believe that such thing exists.

There are Christians who don't believe. They believe we're the only believing people and that Muslims don't believe what they believe. So, I'm not sure quite how to understand that. I'm not talking about true saving faith here or anything like that.

Obviously, I don't believe that faith in the Quran and Muhammad is appropriate faith or true faith and I've said that thousands of times, but I believe that the best way to communicate that to someone is not by disrespecting them, but by respecting them and making meaningful arguments in a way that they can understand.

If I'm just simply patting myself on the back with my arguments, then I'm a clanging gong and a tinkling cymbal. I'm a noise and I'm a stench in God's nostrils too. Come together and say, where do we have this?

But also, where do we have similarities? That's the next act of heresy on my part. How dare you note any similarities between the truth and falsehood? I mean, aside from the fact that we live in the same nation and are facing many of the exact same pressures.