Misguided Evangelism

Once Upon A Time...

I was at work evangelising to a muslim.

He was a work colleague and we were in the same team. As such, we often talked about our religious beliefs.

Of course, he was a moderate muslims.

Moderate muslims are strange. They mostly live in non-islamic countries, don't believe everything that the koran says and yet still call themselves muslim.

Of course, if they were in an islamic country they would probably be put to death for disrespectic mohammed, the koran, or allah.

There are also "moderate christians", but they aren't under threat for losing their lives at the hand of other believers.

But I digress...

Having read the koran, I would ask my teammate whether he believed certain things to be true. He would say no, then I would tell him what the koran says.

I even told him where the koran has Jesus saying He will sacrifice is life, when the koran at a later point says it never happened... making Jesus a liar.

In all our discussions in me telling him what the koran says.... even quoting the surah address, he didn't believe that is what it actually said.

So, one time, a became so frustrated at the fact he not only didn't believe me, but wouldn't even go look up the verses himself at home, I asked him what would cause him to believe that what I was saying was true.

He said he'd have to read it in the koran himself. I told him that at lunch i'd go a buy a koran and show him. He agreed.

During lunch, I went to the book store, picked up an english koran, and was just about to head to the cashier, when something told me not to buy it.

I took this as God speaking.

I was conflicted. I even asked why not, but I didn't get a reply. I was thinking that I should buy it anyway so I can show it to my muslim colleague, but then I thought... clearly God doesn't want me to buy it... but why?

I left the book store feeling frustrated and a bit annoyed. Why wouldn't God want me to buy it?

Here I am, evangelising a muslim. I'm at the point where all I have to do is show him where the koran has all these inconsistancies and with islam knocked down it should be easy for him to accept the gospel (this was my thinking pattern at the time, and my level of theology).

When I got back to the office, I didn't say anything. I was actually embarrassed. Here I was boasting at the problems that the koran has. And even though my team mate didn't believe those verses were there, he said he would agree with me if he read them himself. He knew the book store was there. He knew they sold korans.

But now, i'm sitting here with no koran, looking very embarrassed.

Him: "so where's the koran?"
Me: "i wasn't able to get it"
Him: "how come?"
Me: "God told me not to"
Him: stifling a laugh... "why did he do that?"
Me: very sheepishly... "i don't know"

In my head, I could just hear him thinking that I didn't buy the koran
because I was lying about everything.

After awhile of working, he broke the silence by asking if i'd ever read the koran. I told him that I had, I have a copy of it on my pc, why else would I be willing to buy one to show him the verses.

Then he asked if I speak arabic. I told him that I didn't. I asked if he did, as i'd never heard him before. He said he couldn't read or speak arabic.

That struck me as a bit weird.

I then asked him how he reads the koran, and he said that its read to him by people who can read and speak arabic.

He then says that the koran should only be read in arabic and that if it was in english then it wouldn't be the koran.

That's when it dawned on me. The reason God didn't allow, me to buy the koran wad because he wouldn'y have accepted it anyway as it was english.

I couldn't have bought an arabic one either as neither one of us could read it.

I brought this to my colleagues' attention and it made him think for a good while.

... The End