More Comparisons Of Jesus And Muhammad, And Conclusions Series

26. The world.

Muhammad wanted a specific religious experience to come out of all his efforts. But he was willing to be intertwined with worldly connections if need be. After years of struggle with Mecca from his Medina sanctuary, a revelation confirmed that a treaty with Mecca was the thing to do. Thus he became wedded to the very system he had decried all this time. Later he overcame Mecca.

Jesus taught His followers to live at peace with all men, to be sure, but also to come out from the world and be separate. No ties, compared to the yoking of two oxen, were considered healthy to the child of God. The church must operate in the world, but be separated from it as far as ultimate dependence.

We grieve when we see Christian churches sending to the streets men with buckets to collect money for their assembly. God has ordained that the people of God care for their own needs and only reach out to the world to give, not to receive. God cares for His own.

Let it not be said that the church needs the government for its protection, its wealth, its power, its program. That is not who we are. The very windows of Heaven open when God's people are faithful to give to God.

27. Love.

Also mentioned above. Let me clarify.

Muhammad does not seem to have operated out of love, but rather out of a desire for greatness, then the spirit of revenge. There may have been a religious thread running through it all, but the god he promoted also never acted like our loving Heavenly Father.

Of course, he could not, for the whole idea of fatherhood made him angry.

I should not say there is absolutely no love in Islam or in the Koran. Every system, every religion, every organization, somehow manages to run across love at one time or another. The Koran even says, "It may be that God will establish love between you and those with whom ye are at enmity."

This was a revelation to Muhammad and his people. It is the revelation of Scripture. Our God is love, and "he who lives in love lives in God." Love is held up among us as the number one goal of all our virtues. Even greater than faith and hope and all the good works put together is a heart filled, like God's, with love.

Greater love has no one than this, said Jesus, that a man lay down his life for his friends. This is what Jesus did. He is perfect love in human form.

28. Sickness.

We speak it not in pride, but with joy we can announce that Jesus was never sick. He healed sicknesses, even raised the dead. But He never so much as caught a cold, according to the Scriptural record. Though sickness is on many pages of the Biblical text, since Adam's sin, no sickness ever touched the Son of Man.

Muhammad is seen as sick at least once in the narratives, and this time by sorcery. He became very weak and probably scared those around him with his appearance of one about to die. The story is that he was given more "surahs", revelations to add to the Koranic collection, for his healing.

29. The judge.

Often people would come to Muhammad asking that their problems be solved by him. Often he was glad to do so. Every dispute that was settled could only raise his star a little higher in the estimation of his growing following.

Although Moses entered into this behavior in the wilderness with Israel, Jesus never did. "Who made me a judge over you?" Jesus said to a man who wanted the Lord of Heaven to solve His family's inheritance dispute. But He went on to give the man the best help he could receive in this situation, a warning against greed.

Jesus was the Master teacher, and gave His people principles by which with careful thought and meditation on the truth, they could solve their own problems.

Muhammad created a dependence on himself that would spell loyalty down the road.

30. Anger

Muhammad seems to have lived a life of anger, generated in part by a fragmented family life, but fed by a growing rejection of his religion and his very person. Perhaps one of his finest moments of anger - and anger can bring good moments - was his appearance in the Holy Place in Mecca, when he returned to take over the city. Except for certain icons of the life of Jesus, every statue and picture in that place was destroyed, as Muhammad declared there is only one god.

Jesus had a similar moment in the Temple at Jerusalem. Here, the enemy was not all the world's religions. It was the activities of those calling themselves the people of God inside Judaism. People making a profit on the commandments, the rituals, the prescribed sacrifices of Moses.