Mehmet



Two Sundays ago we had a visitor to our small fellowship. His name is Mehmet and he is from Malatya. I wasn't preaching that week, but after the service I spent some time talking with him. We were standing outside of the little mall where our fellowship meets in a storefront. Mehmet bought me a Coke and we talked about the Gospel, about the service, and about Islam. He had lots of questions. He emphasized that he wasn't a Christian... "I'm a Muslim, praise Allah..." And he pointed out several elements from the service that conflict with Islam. "You believe Jesus is God," he said, "but we believe in all the prophets, Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammed. Why don't you believe in all the prophets?"


This is one of the most common questions I'm asked in Turkey. For now, I skirted the question of whether Muhammed is a prophet and I spent some time explaining the basic message of the Bible, correcting his false impressions about the Gospel. "Allah created us to live with together with him, but we are sinful and our sin separates us from Allah. Since we could never approach Him by trying to be obedient, He sent Jesus to bring us to Allah. Jesus didn't come just to bring us the word of Allah, Jesus is the Word of Allah. He is our perfect example and He gives us the power to approach Allah by forgiving our sins if we surrender our lives to Him in faith." ... Mehmet listened, stunned a bit by that information, since he had no idea that this is what Christians believe, then he changed the subject...


"But you don't follow your own book," he said. I asked him to explain, although I knew where this was going. "Doesn't the Bible say that it is a sin to kill people... but your people are killing people in Iraq!" This is a tricky question... and it outlines a basic difference between Islam and Christianity. Islam is intertwined with the state and government in a way Christianity is not and Islamic propaganda plays on this misunderstanding to incriminate the Gospel. I decided not to take on the deeper philosophical question because I wanted him to think about his own relationship with God. "I'm not killing people in Iraq, Mehmet. I've never been there. Is it 'your people' that are killing innocent people in the name of Islam? Don't get caught up in what governments are doing, they are made up of sinful people. The question isn't whether "my people" follow the Book, the question is whether you follow the Book." After a few sentences adamantly denying that he supports killing Christians in the name of Islam, Mehmet said... "ohh... that's a good point."


The next week Mehmet tried to come to church again. He arrived just as the service was ending and immediately sought me out. "I came just to talk to you again," he said "I had some work to do that I couldn't get out of, but I came as soon as I could." Unfortunately, I couldn't stay very long on Sunday so we made a commitment to meet again on Friday.


Remember us on Friday.

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