Should Jesus remain the "Son of God" in Arabic Bibles?

Last week I spent hours enjoying tea and conversation with a muslim friend. He had many questions. Frankly, I often did not know how to answer. For I could sense how differently my north african friend would respond to the standard "evangelical answers". His most pressing question was clearly: "How can the Bible say that Jesus is the Son of God?" For a muslim, "Son of God" implies God had sex with Mary.

Christianity Today has an article by Collin Hansen, on the "Son of God" controversy among arabic world bible translators. I highly recommend the article. You can find it here.

After reading that 7 page article, you'll be interesting to follow the debate on Ed Stetzer's blog. To wrap it all up, you can than read the excellent article by a man named "Rod".

A Video for All Us "Frozen Saints"

I liked this video and knew you'd enjoy it also. Have fun watching George Verwer. He hasn't changed much in 50 years of ministry. Love that guy!

John or Joan? The Good News for Transgendered

I thank God for Justin Taylor's blog. Several times this year I've been led through it to think about deep and important things about God and His Gospel. Yesterday he posted a link to Russell Moore's blog. The topic was assigned in a Christian Ethics examination. Here is the very real scenario I've just copy-pasted from JT's blog.

Here's the "ethics dilemma" Russell Moore presented to his ethics class for them to answer for their final:

Joan is a fifty year-old woman who has been visiting your church for a little over a year. She sits on the third row from the back, and usually exits during the closing hymn, often with tears in her eyes. Joan approaches you after the service on Sunday to tell you that she wants to follow Jesus as her Lord.

You ask Joan a series of diagnostic questions about her faith, and it is clear she understands the gospel. She still seems distressed though. When you ask if she’s repented of her sin, she starts to cry and grit her teeth.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know how…I don’t know where to start…Can I meet with you privately?”

You, Joan, and a godly Titus 2-type women’s ministry leader in your church meet in your office right away, and Joan tells you her story.

She wasn’t born Joan. She was born John. From early on in John’s life, though, he felt as though he was “a woman trapped in a man’s body.” Joan says, “I don’t mean to repeat that old shopworn cliché, but it really is what I felt like.”

Joan tells you that when she was twenty she began the process of “transitioning” from life as a man to life as a woman. She underwent extensive hormone therapy, followed by extensive plastic surgery—including so-called “gender reassignment surgery.” She has lived for the past thirty years—physically and socially—as a woman.

“I want to do whatever it takes to follow Jesus,” Joan tells you. “I want to repent…I just, I don’t know how to do it.”

“I am surgically now a woman. I’ve taken hormones that give me the appearance and physical makeup of a woman,” she says. “Even if I were to put on a suit and tie right now, I’d just look like a woman with a suit and tie. Not to mention the fact that, well, I am physically…a woman.”

“To complicate matters further,” Joan says through tears, “I adopted my daughter, Clarissa, when she was eight months old and she’s ten years old now. She doesn’t know about my past life as…as a man. She just knows me as her Mom.”

“I know the sex change surgery was wrong. I know that my life is twisted. I’m willing to do whatever Jesus would have me to do to make it right,” she says. “But what would Jesus have me to do?”

Joan asks you, “Am I too messed up to repent and be saved? If not, what does it mean for me to repent and live my life as a follower of Jesus? What is right for me to do?”

For Dr. Moore's insightful answer, see

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

Here's the conclusion:

You see, the scenario about “Joan” isn’t really all that hypothetical. Chances are in your town right now, there are people in that situation. Why don’t they show up in our churches? Is it because they doubt if our gospel is really addressed to them? Is it because we doubt it too?

If Joan comes to your church this Sunday and hears the gospel, if “she” decides to throw away everything “she” knows and follow Christ, will your church be there to love him, and to show him how to stop pretending and to fight his way toward what he was created to be? Maybe it would take a Joan at the altar call to make us question whether we really believe what we say and what we sing. Is there really power, wonder-working power, in the blood of the Lamb? Is our gospel really good news for prodigal sons, even for sons so lost they once thought they were daughters?

Update: The posts are now collected in one printable PDF.

Celebrating God's Death

Every year at Easter, we celebrate the death of God. But how few of us know this? Again today, in English class, the teacher asked the students what they did at Easter and what it was about. Notice that I was in class on Good Friday. In France we don't even get a holiday.

These past two weeks I've read through the gospel of Mark with a friend. Our goal was twice each week. There are so many mentions in Mark about the deity of Jesus. I would encourage us all to read through a gospel this weekend and stand amazed at Jesus.

Below is Mark's account of the crucifixion of God.

And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters), and they called together the whol battalion. ¹⁷And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. ¹⁸And they began to salute him,^(X) "Hail, King of the Jews!" ¹⁹And they were striking his head with a reed and^(Y) spitting on him and^(Z) kneeling down in homage to him. ²⁰And when they had^(AA) mocked him, they stripped him of^(AB) the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they^(AC) led him out to crucify him.

 ^21(AD) And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. ^22(AE) And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). ²³And they offered him wine mixed with^(AF) myrrh, but he did not take it. ²⁴And they crucified him and^(AG) divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. ²⁵And^(AH) it was the third hour^[d] when they crucified him. ²⁶And the inscription of the charge against him read,^(AI) "The King of the Jews."

What is the Prosperity Pseudo Gospel?

This video is a beautiful work to describe an ugly face of "Christianity". Just in case you're wondering, prosperity gospel is NOT the Gospel.

Obama on Reducing and Raising Abortions

Christianity Today has an article on recent statements Obama made regarding abortion. He's also passed some laws that contradict (or do they?) his statements. Read it for yourself here.

HT: JT