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".

Book Review of Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Bresheare

This isn't the indepth kind of book review. I don't have the time, nor the desire for that. Instead, I just wanted to mention reading this book and what I liked about it.


A quick review
If you haven't heard of Mark Driscoll, you must live in a log cabin somewhere in Russia (as I've been for the past three years). All I can say is that God is using this guy. He's still a bit young on the job (a church-planter), but he's gifted and he's working on the humility part.


If you haven't heard of Jesus, you really need to. I know, what an original book topic: Jesus. But you know what? Mark and Gerry really pull it off! This is a great book about the greatest and most controversial man who's ever lived. Now for those who like reading religious books, let me warn you, this isn't for you. This is a deep book, but written with everyday words and some of the better parts are occasionally (seemingly) irreverent.


For your information
I would love to see a book like this come out in France. Of course, the media coverage would be a hard thing to get. But what ran through my mind was all other. I haven't heard of a French equivalent of Driscoll. You need someone with charisma, broad shoulders and loads of talent to pull off a book like this. I'm praying for such men in France.

What other books about Jesus have you found remarkable?


Buy the book on Amazon

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."