The only right way

For example, the Qur'an rejects all religions except Islam but recognizes righteous people within each religion, i.e., actions and ways of life that conform to the statutes of the Holy Qur'an. If a person is righteous, he is accepted by Islam as well as by Christianity.

There is a Sura (chapter) in the Qur'an that glorifies the Christians, and it says: "You will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say, 'We are Christians.' That is because among them are priests and monks and because they are not arrogant."

It is not the affiliation to a religion that counts, but the personal actions and the life path of an individual.

Do not Judaism, Islam, and Christianity know that one of the greatest sins is to dispute? This is what the Qur'an and the Bible say, God's covenant with believers, an unshakable set of rules for life.

So why should the monotheistic religions, which began with God's covenant with Abraham, the first true pleaser (who unswervingly did God's will), not rely on this common ground, which is much greater than that which prevents them from finding common points?

There is much debate and disagreement among religions about the semantic meaning of certain words. For example, what the Bible or the Qur'an calls Jesus. "Prophet" in the Qur'an, "Lord" in the Gospel. Is this what we should emphasize? It is not the words that are important, but the meaning given to them, which is always the same, but defined differently depending on what is written. But instead of focusing on common meanings that do not cause disputes and rejection in different religions (and such meanings are most likely to be true), the opposite happens. Most people look only for differences and reasons to question and reject one religion or another, not realizing that all Abrahamic religions are branches of the same tree.

Due to translations and multiple rewrites of the Holy Books, the meaning of the same word can be lost. After all, Jesus could have been called "Lord" as a person, which could have been spelled "the Lord" by the translator's hundredth author. But Jesus could have been called "the Lord," and thus God Almighty could have been addressed through Him. People appealed to God through prophets and messengers.

Should this bother the believer? It doesn't matter — Lord, son, slave, or prophet — the laws don't change for people because the laws and statutes of the Scriptures come from the Beginningless Creator Himself.

The main source of disagreement is over the Trinity and the person of Jesus Christ.

The Qur'an says, "Associate none with Allah" and "He is far above having a son!

In the Bible, God says of Jesus, "My servant the Branch.

Where is the disagreement?

In the Qur'an, Jesus is the Great Prophet, the Messenger, the Great Servant of Allah, the Word of Allah, and the Spirit from Him. In the Bible, He is the Spirit of God in the flesh in the image of God. I think there are common meanings here as well.

I should immediately point out that Jesus did not call Himself God in the Bible, neither did He call His mother Mary God. He called to "worship only the Lord God and serve Him alone." Jesus gave the first and greatest commandment: "The Lord our God, the Lord is one."

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was told by an angename = "note" "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one who will be born will be called the Son of God." This is a Son of the Spirit, not of the flesh as we tend to understand.

The Bible also calls Jesus the Son of God with the same authority. What is meant is that God Himself acted and worked on earth through Jesus. Christ had a mission to keep those who believe in God from sin for their forgiveness and resurrection. It is said that only those who believe in Jesus' sacrifice to the Lord God for the forgiveness of sins for all who repent and believe will receive eternal life in Paradise.

There are many times in the Bible when Jesus stops people when they start to worship Him personally as God. He said, "No one is good but One, that is, God." Another thing is when people worshiped the Lord God through Jesus Christ.

"My Father is greater than I," that is what Jesus says, and everything He does is all by the will of God, not by Jesus Himself, and the power that is in Him is given by God. That's what the Bible says.

God Himself says about Jesus in the Gospename = "note" "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!"; "My Beloved".

If someone does not like the word "son," this word is applied in the Bible not only to Jesus, but also to all believers and the favored, which proves once again that the meaning of the word "son" is not our ordinary one: not a son of the flesh, but a son of the Spirit, a person who belongs to the people of God. Jesus told the apostles that He would ascend "to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God". The Bible also says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Also, the words "Father" and "Son" can be mistranslated or misinterpreted and convey the wrong meaning. For example, one can be a son by the flesh, or one can be a son by the spirit. Finally, in GENESIS (the first book of the Bible), at the creation of man, it says that God "breathed into his (Adam's) nostrils the breath of life."

In conclusion, not only Jesus but all those who are acceptable to God are sons of the Lord because the Holy Spirit is in them. This is confirmed by the examples of the above sayings.

It is also said that there are people of God who are predestined even before birth, that is, believing people. They are all endowed with the Spirit of God and are also called the sons of God in the Bible.

If the Bible calls all these people sons, what confuses those who think it is unacceptable to call Jesus the Son of the only God, after all, He proved by His deeds that they were accomplished by the power given from above, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

King David said in the PSALMS (one of the books of the Bible) that the Lord also called him a son.

Even the most important prayer in the Bible begins with the words "Our Father," indicating that all who believe and turn to God are children of God (not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit).

In the Gospel, Jesus commented on David's phrase about Him ("The Lord said to my Lord"): "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, 'You are gods'?" This law is the Law of Moses, the first books of the Bible, which are also recognized by Islam and Judaism. If the Almighty called those to whom the Word of God (the Bible) was given "gods," should the One whom the Lord sanctified by the power of the Holy Spirit and sent into the world (Jesus) be accused of blasphemy for saying, "I am the Son of God"?

"Though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know," says Jesus. And there is certainly logic in this because the miracles that Jesus did are certainly from God. Both the Bible and the Qur'an talk about these miracles. The Qur'an says, "We gave Jesus, son of Mary, clear proofs and supported him with the Holy Spirit."

How can you quibble with the fact that the Bible calls Jesus "the Son"?

What about the fact that the Bible, back in the Torah, through Moses, calls Jesus a prophet, that all are brothers and sisters in faith, and that Jesus is the Teacher? Isn't that what the Holy Qur'an says? And that prophets are to be listened to and obeyed?

Jesus equates the word "son" with the word "servant" and says, "Servant does not know what his master is doing," but what the Lord is doing, no one knows in advance. So all are servants before the Lord, and we can say that the word "son" is the equal of the word "servant". The only difference is that only acceptable slaves who did righteousness were called sons, and this removes one of the major stumbling blocks between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

All are servants of the Lord God, especially among believers, and it is the highest reward to be honored as an acceptable servant of the Most High God. In this regard, the Bible fully conveys the meanings of the Qur'an and vice versa, and unequivocally says that everyone is a servant of the Lord God, from ordinary people to Jesus.

The oldest religion, Judaism, recognizes and is based on the Tanakh (part of the Old Testament of the Bible) and does not deny the existence of Jesus. Judaism objects to Jesus being considered God. But, as noted above, Jesus did not call Himself God. On the contrary, He immediately corrected those who addressed Him incorrectly. He warned that there is only one God and that one should worship, give thanks, and pray only to Him.

If we follow the logic of Muslims who do not recognize Christianity, they, like Christians, confess the Trinity.

The Christian understanding of Jesus and the Islamic understanding of the Qur'an are similar.

Islam sees the recognition of Jesus as the Son of God and the belief in the Holy Trinity as a departure from monotheism. But this is only a superficial understanding.

There are more similarities than differences between Christians and Muslims as well as Jews.

The Holy Qur'an, like Jesus, who was born in the flesh, is sacred and eternal in nature.

For Muslims, Jesus is a prophet. For Christians, Jesus is not a prophet, but He is the Son of God. And that's a huge difference if you look at the words and not the meanings. Treating Christ as a prophet in the eyes of many Christians is about the same as calling the Qur'an a collection of Muhammad's sermons.

But the Bible itself calls Jesus the Servant, the Son, and the Word — with many definitions. The point is that all who have the Holy Spirit are one unity. It is the same Spirit, but each one has a different role: Moses had his, Abraham had his, Elijah had his, Jesus had his, and Mohammad had his. Why play human maximalism with words, who is greater, who is less, and sow discord among people of different religions who sincerely want to be with God? After all, many people do not choose a religion but are born into one or another, depending on the state or society in which they live.

The Trinity in Christianity does not mean pagan polytheism. God in three persons is like the three social roles of man: son-husband-father or daughter-wife-mother. The roles are different, but the person is one. Or like mind, thought, and spirit performing different functions in one person.

It is because of their misunderstanding of the difference between nature and personality that Muslims do not understand the essence of the idea of the Trinity.

The Qur'an is the Word of God incarnate, not in the form of a human being, but as a Book of eternal truth. In other words, the Christian understanding of Jesus and the Islamic understanding of the Qur'an are essentially identical.

Thus, Muslims themselves, without realizing it, confess a Trinity, if we follow their logic in accusing Christians: God the Father is Allah, God the Son is the Qur'an, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Gabriel, who brought the revelation from God to the Prophet Muhammad.

It is very important to pay attention to all these parallels today in order to emphasize that Christians and Muslims, as well as Jews, have much more in common than they have differences. They belong to a single monotheistic tradition.

Also, many Muslims, if not most, honor Muhammad as highly and even more than Christians honor Jesus, despite the rebuke to Christians for worshiping Jesus as well as God. Yes, Muslims do not worship Muhammad, but they honor him as highly and majestically as most Christians do not honor Jesus. But true Christians also worship only one God, as the Bible commands.

You can say whatever you want, but you have to look at actions and meanings, not at literal words.

The Qur'an says, "Do not say, 'Trinity. Stop! — for your own good." "Allah is only one God." True believing Christians agree with this and do not say that Allah is the third of the Trinity. The Bible also says: "There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." Are these associates or other gods? No, they are the One Lord God. That's why Christians do not ascribe associates to God (and the Qur'an forbids this). They do not say "Third in the Trinity."

So where is the incompatibility in all this? What stumbling blocks might there be?

In the book of ISAIAH in the Old Testament, there is a prediction of the birth of a great servant who will be called God and who will be the judge of men.

More than once in the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as the Judge.

It's written, "No one has seen God at any time" (of those who live on earth). But some, chosen ones, were honored to communicate with Him. For example, some spoke to the Almighty through angels. Jacob wrestled with an angel, not with God. The Bible is specific about this because there are phrases describing this event that can be interpreted to mean directly with God. Moses, for example, spoke directly to the Lord, but he did not see His face. Finally, it is said that "God is Spirit.

The Torah in the Bible says that God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the name "God Almighty," not with the name "the Lord". This means that God communicated with them from the highest and most almighty position without revealing Himself to them. This shows that the communication with God was not as we understand it literally.

All Abrahamic religions have an absolutely identical understanding of God Himself. They all agree that there is one Supreme God, Whose name in the Qur'an is Allah, and in the Bible — the Being, the Beginningless, the Creator — God has many names.

"Obey Allah and obey the Messenger," says the Qur'an. There is no contradiction with the Bible. Christians do not worship Jesus but obey Him and believe in His sacrifice for the sins of mankind.

It can also be said that Jesus is mentioned very often in the Qur'an. The Gospel is written about Jesus. The Gospel itself, and the Torah are confessed in the Qur'an. There are also prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament. So there is no doubt about Jesus, the fact that He was, the fact that He had the Holy Spirit, and the fact that He performed miracles.

There are also many prophecies in the Bible about a great prophet. Geographical locations and many facts about him, including his lineage, are strongly associated with Muhammad. If we take the non-canonical scriptures of the Bible, there is a direct prophecy about Muhammad.

In confirmation of the above, I quote some sayings from the Holy Qur'an that fully correspond to the meanings in the Bible.

The Qur'an: "There is no god except Allah."

The Bible: "I am the LORD, and there is no other; There is no God besides Me."

Jesus says in the Qur'an: "Whoever obeys the Messenger has truly obeyed Allah"; "So fear Allah and obey me"; "Surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him [alone]. This is the Straight Path.

The Bible: "You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve"; "This is My beloved Son (Jesus), in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!"

The main thing is that these sayings have absolutely the same views on the most important — the worship of one God.

The Qur'an denies the death of Jesus on the cross, stating, "They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, though it was made to appear like that to them," and Jesus was taken up to heaven, and another was killed in His place. This contradiction between the Bible and the Qur'an must not be emphasized. The point is intention: people wanted to do it and did it, even if it seemed so. Jesus had the Holy Spirit in Him and no wonder He was taken up to heaven. The point doesn't change at all.

All this also shows that the Qur'an does not refute the Bible, but in the essence of the most important point, delivers the same truth.

In the book of ZECHARIAH from the Bible, Jesus is the greatest High Priest and will build His temple with the congregation, that is, the believing people, the people of God, who will follow Him.

The Gospel says, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him (resurrect) those who sleep in Jesus (by believing in Him)."

Now the Qur'an, in which God Himself says: "O Jesus! I will take you and raise you up to Myself. I will deliver you from those who disbelieve, and elevate your followers above the disbelievers until the Day of Judgment." Where is the contradiction?

Since the Gospel speaks of the atonement for the sins of all who believe in Jesus, accept His teachings, and obey His commandments, then any rational person who believes in God will believe in Jesus.

The Bible says, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God," which is the same as "sons by the Spirit" and "servants of the Lord," and thus co-heirs with Christ (will also receive the resurrection), "If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."

What does it mean to "suffer with Him"?

Christ sacrificed Himself for the sins of mankind. We are all sinners, and we sin every day. So we all need forgiveness, we need Christ (to accept Him, to believe in Him) to be forgiven. This doesn't mean that we should just believe, but we should obey His commandments, which is difficult in real life, but this is how we will be compassionate with Jesus. These commandments are common to all Abrahamic religions.

Christians are baptized in the name of God the Father (the Creator), the Son (the Messenger in the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit as a sign of belonging to the people of God, a believing people. Baptism is a sign of faith that Jesus Christ consciously went to the crucifixion as a sacrifice to the Lord God for the forgiveness of sins for all who sincerely repent and believe in this great sacrifice.

The cross in Christianity is the symbol of the baptized Christian believer. It is the symbol of those who have worthily accepted their trial in earthly life and bear their cross in compassion with Jesus, who have chosen to live according to God's Word, according His commandments. The cross means, "I acknowledge the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to God for our sins."

Another stumbling block might be mentioned. The Torah in the Bible says that if someone hurts the righteous, "your eye shall not pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." But in the Gospel (the New Testament of the Bible), Jesus calls us to turn the right cheek when we are struck on the left, and to love one another, even to love our enemies, and to pray for them, thereby increasing our reward from the Lord ("Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give place to wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay,' says the Lord"). But no word says that returning evil is a sin. However, the Qur'an says that it is good to retaliate against evil, to defend yourself against it, but if you bear it or forgive it, it will be better for you. The Holy Qur'an confirms and does not refute the above mentioned in the Bible: "A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth — and for wounds equal retaliation. But whoever waives it charitably, it will be atonement for them."

This is the common level in seemingly irreconcilable laws.

In the same way, all the laws of the Qur'an and the Bible have common meanings, and most of them are essentially identical.

A law from the Bible covers another from the Qur'an and vice versa and does not exclude one from the other. It may be ranked higher or lower than another law, but it is not rejected, it is accepted just the same, and for us human beings, what is the difference — we are obligated to fulfill all the laws written in the Scriptures.

Every monotheistic religion based on the belief in one God, the Creator of all things, inevitably comes to the same laws and moral and ethical statutes.

Even if there were no Scriptures, no religions, it is given to the human mind to realize by simple logic the existence of God, the Creator of all things. The knowledge of God is inherent in man by nature, by the Creator Himself. It is given to man to distinguish "black from white," what is bad and what is good, what is impossible and what is possible. In fact, this is enough to live without violating the laws of the Holy Scriptures, which we have today in both the Bible and the Qur'an.

Moreover, the five basic principles of Buddhism do not contradict the laws of the holy texts.

Nevertheless, the religions of the Holy Books still have different interpretations on some issues, but they are united in the main thing — belief in and worship of one God and moral guidelines. Today we must not discredit or weaken each other, but be conscious that believers of all Abrahamic religions are allies who must unite in the face of a common challenge — the mass rejection of the idea of faith as such and the total destruction of all moral ideals.

Why argue about who is greater: Muhammad or Jesus, son or prophet or slave; dead or not; Trinity or not; rightly believed or not; Bible or Qur'an? Muhammad and Jesus — they both came from the Lord God and their mission is the same — to bring the truth to the people, to save the people, to make them acceptable to God, to cleanse them from sin. God is one. The laws are the same for all.

It seems that some influential people in or outside of religions artificially create tension and discord between religions by emphasizing the wrong things.

I conclude that there is no point in dividing all the Abrahamic religions — one should focus on what they have in common. All meaning adds up and differences disappear when you focus on what is common without looking for points of contention. The point is that God is one for all religions, for everyone and everything, and the right way that God approves is to live according to the laws of the common canons in the Holy Qur’an and the Holy Bible in worship of one God. This is monotheism.

The goal of every believer is the same — it is the goal of true success, about which there is a separate chapter in the book.

The temple

In the light of the previous chapter, and based on the logical conclusions drawn, it is possible to determine for oneself another controversial issue about which many have long been confused.

Thus. A temple is a holy house, cleansed of sin in all its manifestations during its construction and the worship of the Only God in it. This is what makes such a house holy and worthy of God's attention.

Today there are many questions about the situation in temples of different religions where there are many icons, pictures, statues, and portraits in front of which people kneel and pray. Many temples have inscriptions on the walls that are not from the Scriptures, and many temples are engaged in the trade of various kinds of religious accessories and not only.

The Bible says that the true temple is the human body, in which there is a soul. It is important to keep the body, like a temple, clean from sinful dirt. Then it will be honored by God's attention.

Therefore, any believer can go into any church, mosque, place of worship — any temple — and see what the atmosphere is like and whether that temple meets his definition. It can be any temple of the Abrahamic religions; I do not divide them as I do the religions themselves, for their definition and purpose are absolutely the same from the beginning.

How do you understand which temples are true? It's the one that awakens in the believer the power of faith and feelings of connection with the Lord God, the one that awakens the desire to speak, to address God directly with awe and great fear. The temple is where there is nothing but the worship of God and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. One will act righteously in any temple only in pure worship of the Lord God.

Even if you address God in any other place, you will be communicating with God from your temple, called the body, and if it is purified, you will experience the same grace as in any other real temple.

Beam in the eye

I am often struck by how difficult it is just to have an adequate and logical conversation with people, even with those who are closest to me. There are some subjects where it is difficult to get anyone to participate in an open conversation. One such topic is the greatest sin according to the Qur'an and the Bible — idolatry.

Everybody knows it's bad. And when I bring it up with them, they're convinced they have nothing to do with it. People usually do not realize that they believe in omens, wear medallions, worship icons, pictures, statuettes, a piece of bread, water — the list goes on and on. I want to emphasize the word "worship". It is precisely the worship of these things, the belief in their miraculous power, and the asking for their help. This is fundamental because, for example, just wearing a cross as a sign of belonging to Christianity, as a sign that you are a believer, and having a cross to worship it — these are fundamentally different things. You can stand in front of an icon, in front of a cross, in front of a mosque, in front of a church — it doesn't matter, but when you pray, you have to turn to God and only to Him. You can see that almost everybody is worshipping something. And what is that but idolatry? You should only believe in the power of God and His Word. That's what the Scriptures are. The sacred texts tell us to worship only God. And yet there is no alternative to these Books. They are the very word of God. As it is said, do not take away or add to what is written, otherwise, false information will lead you in the wrong direction and you will not find the right way. Anything that is an addition or subtraction to the text of the Holy Books is a delusion. And whoever does it, he makes it a sin.

I'll say more. People put the church and the house of worship above the holy laws of God. And when you begin to argue logically in conversation that every temple, every priest, every person, every creature on the planet — all of them have to live according to the laws of the Bible and the Qur'an, then people get stuck. It's like they're blinded for the Scriptures are above everything. They are the Word of God, the beginning and the end, the law for everything. And every temple, every priest is a mediator, a means of clarification, correct explanation, and instruction. No temple ordinance, no other, absolutely no rule, statute, or constitution comes first. And if anything contradicts the words of the sacred texts, it is not from God. The Word of God is the one and only, and you should proceed from it in all your actions, thoughts, and intentions. In this way, you will find the right path, organize everything in your mind, and live peacefully.

Laws

Commandments and moral standards are what is common to all believers in the One Creator, the Lord God. The commandments of the Bible, almost all of them, are duplicated in the moral standards of the Qur'an, and vice versa. Moreover, even Buddhism, which has no belief in the Lord God, has 5 vows in the Buddhist code of ethics that do not contradict the laws of the Abrahamic religions. This shows that a healthy human brain arrives at the only true laws through logical reflection.