My Journal

The existence of Islam is the failure of Christians in the knowledge of our Lord.

The hatred of muslims is the failure of Christians in the grace of our Lord.

Peter said:  But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18).

Historical Christian Problems:
1. Waraqah ibn Nawfal (Waraqa, Uncle-in-law to Mohammed, uncle to rich wife Khadija), who is said to remain Christian and Mohammed warned against slandering his uncle.
When told of Muhammad's first revelation (which is understood to be Sura 96:1-5), Waraqah acknowledged his call to prophecy as authentic. Tradition recounts Waraqah saying: "There has come to him the greatest Law that came to Moses; surely he is the prophet of this people".[Ibn Ishaq/Guillaume p. 107]

Two different narrations from Aisha give these details.

1. Aisha also said: "The Prophet returned to Khadija while his heart was beating rapidly. She took him to Waraqah bin Naufal who was a Christian convert and used to read the Gospel in Arabic. Waraqah asked (the Prophet), 'What do you see?' When he told him, Waraqah said, 'That is the same angel whom Allah sent to the Prophet Moses. Should I live till you receive the Divine Message, I will support you strongly.'"[Bukhari 4:55:605.]

2. Khadija then accompanied him to her cousin Waraqah bin Naufil bin Asad bin 'Abdul 'Uzza, who, during the Pre-Islamic Period became a Christian and used to write the writing with Hebrew letters. He would write from the Gospel in Hebrew as much as God wished him to write. He was an old man and had lost his eyesight. Khadija said to Waraqah, "Listen to the story of your nephew, O my cousin!" Waraqah asked, "O my nephew! What have you seen?" God's Apostle described whatever he had seen. Waraqah said, "This was the same one who keeps the secrets whom Allah had sent to Moses (Angel Gabriel). I wish I were young and could live up to the time when your people would turn you out." God's Apostle asked, "Will they drive me out?" Waraqah replied in the affirmative and said, "Anyone (man) who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if I should remain alive till the day when you will be turned out then I would support you strongly." But after a few days Waraqah died and the Divine Inspiration was also paused for a while.[Bukhari 1:1:3. See also Bukhari 4:55:605; Bukhari 9:87:111; Muslim 1:301]

2. Bahira

Islam Tradition:
The story of Muhammad's encounter with Bahira occurs in the works of the early Muslim historians Ibn Hisham (died 833 CE), Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi (784–855), and Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (839–923), whose versions differ in some details. The young Muhammad, then either nine or twelve years old, met Bahira in Syria while travelling with a Meccan caravan, accompanying his uncle Abu Talib ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib. When the caravan passed by his cell, the monk invited the merchants to a feast. They accepted the invitation, leaving the boy to guard the camel. Bahira, however, insisted that everyone in the caravan should come to him. Then a miraculous occurrence indicated to the monk that Muhammad would become a prophet.

When he sat under a tree, its branches moved to shade him, the movement of a cloud kept shadowing Muhammad regardless of the time of the day drew Bahira's attention. The monk revealed his visions of Muhammad's future to the boy's uncle (Abu Talib), warning him to preserve the child from the Jews (in Ibn Sa'd's version) or from the Byzantines (in al-Tabari's version). Both Ibn Sa'd and al-Tabari write that Bahira found the announcement of the coming of Muhammad in the original, unadulterated gospels, which he possessed.

A similar tradition is attributed to Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri in the works of the early ahadith compiler ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-San‘ani, in which the unnamed figure is a rabbi of Tayma instead of a Christian Syrian monk. The rabbi warns Abu Talib against bringing Muhammad to Syria, as he predicts that Muhammad will be killed by the Syrian Jews if they proceed. In response, Abu Talib returned to Mecca with his nephew. Later Islamic writers gave the rabbi the name of Bahira.

Christian tradition
The names and religious affiliations of the monk vary in different Christian sources. For example, John of Damascus (d.749), a Christian writer, states that Muhammad "having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy."

For Abd-al-Masih al-Kindi, who calls him Sergius and writes that he later called himself Nestorius, Bahira was a Nasorean, a group usually conflated with the Nestorians. After the 9th century, Byzantine polemicists refer to him as Baeira or Pakhyras, both being derivatives of the name Bahira, and describe him as an iconoclast. Sometimes Bahira is called a Syrian Jacobite or an Arian. The early Christian polemical biographies of Muhammad share in claiming that any supposed illiteracy of Muhammad did not imply that he received religious instruction solely from the angel Gabriel, and often identified Bahira as a secret, religious teacher to Muhammad.

If there is a mega church, or a big church, there are often two prominent judgments: It's a revival or it's the triumph of Satan.

Of course, a third "non-judgmental" is not relevant here.

In order to be a better judge, as all Christians will be judges of even angels,  one can easily analyze the situation by observing the surrounding, for how can a mega/revived church not affect its surrounding: both secular and non-secular.

While many would feel anger towards the presence of irresponsibility, I have also often wondered of its cause.

I would for now divide it into two categories: Intentional or Unintentional.

For unintentional irresponsibility, one either learns to be less oblivious or become more "intentional responsible".

For intentional irresponsibility, one is so because he is over-conscientious of being taken advantage of. Which reminds me my OCR'ing of Mabel Williamson's "Have We No Right" over due.