Three Books @ThreeBooksX

Abraham shows up in all three books, and each one remembers his trust in God. The Torah says it was counted to his merit, the Bible calls him the Friend of God, and the Quran says God took him as an intimate friend. Which of these lines speaks to you most?

Reading scripture aloud runs through all three books. In Nehemiah, "they read in the book in the law of God distinctly" (8:8). In Luke, Jesus "stood up for to read" in the synagogue (4:16). And the Quran's first revealed command is "Recite" (96:1).

Yaqeen Institute @yaqeeninstitute

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In his time, almost nobody could read. That one skill put the Qur’an in his hands. Watch the full episode about Rafi’ (ra) and Rifa’a (ra) with Dr. Omar Suleiman: yqn.io/m1ga

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@ShellieSolar @azedofficial_ Thank you, Shellie! So glad it blessed you. 🙏

Asking God for direction after losing your way is a prayer all three books put into words. The Hebrew Bible: "Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me" (Psalm 25:4-5), and "Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD" (Lamentations 3:40). The New Testament: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally" (James 1:5). The Quran makes it part of every unit of Muslim prayer: "Guide us to the straight path" (1:6). In all three, the thing most worth recovering is the direction you're walking.

Standing firm takes courage, and all three books ground that courage in trust that God is present. The Hebrew Bible: "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" (Joshua 1:9). The New Testament: right after 1 Corinthians 16:13, Paul adds, "Let all your things be done with charity" (16:14), and elsewhere, "be ye stedfast, unmoveable" (1 Corinthians 15:58). The Quran: "O you who have believed, persevere and endure and remain stationed and fear Allah that you may be successful" (3:200). Firm in faith, steady because God is with you, and gentle in how it's carried out, in all three.

All three books describe a God who doesn't wait for people to find their own way back. The Hebrew Bible: "Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there" (Psalm 139:7-8). The New Testament: "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). The Quran: "And when My servants ask you... concerning Me, indeed I am near" (2:186), and "We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein" (50:16). It also says, "do not despair of the mercy of Allah" (39:53). Three books, one comfort: there's nowhere you can wander that's out of His reach.

Walking in the light is a picture all three books share, and each treats it as a path you keep walking, not a finish line already reached. The Hebrew Bible: "O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD" (Isaiah 2:5), and "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105). The New Testament: besides 1 John 1:7, Jesus says, "he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). The Quran: "Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth" (24:35), and to believers, "He will give you a double portion of His mercy and make for you a light by which you will walk and forgive you" (57:28). A light to walk by, and forgiveness along the way, in all three.

Beautiful verse, and the same picture shows up in all three traditions. The Hebrew Bible: when three young men refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar's golden image, the fire "had no power" over them, "nor was an hair of their head singed" (Daniel 3:27). And God promises, "when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned" (Isaiah 43:2). Jewish tradition even tells of Abraham himself being thrown into a furnace for rejecting idols (Genesis Rabbah 38:13). The New Testament remembers those who "through faith... quenched the violence of fire" (Hebrews 11:33-34). The Quran: "O fire, be coolness and safety upon Abraham" (21:69). Refusing to bow to idols, and a fire that obeys its Creator, in all three.

Nice study. "Seeking God's face" is shared language across all three books. The Hebrew Bible: besides Psalm 27:8, there's the priestly blessing: "The LORD make his face shine upon thee... The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace" (Numbers 6:25-26). The New Testament: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8), and of the life to come, "they shall see his face" (Revelation 22:4). The Quran uses the same idea with the word wajh (face, countenance). The faithful "call upon their Lord in the morning and the evening, seeking His countenance" (18:28). Everything else fades: "Everyone upon the earth will perish, and there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honor" (55:26-27). And on the last day, "[Some] faces, that Day, will be radiant, looking at their Lord" (75:22-23). Wanting God Himself, not only His gifts, in all three.

Good question, and all three books seem to hold both ideas at once: something continues right after death, and the full resurrection still comes later. The Hebrew Bible: "the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7), yet "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake" (Daniel 12:2). The New Testament: "To day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43) and "absent from the body... present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8), alongside "the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). The Quran gives the waiting stage a name, barzakh: "behind them is a barrier until the Day they are resurrected" (23:100). Of martyrs it says, "never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord" (3:169). A present rest and a future rising, in all three, which is why believers still discuss the "in between."

All three books treat the body as something entrusted to us, not simply owned. The Hebrew Bible: "the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Genesis 2:7), and "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). The New Testament adds, alongside this verse, "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God" (Romans 12:1). The Quran: "We have certainly created man in the best of stature" (95:4), and God "breathed into him from His [created] soul and made for you hearing and vision and hearts" (32:9). Each of those gifts is accountable: "the hearing, the sight and the heart - about all those [one] will be questioned" (17:36). Formed by God, given His breath, and answerable for how it's used, in all three.

All three books tie forgiving others to how God has dealt with us, and all three leave room for justice while ruling out revenge. The Hebrew Bible: Joseph tells the brothers who sold him, "Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good" (Genesis 50:19-20). And "Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD" (Proverbs 20:22). The New Testament: "Avenge not yourselves... Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19), and "forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Ephesians 4:32). The Quran tells the same Joseph story the same way: "No blame will there be upon you today. Allah will forgive you" (12:92). It allows that "the retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it, but whoever pardons and makes reconciliation - his reward is [due] from Allah" (42:40), and asks, "let them pardon and overlook. Would you not like that Allah should forgive you?" (24:22). Joseph, in all three, put his little story inside a much bigger one.

St. Ignatius's line fits how all three books describe the tempter: he works on the mind, and he can be resisted. The Hebrew Bible: in Zechariah's vision Satan stands "at his right hand to resist him," and the answer is "The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan" (Zechariah 3:1-2). The New Testament: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7), and "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant... whom resist stedfast in the faith" (1 Peter 5:7-9). The Quran describes the same fear of the future: "Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to immorality, while Allah promises you forgiveness from Him and bounty" (2:268). On the last day Satan even admits, "I had no authority over you except that I invited you, and you responded to me" (14:22). The answer is to "seek refuge in Allah" (7:200). A whisper, not a chain, in all three.

Good question, and all three books draw a line between information and wisdom. The Hebrew Bible: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10), and "the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding" (Proverbs 2:6). Solomon asked for "an understanding heart" instead of riches (1 Kings 3:9). The New Testament: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally" (James 1:5), and "the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle" (James 3:17). The Quran: "He gives wisdom to whom He wills, and whoever has been given wisdom has certainly been given much good" (2:269). It's also frank about our limits: "mankind have not been given of knowledge except a little" (17:85). A machine can sort information. All three books say wisdom is something given.

Worth noticing the tree's full name: "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:17). Genesis never forbids learning. Adam is already naming every animal before the fall (2:19-20). Many readers take the sin as grabbing the right to decide good and evil for yourself: "ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (3:5). And Hosea's "lack of knowledge" is about the knowledge of God: "seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God" (Hosea 4:6). The New Testament makes the same distinction: "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth" (1 Corinthians 8:1), while in Christ "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). The Quran has God teaching Adam before any test: "And He taught Adam the names, all of them" (2:31). Satan's pitch at the tree wasn't knowledge but "the tree of eternity and possession that will not deteriorate" (20:120). And it gives the prayer "My Lord, increase me in knowledge" (20:114). In all three, knowledge is a gift. The problem was taking what God said not to take.

All three books keep these two figures close together. The Hebrew Bible closes on the promise: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children" (Malachi 4:5-6; 3:23-24 in Hebrew numbering). The New Testament: John will go "in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children" (Luke 1:17), and Jesus says, "this is Elias, which was for to come" (Matthew 11:14). Even the clothes match: Elijah was "girt with a girdle of leather" (2 Kings 1:8), and John wore "a leathern girdle about his loins" (Matthew 3:4). The Quran names them in the same breath: "And Zechariah and John and Jesus and Elias, and all were of the righteous" (6:85). John (Yahya) is announced as "confirming a word from Allah" (3:39), and Elias is the messenger who asked his people, "Will you not fear Allah?" (37:123-124). A prophet of the desert preparing the way, in all three.

"Messiah" is the one title for Jesus that all three books share, even where they part ways on what it means. The Hebrew Bible: mashiach means "anointed," used for kings and priests ("the LORD's anointed," 1 Samuel 24:6), and Daniel speaks of "Messiah the Prince" (Daniel 9:25). The New Testament: Peter's answer here is "The Christ of God" (Luke 9:20), and Matthew gives it in full: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). The Quran also calls him al-Masih. The angels tell Mary, "his name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, distinguished in this world and the Hereafter" (3:45). It gives its own answer to the same question too: "The Messiah, son of Mary, was not but a messenger; [other] messengers have passed on before him" (5:75). Same question, same title, different answers, which is why "Who do you say I am?" is still asked today.

One answer runs through all three books: Abraham is the man God promised to bless, and to make a blessing to others. The Hebrew Bible: "I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing... and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:2-3). God calls him "Abraham my friend" (Isaiah 41:8). The New Testament repeats both: "Abraham believed God... and he was called the Friend of God" (James 2:23), and "In thee shall all nations be blessed" (Galatians 3:8). The Quran: "Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend" (4:125), and "There has already been for you an excellent pattern in Abraham" (60:4). When the angels visit his household they say, "The mercy of Allah and His blessings be upon you, people of the house. Indeed, He is Praiseworthy and Honorable" (11:73). That last line, "hamidun majid," is the same phrase the prayer for Ibrahim ends with in the tashahhud. The friend of God, and a blessing for the nations, in all three.

Love driving out fear of judgment is a theme all three books touch, each in its own way. The New Testament verse right after this one finishes the thought: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear" (1 John 4:18). The Hebrew Bible asks the hard question first: "If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared" (Psalm 130:3-4). Mercy is what makes it possible to stand. The Quran ties love and forgiveness together: "If you should love Allah, then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you your sins" (3:31), and it promises that for the allies of Allah "there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve" (10:62). Different paths to it, but all three hope for the same thing: to face God without fear.