Last month I met Pak Dono, a used-car dealer. Apparently he had been looking for the truth for many years. For 13 years he studied a Muslim holy book. It could not satisfy his heart.
A Careful Study of the “Gospel” of Barnabas
He then went to his imam (religious teacher) and asked, “We believe in the Gospel. Why can’t we read it?” The imam answered him, but he still wasn’t satisfied. Pak Dono pressed him for the Gospel. The imam finally gave him the Gospel of Barnabas (a false gospel written in Italy in the 13th century).
Pak Dono studied this false gospel for three years. He noted that Isa Al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah) would turn all Christians into Muslims. He asked himself, “Why will Jesus make Christians into Muslims? Jesus did not bring Islamic teaching but Christianity.” His desire to know the answer to this question made him visit another well-known Muslim teacher. This man’s answers did not satisfy him either.
Reading the Bible
After that, he went to another city and bought a small Bible. He read it diligently. Sometimes he had to compete with his fifteen-year-old daughter, who liked to read it too.
An Egg and a Cross
One day he went to his in-law’s house to celebrate Idul Adha (the annual celebration of the sacrifice of Abraham’s son). According to tradition, the in-laws provided special food. At the celebration they were served salted eggs. When his mother-in-law cut the egg in half, they saw a cross in its yolk. Seeing that, his wife was angry and said, “It is the symbol of Christians and infidels!” She threw the egg away. When his wife cut a second egg in half, they discovered it also had a cross in the yolk. Pak Dono quickly took that egg. He also took the egg that his wife had thrown out and cleaned it.
That event left an impression in Pak Dono’s heart. He knew that he had to ask a Christian about it. Pak Dono tried to find a Christian in his town. He went to his business partner, a Chinese person, but he was not a Christian. So he continued to look.
A Christian Army Officer 
One day, an Indonesian army officer came to buy a car. He was a Christian. Pak Dono asked the officer to take him to church. When they went to the church, the pastor did not allow Pak Dono to join the worship service for safety reasons. He was afraid the local people would be angry and burn the church down. Then the pastor introduced him to me.
More Valuable Than Pearls
That night, Pak Dono and the army officer came to my house. We talked about the Gospel until midnight. I told him how God’s plan was broken by Satan when mankind fell into sin. Because of God’s love, He sent Isa Al-Masih to save us by dying on the cross.
That night Pak Dono confessed Jesus the Messiah as his Lord and Savior. He hugged me while crying, and said, “This night I have found something more valuable then pearls.”
[We invite you to visit us at https://www.isaandislam.com/way-of-salvation to learn more about God’s gift of Salvation. God loves you and waits to hear from you. Isa clearly said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Injil, John 14:6). For a deeper understanding of Isa we suggest you subscribe to “Isa, Islam, and Al-Fatiha” at this link.]
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1. Why didn’t Pak Dono believe that Isa Al-Masih will make Christians into Muslims?
2. What did he discover in the egg yolk?
3. What is more valuable than pearls?
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Thank God! John 6:37, 39.
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Yarman,
Thank you for praising God with us!
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Dear Friend,
It’s your fault that you couldn’t understand with Quran, which only has one version since it was written and won’t change!
The Bible has too many versions. Christians have changed it for their usefulness and desires. The current Bible is not from God, but from man.
But the Quran is the world’s only book which has never changed. It is the pure words of Allah.
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Mairaj,
There are not different versions of the Bible, but translations. They are similar to the different English translations of the Quran. Different scholars have translated the Quran, and the ones that were translated more recently use more modern language, while older translations use older language.
Because language has changed through time, new translations of the Bible have been done so that everyone can understand it. Just as many Muslims don’t know Arabic, many Christians don’t know Greek and Hebrew, so the Bible is translated into the language of the people.
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Quoting from the article: “I told him how God’s plan was broken by Satan when mankind fell into sin”
Your God’s plan was broken by Satan. I see that Satan is more powerful than your God if he can break his plan!
He fell in the problem so He sent His only son to die to fix this fault. I think that your God is not powerful!
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Khalid,
God created human beings with the freedom to choose. God gives us this freedom so that when we respond to God’s invitation to accept Him, it is because we want to, not because we are programmed to.
That’s the essence of love. You can’t say you love someone if you don’t have a choice to not love someone. God took a risk in giving humans the freedom to love or to reject Him. But in God’s eyes, the risk was worth it.
One of the risks is to have God’s good plan for His creation to be wrecked and ruined because Adam and Eve chose to listen to Satan rather than be obedient to God.
But that doesn’t mean everything went to waste or that God is surprised or not in control. On the contrary, God knew the potential of disobedience and sin entering the world because He created the potential. In the Bible, Genesis chapter 3 (just 3 chapters into the Bible), God has already planned to send his Son to save the world. The reason why God needed to send His Son was because the mess we humans put ourselves in can only be salvaged by someone who is perfect to satisfy God’s criteria if we want to go back and have fellowship with Him as in the time of Adam and Eve. And no one could satisfy that criteria but God Himself.
The way Christianity paints the picture of who God is (not limited to these):
God is love (hence gives free will to human to love back), God is holy and perfect (hence He can’t just allow sinful human to come to Him without being cleansed/sanctified), God is merciful (hence sending His Son to receive His wrath that was meant for sinful humans).
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Dear Friends: We highly value all comments on our website. Yet we do have some guidelines:
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2. Your comment should be directly related to the theme of the lead article.
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