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Please see the special note at the bottom of this email. 

Often lost in the massive shadow cast by Christmas, today marks the celebration of the demure, mindful, unassuming Boxing Day. It’s origins are murky and the number of explanations for the holiday roughly equals the number of Englishmen you ask about it! 

My favorite Boxing Day activity is along walk with people I love. I first experienced this on the moors around Bradford, England, but now am happy to hoof it with the family on the gravel roads around our southern Colorado home. 

You might not have breathtaking moors, but I hope you’ve had some classically great time with family this Christmas. I know it doesn’t happen every time for everyone, but family moves to the top of the list this time of year. 

That family proximity, intensity and duration at Christmas is where family tends to normally be for many Muslim cultures. Perhaps you’ve been in the midst of it, hanging out with a bunch of folks. Every older woman is either Grandma or Auntie or both! Every older man, gramps or uncle. If a person is within 10 years of you, they’re a cousin, whether related by blood or not. 

The strength of familial bonds can hinder individual Muslims following Jesus. Most of us can probably not imagine the depth of disappointment, nor the weight of shame a potential follower of Jesus anticipates from her family.

On the flip side, is it too much for us to ask God to use those familial bonds to bring whole households to Jesus? There’s precedent in Acts and around the world in our day. How I’d love to see a mom or dad, or maybe an influential uncle find Christ and lead their families to him. 

You may have heard ministry friends refer to Muslims as “cousins.” I like the family connection language. But here’s what I’m hoping for in 2025, so many cousins become sisters and brothers that next Boxing Day finds us all walking, chatting, rejoicing together. 

Special Note: Thank you for reading Muslim Connect. If God has blessed you this year and you’ve found value and maybe even some camaraderie in Muslim Connect, I’d like to ask you to make a year end gift (or even a monthly pledge to this work for 2025!). If you wish, you can give a gift here. (Click in the “Select Designation” window, find me and follow the prompts.) Thank you very much for considering this. 

Please see the special note at the bottom of this email. 

Around our house, the hands down favorite Christmas song is Paul McCartney’s Let It Be. Maybe you’re saying, “Hold on. That’s not a Christmas song.” I wouldn’t fight you over it, but I love that Paul pretty much quotes Mary’s response to Gabriel’s announcement that she’s going to give birth to the Messiah! 

The song is also popular around here because the Mom/Wife of the house does a wicked cover of it and used it as an anchor point in her sermon on Mary’s view of the Nativity this past Sunday. (If you’re inclined, you can watch here. The sermon begins at the 23.36 mark and the song at one hour.)

Mary’s “let it be to me” attitude, along with much more, both biblical and beyond, has earned her unique status for Christians. For Muslims as well.

She is the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran, showing up more often there than in the New Testament. In Sura 3.42, the Quran says, “O Mary, indeed Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the worlds.”

Muslims tend to refer to her as Maryam, but it’s the same mom and the respect is real. I suspect Mary, given the chance, would remind Christians and Muslims alike to focus on the the baby, learn from the man, follow the Messiah. 

Should the Lord open a door for you this season, ask a Muslim about her thoughts on Mary. That conversation might quickly move to you both sharing thoughts on her baby! Sure, Muslims and Christians have important disagreements regarding the nature of that little rascal, but we both love him and his mom. And time spent talking about what we do agree on will not be wasted.

No Muslims to chat with? Join me in this Christmas carol challenge: For the next week, every time you hear a carol you dislike, take a moment to pray that many Muslims will find Jesus in a fresh way this Christmas.

Special Note: Thank you for reading Muslim Connect. In recent months for a variety of reasons, I’ve lost some quite significant donors to the ministry support that helps keep our family going. If God has blessed you this year and you’ve found value and maybe even some camaraderie in Muslim Connect, I’d like to ask you to make a monthly pledge to this work for 2025. I know this is a big ask, but trust you know you answer to God and not to me. If he leads you to make a monthly commitment, you can do so here. (Click in the “Select Designation” window, find me and follow the prompts.) Thank you very much for considering this. 

Please see the special note at the bottom of this email. 

“Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays.” So goes the song and I heartily agree. But you know who won’t be home for Christmas this year? Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. As his government fell last week, he and his family fled to Russia. He’ll have coal in his stocking for sure, but he’ll do ok with the billions he collected while his countrymen starved. 

Is it a good thing Assad is out of power? Only God really knows, but I’ll be honest with you, I’m glad he’s gone. His list of evil deeds would make the Grinch blush. I pray the forces who sent him packing will be able to rebuild and run the country. But, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire” keeps circling in my brain! 

Here’s what I really wonder about: What conversations are happening around dinner tables among the six million Syrians who’ve fled their country since the civil war began in 2011? Can we even imagine what it must be like?

“Should we return home?” 

“Is this God’s answer to our desperate prayers?” 

“What ‘home’ is there to return to?” 

“Will we be forced to leave what has become something of a home for us and certainly so for the kids?” 

“What do you mean, you’re thinking of taking us away from our school and our friends to go back to some hell hole we don’t even remember?!?” 

“Do the people who look at us in the street or at work wish us well or wish us gone?”

Remember that Jeremiah quote we like, even if we possibly take it out of context? 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jer. 29.11)

That may apply to Syrians even more than to you and me! And it provides solid scaffolding on which to hang some hopeful prayers. Join me in that? 

Special Note: Thank you for reading Muslim Connect. In recent months for a variety of reasons, I’ve lost some quite significant donors to the ministry support that helps keep our family going. If God has blessed you this year and you’ve found value and maybe even some camaraderie in Muslim Connect, I’d like to ask you to make a monthly pledge to this work for 2025. I know this is a big ask, but trust you know you answer to God and not to me. If he leads you to make a monthly commitment, you can do so here. (Click in the “Select Designation” window, find me and follow the prompts.) Thank you very much for considering this. 

One of the worst things about Christmas: The song “Away in a Manger!” Ask Mary and she’s going to tell you, “Actually a lot of crying he makes!” 

One of the best things about Christmas: Pictures of Jesus in a manger with his mom and dad. This one is my favorite. 

If you grew up as a Christian, you’ve likely been exposed to hundreds (thousands?) of images of Jesus. Some of them amazing, some stunning and some you just wish you could unsee. But likely you don’t think your appreciation or enjoyment of a particular picture of Jesus might lead to idolatry. I think you’re right. 

But the possibility of idolatry seems to be one of the key reasons many Muslims forbid images of Muhammad, and to a lesser degree the other prophets. The prohibition is not overtly in the Quran, but traces back to some statements and actions attributed to Muhammad and recorded in the Hadith. 

When Muhammad has been depicted in art, often by Muslims for Muslims, it is with respect and honor, his face obscured with a veil. Muslims refrain from painting Muhammad’s face because, not knowing what he looked like, any depiction is prone to misrepresentation. 

While the reluctance to depict Muhammad is not difficult to understand, the intensity of response by some to his image being shown sometimes is. My hunch is that most Muslims do not like to see pictures of Muhammad, particularly mocking ones like on the cover of Charlie Hebdo, but also disagree with violent response to them. 

Our challenge is to not lump all Muslims together, but to recognize all Muslims are created by God and creatively love and respect the ones God brings across our paths and minds.

Thanksgiving Day may be the most Christian of holidays. Gratitude is certainly an appropriate response to a God who has blessed us as thoroughly as he has. 

Since you may have family visiting today and you need to get busy telling them how much God loves Muslims, I’ll be brief. 

I am grateful for:

• As I write this morning, the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah seems to be holding. 

• I’ve recently been reminded of the tenacity of workers dedicated to befriending and connecting with Muslims nearby and very far away. 

• Having taught a couple Perspectives Lesson #15 classes this week, I’m rejoicing to think of the global band of just-graduated Perspectives students being released into the world! 

• I’m thankful for believers, both red and blue, who will continue to swim upstream by loving immigrants, even if we head into very xenophobic times.

• Finally, I’m grateful for you. Thank you for taking the time to open and read Muslim Connect and, to the degree God gives you grace, put what you learn into practice. 

(If you’ve got a moment to set your fork down and let me know what you’re thankful for, I’d be happy to join you in your gratitude!)

Have you ever loved something that most people disdain? For instance, sauerkraut, velcro sneakers or the Chicago Cubs. I love a city like this: Bradford, UK. It’s beautiful, set in the God-designed, soul-nurturing moors of northern England and its streets smell like curry! On the other hand, its glorious days are in the past and, unbelievably, some don’t see the balti-scented boulevards as a good thing. Go figure! 

Bradford’s population is about a third Muslim, the highest of any city in the UK. Among Muslim leaders there is concern these days about a bill that will have its first vote in Parliament next Friday. The bill calls for liberalizing the UK’s approach to assisted dying. 

Muslims and Christians largely agree on issues of suicide, euthanasia and physician assisted death. The shared conviction is that God alone has the right to both give and take away life. Of course, the particulars are gut-wrenching. Having not stared these things directly in the face, I hesitate even to write about them.

As Christians our challenge is to understand the Bible and apply its teaching with grace and love. 

Muslims in Bradford and elsewhere in the UK face an added challenge. Having felt slighted in the distribution of palliative care in the midst of Covid, they now wonder if the advance of assisted death might further diminish their hope for help. 

It’s a classic conflict between the majority who says, “This is how we do it now,” and the minority who pleads, “But that is not how we do it, nor has it ever been.” 

When Auntie’s life is in balance, the doctor seems to be leaning hard one way and you’re sure Allah’s looking down with a stern eye, these decisions are brutal. 

For a quick look at how Christians might view these issues check out this article from Britain and this from our friends at Denison Forum. 

As the Christmas train begins to pick up steam (We’re like 40 days away!), I’m wondering how much I should buy this year and how much I should eat. Sorry if this is too personal, but I have a history of overindulgence in both. 

At our house we’re aiming to mess up the tracks just a bit by implementing an idea from The Advent Conspiracy: We plan to take a long weekend (Thursday dinner to Sunday lunch) and eat nothing but beans, rice and tortillas. (And maybe an egg or two.) This will be a micro-step toward understanding how some people always eat, toward recognizing that life is more than what we put in our mouths. 

In Christian history, we’ve had forebears who’ve gone full bore in this. Ascetics who lived in caves, ate little, wore scraps and never kissed nobody. In the process some went crazy, but others met God in ways I can’t imagine. 

Islam doesn’t really celebrate or remember Muslims who’ve done this, though I imagine there must have been some. They do have an ascetic concept called Zuhd. As you’d guess, understanding of Zuhd varies enormously, but one writer captures it like this, “The actual definition of Zuhd is to detach one’s heart from this world.”

“Zuhd means to focus on the next life, but without neglecting one’s portion of this world. . . .Zuhd is necessary for attaining contentment and inner peace.”

If this takes your mind back to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, good for you. “Seek first the Kingdom. . . .” and, well, you know the rest! 

Maybe a key thing this Christmas is to not just merrily rattle down the tracks of our culture. Let’s at least sit up and poke our heads out the window once in a while and look around. Maybe grab the stop cord and slow the whole train down. Remember we serve a Savior who on the one hand made wine out of water, but on the other was himself the very bread of life. 

When’s the last time you turned in a paper for a class? Me: Just before lunch today! My wife and I, along with a couple other guys at church, are taking a course called Gateway that focuses on the Evangelical Free Church’s core doctrines. Today’s paper was about the Bible. 

It got us thinking about how Muslims and Christians think differently about the Quran and the Bible. 

Of course we both think our scriptures came from God. But how they got from God to us is different. Muslims believe the content of the Quran was given to Muhammad in a series of revelations from Allah through the angel Gabriel. 

The Bible on the other hand was God-breathed or inspired, meaning the Holy Spirit guided the Biblical writers to ensure what they wrote was the word of God while allowing for their individual personalities and writing styles.

The Quranic revelations reportedly came over the course of 23 years. While the Bible took, depending on how you look at it, between 250 and 1500 years! Along with the lengthy time line, we have a variety of authors, from many cultures, writing in a variety of genres and languages. 

Unlike the linguistic variety of the Bible authors, Muslims believe that God spoke the Quran only in Arabic. As a result, the Quran carries the most authority when it’s in Arabic. In contrast, thanks to God’s work through a vast cadre of dedicated and skilled workers, the whole Bible has been reliably translated into around 700 languages and the New Testament into 1500! 

Both Christians and Muslims believe God speaks to them through their holy books, guiding them to right living. Many Muslims further believe that the actual physical Quran has spiritual power and most give a great deal of respect to the actual book. 

Jesus shows up in both books: As a talking baby and a revered prophet in the Quran and as The Way, the Truth, and the Life in the Bible. 

I have so many questions for you! (My answers in parentheses)

Are you going to vote? (Yes, once) Have you voted yet? (Nope) Who are you going to vote for? (Not sure yet) Who’s going to win? (Only God knows, and He’s not telling me!)

[If you’ve no concern for the upcoming U.S. election, please forgive this national-centric Muslim Connect.]

Since you’re a part of the Muslim Connect tribe, I can make three somewhat educated guesses about you: 1. You wish there were fewer abortions in our country. 2. You’re more concerned about immigrants as people than “immigration” as a political issue. 3. You’d like the Muslims you know and those you don’t, both here and abroad, to suffer less. 

If those guesses are even ballpark accurate, you may be wrestling with this election. If you are, guess what: You’re on the struggle bus with many Muslim Americans! 

• Polls show Muslims not voting Democrat in the numbers they did in the previous election. 

• The mayor of Hamtramck, MI, the country’s only Muslim-majority city endorsed Trump! 

• This Reddit discussion shows some of the angst, the variety of perspectives and challenges Muslim voters face in next week’s election. 

Do you sense the challenge Muslims face? “If I vote for Harris, am I abandoning my brothers and sisters in Gaza and Lebanon?” “If I vote for Trump, am I asking for Travel Ban 2.0?” If I vote for Jill Stein, am I just wasting my time?” (These, of course, are just a sampling of the perplexing issues.)

It’s gut wrenching, isn’t it? May God give us all wisdom. And may Christ have mercy on us all. 

My election prediction? Whether we walk through the valley of the shadow of death or sit at a table in the presence of our enemies, God will continue his kingdom building work. Christ will have mercy on us all. 

We got a dog. I wish you would have warned me! The dog is super cute and tons of fun, but ridiculously food-motivated. He’s lately taken to harvesting melons, peppers and tomatoes from our garden for himself! 

He reminds me of how food-motivated I can be. It’s possible I leaned into Muslim ministry rather than focusing on Hindus or Buddhists in part because I liked their food better! While that’s probably not the best reason, I stand by the validity of my choice. Here’s a rundown of my favorite foods from some of the Muslim places I’ve been:

Jordan: Shawarma and Kanafe

India: Boiled egg Biryani (Mock me, if you must!)

Turkey: Corba (soup) for breakfast and Adana Kebab

Morocco: Mint tea

Kazakstan: Beshbarmak

Holland: Turkish bread and Lahmacun

Malaysia: Satay

England: Samosas

Tunisia: Dates

France: Doner kebab

Sicily: Domeda

Got a favorite food from the Muslim world you’d care to share with me? I’ll drool with you!

Someone at Frontiers must share my (our?) malady because they recently released a 30-day series of prayer emails called Taste and See. Sign up here and a single, short email will begin dropping into your box each day. They feature a brief, food-oriented vignette from the Muslim world along with a “Hope for the Day” scripture and a couple of specific prayer requests. 

What a great idea. The first two emails feature dates and shawarma! I’m sold. 

Please join me in signing up and praying through this prayer guide. If you’ve got some other foodies in your life, maybe share this with them and encourage them to jump on board as well.