4 Things to Make Clear When Sharing the Gospel With Muslims

When we attempt to share the gospel with a Muslim friend, language can be an issue. I don’t mean that we will be ineffective if we don’t know Arabic. Rather, we must realize that Christians and Muslims often use the same terms with very different meanings. Repentance and faith are two examples.

Repentance and Faith in a Muslim Context

Muslims use the term repentance to refer either to the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam (Sura 5:36–37) or to Muslims themselves turning to God (Sura 24:31). Men and women are called to repent because they are too weak to obey all of Allah’s commands. Their repentance must be genuine in order to be acceptable to Allah (Sura 66:8). However, it’s unclear what exactly requires repentance since Muslim theologians make a distinction between major and minor sins. All Muslims agree that repentance for major sin is necessary. But some say that minor sins do not require repentance.[1]

Repentance is like crossing a bridge and burning it, so that we may never travel back to that path of sinful desires and habits again.

In Islam, faith may be defined in one of three ways, depending on the school of thought a Muslim supports. It may be defined simply as obeying the commands of God. Or, a Muslim may believe that faith includes both obedience and a profession of trust and belief in God. According to Sura 49:14, there are those who submit to Allah in obedience but nevertheless have not had faith or belief to enter their hearts. This introduces some confusion about the nature of faith in Islamic theology.

Make a Biblical Response Clear

So when we’re sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with our Muslim friends, it’s important that we make a few things clear.

First, we must make it clear that all sin offends our holy God. Therefore all sins—even unintentional sins (see Lev. 4)—require repentance and an atoning sacrifice. Moreover, specific sins are not fundamentally the problem; sin is. The existence and ugliness of the thing itself is the foundational problem, not merely its instances. Therefore, whether minor or major, sin and its expressions are always serious, and the sinner is always in need of repenting.

Second, we must make it clear that genuine repentance requires abandoning sin. Repentance requires more than sorrow over “major” transgressions. Repentance requires we turn our backs completely on the old life of sin, that “with regard to [our] former way of life, to put off [our] old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of [our] minds” (Eph. 4:22–23). Repentance is like crossing a bridge and burning it, so that we may never travel back to that path of sinful desires and habits again.

Depending on our righteousness alienates us from Christ and God’s grace (Gal. 5:1–4).

Third, we must make it clear that genuine faith requires accurate knowledge of, agreement with, and personal acceptance of what God has done for us in Jesus. Faith is not merely reciting the shahada, the Muslim profession that there is but one God and Muhammad is his messenger. Nor is faith merely praying the sinner’s prayer or responding to an altar call, as some Christians believe. Faith is a gift from God wherein the sinner personally entrusts himself to Jesus as Lord and Savior who purchased forgiveness and eternal life through His crucifixion and resurrection. There is no saving faith that does not look to Jesus in this way.

Fourth, we must make it clear that forgiveness from God comes by grace alone apart from any works on our behalf. Genuine conversion issues forth in good works and a changed life (Eph. 2:10), but good works and a moral life do not earn God’s forgiveness or salvation. Muslims believe that good deeds are essential for earning salvation, being added to faith. But that’s not the gospel of the Bible. Adding anything to the cross of Christ is slavery to the law and makes Christ “of no value to [us] at all.” Depending on our righteousness alienates us from Christ and God’s grace (Gal. 5:1–4).

To be effective in evangelism, we need to scrape the confusing and misleading barnacles off the Bible’s teaching about repentance and faith.

[1] For a clear and useful discussion of these issues, see Chawkat Moucarry, The Search for Forgiveness: Pardon and Punishment in Islam and Christianity (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004); see chapter 9. For a brief overview of Islamic teaching on sin, see chapter 7 in The Search for Forgiveness.