As a proud Muslim, Abdu Murray enjoyed sparring with people of other faiths. But when he was eventually confronted with the evidence for Christ’s death and resurrection, he allowed that truth to be eclipsed by the losses he might suffer as a result of his conversion. After years of indecision, he eventually concluded that the Christian gospel was worth dying for. Abdu Murray now serves as the Senior Vice President of RZIM and is the author of Grand Central Question, Saving Truth, and most recently Seeing Jesus from the East, which he co-wrote with Ravi Zacharias. On this episode, Shane Rosenthal talks with Abdu about his long conversion process and his insights in the realm of apologetics.
show quote
The cardinal idea in all of Islam is that God is great. He is incomparably great. Muslims say this phrase all the time, “Allahu Akbar.” It means, “God is greater.” So God’s greatness is the pinnacle ideal. It’s the central idea of Islam. It’s the central ideal for the search I had which was, “What worldview allows me, if God exists, (and there’s good reason to believe he does) to worship a God who is truly the greatest possible being.” I began to see some things in the Bible and in the story of Jesus, it wasn’t that he was just evidentially true, but that Jesus, as the incarnation of God was the greatest possible being. The lynch pin was this: If God is the greatest possible being, then he would express the greatest possible ethic which is love. He would do it in the greatest possible way which is self-sacrifice.
Abdu Murray
Term to learn
“Apologetics”
Apologetics attempts to render the Christian faith persuasive to the contemporary individual. For unbelievers, it is belief forming; it helps to defuse attacks upon Christianity, and to establish Christianity as credible by giving intellectual support to the explanatory value of a biblical world view. For believers, it is belief sustaining; it nurtures Christian faith by calling believers to love their Lord with their minds (Matt. 22:37).
(From Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd Ed., s.v. “apologetics”)
