September 8, AD 2010

The Koran-Burners and a Letter from Jesus
Frank Allnutt

Update: Florida pastor, imam at odds over Quran-burning deal

On September 11, the Dove World Outreach Center[1] in Gainesville, Florida, plans to burn copies of the Koran (Qur’an), the primary religious text of Islam.

Dove’s pastor, Terry Jones, cites Acts 19:19 which he contends is an example to be followed. I agree—but what Jones gets out of that verse and what I get are two different messages. I’ll elaborate on this in the following paragraphs. And, further on, I will bring into the dialogue a letter from Jesus to the Ephesians in Revelation that is not mentioned by Jones but should be understood in the context of Acts 19 and his Koran-burning.

The Threat of Islam
Pastor Terry Jones believes the Koran is a threat to both biblical truth and America. And I suspect that many Christians share his concerns. The Koran is preached in Mosques and taught in Islamic schools across America, and that, to me as a Christian, is a disturbing reality. Disturbing as well is that there are much greater numbers of gullible non-Muslims, among them many Christians, who are taken in by Politically Correct propaganda that portrays Islam as something quite different from what is disclosed in the Koran.

Why Jones Plans to Burn the Koran
On the Dove church’s web site, Terry Jones gives Ten Reasons for the upcoming Koran-burning event: “We are burning Korans to raise awareness and warn. In a sense it is neither an act of love nor of hate. We see, as we state in the Ten Reasons below, that Islam is a danger. We are using this act to warn about the teaching and ideology of Islam, which we do hate as it is hateful. We do not hate any people, however. We love, as God loves, all the people in the world and we want them to come to a knowledge of the truth. To warn of danger and harm is a loving act. God is love and truth. If you know the truth it can set you free. The world is in bondage to the massive grip of the lies of Islam.”

While burning Korans might be a wake-up call to some, it will no doubt be seen by others, namely Muslims and many religious liberals, to be a provocative act of intimidation, if not persecution.

And that brings us to the question: is burning the Korans the best approach?

Biblical Precedence
Following Jones’ Ten Reasons for burning Korans, he cites what he believes to be biblical precedence for doing so:

Like the Christians in Acts 19, we are publicly burning a book that is demonic. Many of our greatest supporters are ex-Moslems. They know these evils first hand. We are not, like the Nazis, stealing books, destroying properties or harming any people. We are not Nazis nor are we like Nazis. The Christians in Acts 19 did not go on from their scroll burning to harm anyone. They used the public burning as an opportunity, a demonstration to preach the truth. Only to preach and leave the decision of whether to follow the truth or not.

What Example does Acts 19 really set before us? Read the verses 18 and 19 as follows (the entire chapter is relevant):

(18) Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. (19) And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of all; and they counted up the price of them and it fifty thousand pieces of silver.

Miracles at Ephesus
Terry Jones cites the biblical precedence of “publicly burning a book that is demonic.” But, as we have just read, there is more to the story in Acts. Let’s consider a few points overlooked by Jones:

1. Those Ephesian Christians who burned books were converted occultic magicians. When verse 19 is considered in light of verse 18 and the context of the entire chapter, it becomes clear that the magicians became Christians as the miraculous result of effective evangelism.
   
   
2. The former magicians were “confessing and disclosing their [former] practices” (verse 18) and, as we shall see, publicly burned their books as an act of repentance.
   
   
3. The “books” they burned were actually small, hand-written scrolls of magical spells that were rolled up and worn on their garments. F.F. Bruce and Gordon D. Fee explain the significance of publicly burning the scrolls:
   
   “According to magical theory, the potency of a spell is bound up with its secrecy; if it be divulged, it becomes ineffective. So these converted magicians renounced their imagined power by rendering their spells inoperative.”[2]

Unlike the impotent spells in magicians’ scrolls, the truth of the Bible is all powerful. That is because Jesus, the omnipotent one, is the truth (John 14:6) and the source of all truth. And He said the truth shall set you free (John 8:32).

Terry Jones and Acts 19:19
Is Jones following the true example of Acts 19:19?

1. While Jones says some of the Koran-burners on September 11 will be former Muslims, he indicates that more will not be former Muslims. All of the scroll-burners in Acts 19 were former magicians.
   
   
2. Jones does not indicate whether the Korans to be burned are the personal property of the burners or if the group of burners will destroy Korans provided by Jones. The scrolls burned in Acts 19 were the one-of-a-kind, hand-written ones that belonged to the magicians; they burned their own property.
   
   
3. Unlike the Acts 19 magicians’s scrolls, the Koran is not considered by Muslims to contain power of magical spells; therefore, there is no reason for the Koran to be hidden in secrecy from public. Burning the Koran is symbolic at best; it will not destroy Islamic ideology or supplant it with biblical truths. Just as darkness can only be dispersed by light, untruths can only be eradicated by truths.

What Difference Will It Make?
Some might argue that Koran believers will continue to hate Christians even if Jones’ Koran-burning event takes place, so why not go ahead with the burn? What difference will it make?

Well, if a Muslim hates Christians, that is his sin. But if a Christian says he loves God but does not love others, he commits two sins: lying and disobeying the Two Greatest Commandments (Mark 30, 31). He obviously sins by not loving others, and if he says he loves God but does not love others, then he is a liar. Jesus said: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). And one of His commandments is to love others.

The Letter from Jesus
Now, let’s turn to the second relevant passage of Scripture: the letter ( “message”) from Jesus to the Ephesian church:

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: 2 “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 “and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. 4 “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 “Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent. 6 “Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.”

Now, let’s sort this out.

Jesus, in His message to the church at Ephesus, commended those believers for exposing false teachers and testing their lies against the truth. Jesus also admonished them for leaving their “first love,” and called for them to repent and return to the loving “deeds you did at first.” (Revelation 2:1-7).

Let me suggest that “first love” refers to the greatest love, as in the Two Greatest Commandments—to love God and the other like it: to love others. It was that love of the highest order that motivated them to perform certain “deeds you did at first.”

Linking Revelation 2:1-7 to Acts 19
The Ephesians in Revelation were so focused on exposing false teachers and false teachings that they neglected proclaiming the truth of the Gospel with love. And that refers us back to Acts 19. Why was the Ephesian evangelism so effective then? Because it was done in love! Those magicians were not intimidated, coerced, manipulated, or persecuted by the Ephesians to repent and convert to Christianity; they were lead to salvation in Jesus Christ through the Ephesian’s love and the truth of God’s Word.

Proclaiming the truth with love to the world is still God’s way for His children. True, the world hates us because we love Him whom they hate. But we are compelled by the love of Christ to share the truth as we go in the world, knowing by faith that there are those whose hearts have been prepared to know the One who is truth and love.

We are not to cower from a world that hates us and we are not to be hard-hearted, impulsive zealots. Rather, we are to be obedient from a loving heart. And remember what Paul wrote to Timothy: “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).

In conclusion, I suggest this to Pastor Terry Jones and my brothers and sisters at Dove church: Rather than burn Korans, distribute them to Christians, and teach them how to test it against the truths of the Bible and how to share those truths with love to others.
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[1] According to the Gainesville Sun, the church’s 17-acre campus is on the market for $4 million. It is owned by the non-profit Dove Charismatic Ministries LLC, of which the church’s senior pastor, Terry Jones, is the principal.

[2] Bruce, F.F. and Fee, Gordon D, The Book of Acts, 1988, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 369.
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©Copyright AD2010 Frank Allnutt. All rights reserved. Content herein may be quoted, subject to the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. Copyright Law.

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