The very foundation of conflict resolution is finding common ground and respectful healthy communication that is not ruled by our emotions. This is supported by scripture (Isaiah 1:18).

No one of any faith will convert anyone through anger, malice, hatred, wrath, insults and disrespect.

We all know that much or our religious, social, cultural, and political narrative today is about Christians and Muslims. We all know in many ways how we differ, but I have noticed some interesting things we both have in common, beyond the tenets of our faiths…

HERE ARE 7 THINGS CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS HAVE IN COMMON

1. Both were created by the same God and in His image (capacity to love like Him, have His character and communicate with Him).
2. Both have sincere people.
3. Both can be overzealous.
4. Both can be self-righteous.
5. Both have their core beliefs perverted by radicals.
6. Both have, contrary to God’s will, had radicals kill in effort to spread their faith.
7. Both are enduring increased disrespect in our culture while other causes are gaining momentum.

PLUS, ONE BIG ONE

Both believe in the God of Abraham. I personally believe in the Lord God of Israel (Yah) through faith in the Lamb of God, The Son of God, Our Risen Savior, Christ Jesus (Yeshua). The one they have most in common is the one that makes them most different.

My belief does not allow me to disrespect or insult those who don’t believe as I do. To the contrary, the Apostle Paul treated the philosophers, the Epicureans and Stoics with respect. He debated with them from the perspective that they were sincere people who believed in something. He just wanted to submit to them the truth of the true and living God and let them make up their own mind.

Acts 17:16-34 (NKJV)

¹⁶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. ¹⁷ Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. ¹⁸ Then^[a] certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. ¹⁹ And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? ²⁰ For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore, we want to know what these things mean.” ²¹ For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Addressing the Areopagus ²² Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; ²³ for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: ²⁴ “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. ²⁵ Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. ²⁶ And He has made from one blood^[b] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, ²⁷ so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; ²⁸ for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ ²⁹ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. ³⁰ Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, ³¹ because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” ³² And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” ³³ So Paul departed from among them. ³⁴ However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

 Paul sets a great example of how to relate with people who don’t believe as we do. I’m a Christian, but God commands me to love everyone, and show respect to everyone. If I hope to convince anyone to consider what I believe to be the truth…I can only do it through love.

BE BLESSTIFIED!