When unbelievers (who have some "light" about the One True God) go to pray, are they truly praying to God (YHWH; Jehovah)??
For example, when unbelievers in the Christian church, or unbelieving Jews, or even people in cultic churches (Mormons or J.W.'s) go to pray, are they truly praying to the One True God??

What about Muslims?

Does God hear the prayers of the unbelievers?
What about Hagar's prayers?
Balaam's prayers?
Saul's prayers?

Just curious, I'm working through some stuff right now.
Thanks,
السلام عليكم
Matt

__________________
Matthew Scheffer
Christ The Redeemer (non-denominational)
http://www.christredeemer.com
Spokane, WA

I think it is irrelevant to whom the unbeliever believes he is praying. None of us sinful, ignorant creatures have perfect knowledge of the One to whom they are praying. The more important question is the one you ask above: Does God hear the prayers of the unbeliever?

Let us say that an unbeliever adresses his prayers, "Our Father Who art in heaven...". According to the Bible he is addressing the right Person. But what does it matter?

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Pastor Klein,
Whether you think that my question is irrelevant or not is irrelevant... I was asking a question and all you can offer is "what does it matter?"
...like I said, I'm "working through some stuff right now" --I've got a lot of Muslim friends that I've been talking with lately and I'm trying to find out how far to take our 'common' ground. Some Christians believe that Muslims worship the same God as Christians do --they just have an obscured version of the One True God, they also believe that Muslims pray to the same God as Christians do --I'm not convinced.
شكراً

__________________
Matthew Scheffer
Christ The Redeemer (non-denominational)
http://www.christredeemer.com
Spokane, WA

I apologize. I did not mean to imply that the question you are asking was irrelevant, or that your friends are irrelevant.

In my own convoluted way, speaking from the hip, I was considering that the answer to your question was, "Does God hear the unbeliever?"

Let us say that your unbelieving Muslim friend was praying to the God of the Bible. Let us say that he prayed in the name of Jesus Christ! Well, first of all, he is not a good Muslim. But second of all, what does it matter if God does not hear him?

But, to answer your question, the God that we pray to is a covenant God and I don't see how you could pray to a covenant God while at the same time denying that you are in covenant with Him. "Hello, God. I know that I hate you and that we are enemies, but I am going to pray to you anyway." It doesn't make sense.

Perhaps I could provide a more satisfactory answer if you gave us some info as to why you are asking the question. What kind of common ground are you looking for? Are you trying to witness to this Muslim?

__________________

What are those little squigglies at the end of your posts?

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Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

Another more pointed question would be, does mediation occur between Christ and a non-elect individual? If so, in what way does the atonement provide mediation for that person if they are not elect? ... just something iv been wondering about

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Josiah
member, Third Avenue Baptist Church
Louisville, KY

http://www.carver319.com
______________________________________________
tolle lege, tolle lege

Matt, God is not obligated to answer the unbeliever's prayer's . Sometimes he does for His own purpose and glory.
I think this is an example found in psalm 78
Matt- In reality there is no common ground with muslims .There are some similar concepts in Islam. One God /yet not 3 persons , a final judgement day, But they have no gospel, no answer for the sin question as they do not believe Jesus was God,come in the flesh. They deny He died on the cross.
They like to trace everything back to Abraham, but in a twisted fashion.
There is a strong caution in 1 Cor 10
If I had to look for other sections I would read Isa.45 or Deut.28-32 and you can quickly see there is no common ground to be had if it is not found in THe Servant of The Lord dying on the Cross.

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Anthony D'Arienzo
Sunday School Teacher
Hope Reformed Baptist Church:
Medford, N.Y.

I think we need to remember that access to the Father (God) only comes through a priest or a mediator. Without a priest there is NO access. Hebrews 5 tells us that every High Priest is appointed to represent men in matters related to God. Consider the function of the priest in the Old Testament; offered sacrifices and gifts on behalf of the people. And futhermore the author tells us that he is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray. Jesus Christ is the High Priest who without there is no access to God. He tells us this Himsef when He says, " I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Noone comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6) It is He who perfects our feeble attempt to communicate with the Almighty. It is He who petitions the God of the universe on our behalf. God has commanded allpeople everywhere to come to the foot of the cross. Access to the Father is through the Son. It is only through the Son that we know how to pray- for He Himself taught us how to pray. We learned early in the word that God despises prayers that are insincere and not according to His will.

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Kristoffer Popovitch
Presbyterian Church in America
Tolland, Ct.

This verse comes to mind:

__________________
Sterling Harmon
Coventry, CT
PCA
Deacon
________________

"Whatever is laudable in our works proceeds from the grace of God."
-- John Calvin, Institutes III:xv.3.

"Our Lord God must be a good man, to be fond of worthless fellows. I cannot like them, and yet I, myself, am one."
-- Martin Luther, Table Talk

Thanks for all your replies,
Here's a bit more background....
I'm asking these questions for some very practical reasons --yes, I've been witnessing to a bunch of Muslims lately, I've been learning Arabic, and I'm planning on going on to get a PhD in Middle East Studies... so how I approach such assertions as: Jews, Muslims, & Christians worship the same God; we are all following the faith of Abraham; Jews & Muslim have some "light" about the nature of God (His "oneness," omnipotence, omniscience, etc. (although they distort it)) therefore they're praying to the same God as Christians; etc. etc., all have a huge impact on what I do on a daily basis --interacting with Muslims, studying Middle East history, witnesses about Jesus, etc.
I got into an argument with another believer over whether Muslims worship the same God as Christians... I argued that they cannot worship the same God because those that worship God MUST worship Him in Spirit and in truth... we never came to any agreement --he grew up in Africa as a missionary kid and was/is convinced that when Muslims speak about God and when Christians speak about God they're talking about the same God (only the Muslims have a distorted view of that God).
This issue has a lot of practical implications....
if Muslims and Jews are worshiping the same God as Christians (if they are praying to the same God as Christians), then it would be perfectly alright for me to pray to Allah with a Muslim or to YHWH with a Jew. Since I've been learning Arabic I've found that the Arabic language is absolutely saturated with phrases that reference "Allah" --a normal and expected response to كيف حالك (how are you?) is رحمد الله (thanks be to Allah/God) --that's expected even from "non-religious" Muslims; also, the phrase "if Allah wills" or "Allah knows" is as common in Arabic as we say "maybe" or "probably" in English --so, is it right for a Christian to say "if Allah wills" or "thanks to Allah"??

A lot of this "common ground" stuff comes from Paul's example in Acts 17... he took the people from where they were at in their understanding of God and he explained Him more fully to them. He basically told them that their view of God is "off" and that they worshiped Him "in ignorance." (were they actually "worshiping" God in ignorance??)

I care a great deal about these Muslims, but I haven't pulled any punches... I've told them about how the Bible tells us that Jesus claimed to be God, that He's the only way to the Father, and that Muhammad was a sinner (they believe that he was sinless). But the more that I interact with them, the more that I hear them talking about God, I talk about God, and we agree on some things while we disagree on other things, so at what point are we talking about different gods or are we talking about different gods from the get-go? There are things that Muslims and Christians agree on about the nature of God, so how far can I go on agreeing with them, yet maintain that we worship and pray to different gods??

To answer one of the other questions...
(سكراً ="shukran"=Thank you)
(السلام عليكم =assalam ualaikum=peace upon you)

Thanks again,
Matt

__________________
Matthew Scheffer
Christ The Redeemer (non-denominational)
http://www.christredeemer.com
Spokane, WA

Those are good scripture verses....
Thanks

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Matthew Scheffer
Christ The Redeemer (non-denominational)
http://www.christredeemer.com
Spokane, WA

I pray to Allah all the time.

http://camelmethod.com/downloads/Sho...anslations.pdf


http://www.ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/23_2_P...WhoIsAllah.pdf

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

Thanks for the links!
I just got done reading both of the articles and I'll probably read through them again tomorrow. There are a lot of good points in there... I think that I'm a lot like the people who were described --I'm concerned over the connotative meaning of "Allah," not necessarily the denotative meaning. I understand that Allah means "God," but what concerns me (like the people in the article) is that the Qur'an says "Allah" has no son, among other similar sayings. But, I also see the point of how important it is to use the terminology for "God" in the culture in which you're witnessing to.
I'll be prayin' about it and I'd appreciate your prayers as well.
السلام عليكم
Matt

__________________
Matthew Scheffer
Christ The Redeemer (non-denominational)
http://www.christredeemer.com
Spokane, WA

Yes, most would argue that the word is the same but the concept is different. So, is it then the same God or a different god. Really the heated discussion of "Do we worship the same God as the Mslms or a different God" are not really productive (about as productive as the similar argument of whether the arminians worship the same god or an idol) and can be either answered YES or NO truthfully depending upon the qualifications one uses. Sometimes we try to be more strict and precise than the writers of the NT were.

We had an independant baptist group come here and try to change the translation and try to replace all the occurrences of ALLAH with JEHOVAH, but this was not received well by the Christians and they were seen as cultish. Others, in a zeal to stress that Jesus is divine, stress that Jesus is Allah, and use a phrasing that even Paul does not use (Paul only calls the Father God it seems and Paul calls Jesus Lord).

__________________
Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone