Least of These

UK 🇬🇧 “Islam came to dominate all the way of life in world”. “To gain victory We need the right people in the military”. “Allah makes the victory hard for us in order to test us if we are sincere in sacrificing our life in Jihad for him”.

This is a good example of why contemporary worship is often very detrimental to congregational worship. Hymns are written to be sung by a congregation, which means you typically only need an octave and a third vocal range (at most) to hit all the notes. But contemporary music is written to be performed, which means it's typically written with the abilities of professional performers in mind, which means it will often require a vocal range that most people don't even have, let alone feel comfortable employing. So the end result is that people watch the professionals sing instead of actually singing. And watching other people worship through song is not really worship.

If your theological convictions are not actively making you more gracious, humble, and repentant than your beliefs are not being shaped by Jesus they’re motivated by a desire to be argumentatively “right.”

Mariam Yahia Ibrahim, a Sudanese Christian and medical doctor, was sentenced to 100 lashes and death by hanging after refusing to renounce her Christian faith. Because Sudan considered her Muslim through her absent father, the court convicted her of apostasy despite her lifelong confession of Christ. According to them, she could not be a Christian, married to a Christian, in this Muslim majority country. She was given three days to recant. She refused. At the time (in 2014), Meriam was eight months pregnant and already caring for her young son in prison. She spent months chained to a prison floor with her 1-year-old son by her side. While shackled, she gave birth to her daughter, Maya, inside the prison. Her execution was delayed because of the pregnancy, but she remained imprisoned until an international outcry led an appeals court to overturn her conviction and order her release. Looking back on her ordeal, Meriam said she was not afraid. "Being in prison strengthened my faith even more," she told CBN News.

Theologian JD Hall to Tucker Carlson: The Muslim rulers didn't tax churches during the Ottoman period. They were very kind to Christians. As a matter of fact, they took care of our holy sites. Islamic authorities rebuilt the Church of the Holy Sepulchre three different times over the centuries. They had a law protecting Christian pilgrims on their journey. Nobody messed with the pilgrims.

James Montgomery Boice — A Practical Denial of the Sufficiency of Scripture.