Speaker 2: 0:02

Welcome to the Boundless.

Speaker 1: 0:02

Bible. My name is David Shapiro. My name is David Shapiro, and.

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I'm.

Speaker 3: 0:06

Jason Holloway.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Hi, welcome. Today I have the absolute honor of welcoming a man whose voice has become a pillar in the world of Christian apologetics, a man who stood on stages around the world not just defending the Christian faith, but doing it with grace, humility and piercing clarity. Abdu Murray is the president of Embrace the Truth, an author and speaker, he's the author of several profound books, including Saving Truth, grand Central Question and, most recently, more Than a White Man's Religion. He's one of the rare voices today who speaks from both a legal mind and deeply transformed heart. What I love most about Abdu is he doesn't talk about faith. He wrestled through it. As a former Muslim who came to know the truth of Jesus Christ after a nine-year search, he knows firsthand the cost and beauty of believing Abdu. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 3: 0:53

It's a privilege to have you here. Oh, thank you, david and Javi. Thank you guys so much for having me on. It's just. I've been looking forward to this conversation. You have had quite the journey. You were a developed Muslim to Christian, apologist, to attorney. What's one moment of your journey that kind of pops out as it just moves you deeply today? Oh boy Gosh, even you know it's a tough question to answer. I'm going to answer from the standpoint of the odyssey from Muslim to Christian, because I can tell you there are poignant moments throughout the entirety of the journey, including in after I became a Christian, that were incredibly moving moments.

Speaker 3: 1:29

The moment where I suddenly realized that everything I was hoping was true in my former faith of Islam was actually true in the Christian message was profoundly moving. I've often put it this way is that you know, when you hear a Muslim say the phrase Allahu Akbar and everyone's heard this, and usually you hear it in media and usually it's accompanied by something awful. But the reality is most Muslims will say this phrase not as a chant for violence or terrorism or protest. Rather they say it often as a prayer and a praise. It literally means God is greater. I mean the literal phrase is God is bigger, but the connotation is God's qualitative greatness. But for the Muslim greatness, god's greatness is the single most important virtue about God and every other virtue of note flows from that. So I had thought that Christianity insulted God's greatness through the cross, the incarnation, the Trinity and these kinds of things. So when I came to study these things and I realized that the Trinity, cross, incarnation and other things of the Christian faith don't insult God's greatness, but they actually demonstrate his greatness, it's the kind of thing that stirs you and it stirs response. It stirs an allegiance that might not have otherwise been there by mere intellectual assent. And this comes from the Bible itself.

Speaker 3: 2:52

You know, it's funny when you look at my journey of coming to Christ. Really the poignant moments are bookended by my reading of Scripture. When I first started the journey in earnest, it came from reading the Bible to poke holes in it, and I came across Luke, chapter 3, verses 7 and following, where John the Baptist says do not think that you have Abraham as your father, as if that would save them from God's wrath, for I tell you, god can raise up children of Abraham from the stones. It suddenly occurred to me that tradition although I've been telling Christians tradition wasn't good enough to trust your eternal destiny. To get to think it through, I suddenly realized that I was relying on that tradition, and so I embarked on a journey to try to be as objective as I possibly could about the arguments for and against various worldviews, including and especially Christianity and Islam. So that's the one bookend. The other bookend came towards the end, towards that realization I just mentioned about coming to faith, because you realize that everything you have been looking for somewhere else is actually found now in this gospel, and that's Romans, chapter 5, verse 8.

Speaker 3: 3:59

Remember what I said God's greatness is the most important aspect about who God is in the Muslim mind and the Muslim heart. And I remember thinking to myself that if God is truly great, then he would be the greatest possible being who would express the greatest possible virtue, which is obviously love, in the greatest possible way? And the greatest possible way to express love is self-sacrifice. We can do it. Ought not God be capable of doing it? And of course, the answer is yes.

Speaker 3: 4:31

And then I read Romans, chapter 5, verse 8. For God demonstrates his love, his greatest possible love, in that, while we were sinners, not even those who love God back, but those who hate him. Christ died for us. Who love God back, but those who hate him. Christ died for us. So there you have the greatest possible being expressing the greatest possible virtue, which is love, in the greatest possible way, which is self-sacrifice. And all of that nine years, is encapsulated in one verse of the Bible, and the profundity of that. As I reflect on it more and more, I think about the fact that he is God, the word made flesh, and he inspired the Word of God about God, the Word made flesh. And it is these words that so efficiently, artistically and spiritually capture nine years of looking into one phrase. Nine years of looking into one phrase. That's fairly amazing, and that's why I consider it moving, because the encompassing sort of I don't know what the right word is the encompassing rapture of understanding, that is quite staggering.

Speaker 2: 5:39

You know, obviously, knowing me, I was actually born an Orthodox Jew. Know I, obviously knowing me, I was actually born an Orthodox Jew, um, and my understanding of truth was reverence of God. Uh, but it was nestled in tradition, that was under the thumb of rabbi, and that's where I went to for my truth. And and what I found out was the same thing, you know, for me it was Isaiah 53. It was. It wasn't even something that was taught to me, it was just something when I, when I came upon it. You know, going to yeshiva, they don't teach Isaiah 53. So it's not as if we're taught. This is not true. We're just not taught anything at all. So Jesus Christ never entered the conversation. So, seeing a scripture, like learning about a suffering servant, you're going wait, wait a minute. Where was this? I never learned that In. I never learned that.

Speaker 3: 6:29

In your former Muslim worldview. What was your understanding of truth and how did that shift with the claims of Jesus, no-transcript, and you know you keep that and that's good for you. I believe that everyone should believe true things and reject false things. As many as possible. False things you should reject and as many true things you should accept. So that was my understanding of truth as a Muslim.

Speaker 3: 7:01

Now I have run into and it sort of surprises me in some senses, because you know, we're all bound by our experiences and my experience, my lived experience as a Muslim, was that Muslims were not relativists. I have run into some Muslim relativists, by the way, and people who would say you know, we all kind of worship one God and it's all kind of the same and we have various expressions. But don't worry about it, the Quran says that the closest in faith to you are the Jews and the Christians, because amongst them are priests, monks and rabbis and all that stuff. But of course there's a shift that happens later in the Quran, when the Jews and the Christians didn't convert, he got sort of hostile towards them. But I had this idea that the Quran is the foundation of all truth. It is the unchanged, pure, protected revelation, the final revelation from God that corrects all the previous corruptions of the Talrat or the Torah, the Zabur, the Psalms of David, the Injil, the Gospel of Jesus, and that's what I believe. That is the foundation of belief.

Speaker 3: 8:02

There are other things as well. There are the Hadith, and I grew up in a Shia Muslim home, so an understanding of the broad context of all the Hadith literature and Hadith literature is just literature, that is, the collected traditions about what Muhammad said and did in certain circumstances, including and especially how he interpreted verses of the Quran or would explain them. As a Shia, most of those were not considered authentic in terms of the big collections, but there were some that were and shared with Sunni Muslims. But so there was a secondary authority, which is the Hadith, which is the sayings of Muhammad, of course, and then there's a bunch of other things too, from Imam Ali and all that. So the authority where truth came from was from these revelations, and then you could pick from the Gospels and the Torah, and even the minor prophets and the Psalms of David and other writings, only insofar as they were consistent with the Quran. Everything else was deemed to be a corruption. So, but all of that is taught by levels of authority, and that level of authority comes from parents, it comes from community and it comes from imams, and so you are taught to look into things. But the authority structure is pretty solid, like you know. The imam says it, you accept it and you move on. You can look into things, but only within certain rigid guidelines. Now a Muslim might say well, that's not true of Islam. We're invited to inquiry and all that.

Speaker 3: 9:35

What I'm talking about is the lived experience of most Muslims. It is an authoritative I won't say authoritarian, because that's a little too strong, but it's an authoritative way to look at things. And a mom is a learned scholar, he's an alama, which means someone who knows, and therefore you take his word for it, and you better have really great reasons to challenge that person. And challenging them in an honor and shame culture isn't exactly what you are supposed to do. And it's funny because, david, my guess is that that's the kind of thing you grew up with too. Yes, the traditions and authority. And if there's one thing that our conversation, I think, should illumine in the minds of anybody watching listening, is that these two peoples who tend to be at enmity with each other Arabs and Jews. Muslims and Jews have so much in common, including and especially the way that the real Jesus is off limits in some ways, and why they sort of are so resistant is often because of cultural and social and communal pressure.

Speaker 1: 10:38

Talking about community, I wanted to ask you, abdu, you know if I said it right, abdu? Okay, I don't know much about Muslims and just the faith in that way, but I could assume, from what I know, the community aspect and walking away from Muslim and losing that community. I wanted to ask you, you know, like, what did following Jesus cost you, you know, and in contrast, what did you gain in that return?

Speaker 3: 11:06

Yeah, it's an excellent question and in the Middle Eastern and Eastern mindset we have, as I alluded to before, an honor and shame culture, and it's important you understand the differences here between an honor and shame culture of the East and the Middle East and an innocence, guilt culture of the West. An honor and shame culture is one in where the highest thing you're to aspire to is the honor of your family and the honor of the West, and honor and shame culture is one in where the highest thing you're to aspire to is the honor of your family and the honor of the community and to avoid the shame of bringing shame to them. That's got some beautiful virtues to it, and amongst those virtues is that you think of others before you think of yourself. You think of the impact your actions and your thoughts and your feelings and all these things will have on other people. So it can be a beautiful thing. The shadow side, and everything on this side of heaven, has a shadow side, and the shadow side is that you are willing to believe untrue things if believing that untrue thing brings honor, or you're willing to reject true things if avoiding them will avoid shame, which means you can believe something totally false, but you do it because you don't want to dishonor anybody, and so truth sometimes takes a backseat to honor In the innocent, skilled culture of the West. We're more individualistic. We enforce morality. We have the same morality, we just enforce it more individualistically, and so it's more of a I do it my way kind of a thing, and I'm allowed to pursue truth on an individual basis. So what that means, then, is that when you change your religion, you're bringing shame. You're bringing shame to yourself, and so you don't do something bad. You have become someone bad. You don't do something that you can make up for. You have become something that could almost never be fixed, so you do lose.

Speaker 3: 12:43

One of the things that was profound to me was my sense of identity. I was like who am I going to be now? And that's why it took me so long to become a Christian. It wasn't because it was hard to find the answers. It's that it was hard to accept the answers and what they would mean for me, so my identity was at stake, and, of course, community as well.

Speaker 3: 12:58

I can say this, though fundamentally, whatever it is, you lose and jesus calls us to this, and the apostle paul repeats it and peter talks about it as well is that your faith will cause loss, especially if it's going to be outward. It's just going to it's inevitable. Um, I can quote several passages of the new testament, both on jesus's lips and paul's, where jesus says you know you're going to be delivered by family and those who are closest to you and all these things, but it will be an opportunity for your testimony Because you can speak to those people who are delivering you up to the authorities, even if they are close to you. The Apostle Paul was telling Timothy is do the work of an evangelist, but all who seek to serve Christ will be persecuted. He didn't say might be, he said will be. Christ will be persecuted. He didn't say might be, he said will be.

Speaker 3: 13:47

Now, persecution comes in different forms. Of course, in the first century it was much more dire than perhaps 2025. In the United States, it can be uncomfortable to be a Christian, but we're not here, we are having this conversation and we're not worrying about the government shadow banning us or knocking on our doors. But there is a cost, but it is ultimately and I will say always worth it. I've never felt closer to my Lord than when I've suffered for his sake.

Speaker 3: 14:14

And how I put it oftentimes is that the cost of the truth pales in comparison to the cost the truth paid for me pales in comparison to the cost the truth paid for me. So how could I dare say this is too tough when what the Lord did for me was immeasurable in terms of its agony and its angst and its consequences? So who I gained far outweighs whatever I've lost. But I will say this this is the second thing I'll say I was blessed with a great family, wonderful people and yes, it was tough. I mean, imagine anybody listening to this. Imagine if you're a Christian. Imagine your son or your daughter or your brother or your husband or your wife coming and telling you they're a Muslim, or coming and tell you they're a Buddhist or an atheist. That's upheaval and you will experience that kind of angst and all these kinds of things. So this is a natural reaction this is not judgmental of anybody. However, I will say, because of that wonderful family, as rough as times have gotten, the Lord has restored.

Speaker 3: 15:20

The years of the locusts have eaten you know and while they're not Christians, and we pray for them and we try to witness to them in terms of our actions and our deeds and our words. We're close again and in fact I would say in many ways we're closer now, in light of some of the things we've gone through recently as a family, than we've been in a long time, and it's a beautiful thing. I wish I could say that of all the Muslims I know who came to faith. I can't say that for all of them, because they've experienced loss. I can say that the toughness of it all for me has been profound, but the restoration of it and God's kindness in a family closeness is quite something.

Speaker 2: 16:03

I'll tell you, when I stepped away as an Orthodox Jew, I lost a lot of family members that still to this day refuse to talk to me. I was disowned by quite a few, and what actually gives me, what restores me a little bit, is the fact that if somebody like you can't convince some of your family members in Christ, then I don't have to feel so bad about my attempts. But yeah, it's one of those things where, same thing, I wouldn't give it up for the world. I miss some of my family members, but obviously there was an awareness that I had when I accepted Christ that this is a real possibility and not all of them. Some family members really did accept that and I have other family members that have actually accepted Christ as well, but I definitely understand that.

Speaker 3: 16:45

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, and I think this is important that we bring this up. By the way, this is not just a curiosity about my biography or your biography, david. I think this is an important point because you know, as an evangelist and that's what I am Embrace the Truth as a ministry is all about evangelism. We use apologetics in our evangelism and we believe in answering people, not questions. But part of that answering people is you have to understand that evidence isn't always the reason they stay away. The strength or the weakness of the evidence or the arguments isn't always the reason that they're resistant. It is the consequences of what those might mean, and this is across the board.

Speaker 3: 17:20

This isn't just Jews and Arabs and Hindus and Buddhists who have these deep religious traditions or to worry about this. I can tell you. I mean I can rattle off right now a quote from Thomas Nagel, an atheist philosopher out of New York University, who says I want atheism to be true and I'm made uncomfortable or uneasy by the fact that the most informed and well-intentioned people I know are religious believers. And he says it's not that I don't believe in God and hope that I'm right in my beliefs. It's that I don't want there to be a God. I don't want the universe to be like that. That's everything to do with desire and zero to do with the evidence.

Speaker 3: 17:56

So bringing that question up is so important because it's not just about how convincing are the arguments. It really is about how resistant we might be and to open someone up to the possibility of recognizing that maybe they're not as open as they think they are. Everyone likes to say they're open, but when the rubber meets the road and truth is going to have a price, suddenly our allegiance to truth and I am not judging anybody else, it took me nine years, nine years of searching is not a testament just to my thoroughness. It's actually and I'm going to be candid about this it's a testimony to my cowardice, because I didn't want it to be true and I tried my hardest to make it not true. Because I didn't want it to be true and I tried my hardest to make it not true because I didn't want it to be the consequences. So any achievement in that nine years is totally, totally to be credited to the Holy Spirit and not to me.

Speaker 2: 18:49

I have a police officer actually who said something and he's an atheist and he came to me and said I really hope I believe in christ before I need to um and again it's one of those.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Yeah, it's one of those things. He said it to me and I'm going that is something I will never forget and I've listened to apologists my entire life I've. I have really tried to to get into it. I won't say my entire life, but for the last 15 years I mean my entire role has been apologetics. And he said one said man, that is more profound than most of the things I've heard and it really came to the heart of it is just, it is. It's that decision of he's refusing to make it not based on evidence but based on he just doesn't want it to be true.

Speaker 3: 19:25

Yet yeah, yeah. And that's one of the barriers is, jesus will change my life in a way that I don't want and it'll be worse. And when I'm done, when I've had my fun, when I've had my go-round, when I sort of spiritually get myself ready to be a Christian, I'll become one, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the gospel is about. It's not about you getting cleaned up and coming to Jesus and Him saying, okay, now you're ready to be part of the club. It's the exact opposite. He's saying you are're ready to be part of the club. It's the exact opposite of he's saying you are never ready to be part of the club. You will never be ready, but I will transform you and it'll be a process. But what a profound thing for him to say is that I hope I've come to believe in him before I need to Boy.

Speaker 3: 20:08

That rings right to Jesus's words. You know and I'm not calling your friend a fool in any way, shape or form it's just the kind of thing that Jesus says is that you store up all these things and you store up all these things and you fool. You did not know that tonight your life will be demanded from you and, having experienced the tragedies in life that I have gone through in the past couple of years, I can tell you life turns on a dime. So if your friend is listening, you may need to before you know it. And if you're considering it, do it now for the sake of your eternity, but do it now for the sake of your life now. I have never been more fulfilled, never been more fulfilled than I am now, and it's never been harder to be somebody who's a faithful person in any way, shape or form. Yeah, but it is awesome.

Speaker 3: 20:54

I mean CS Lewis. What does he go on and he says is that we're like children who sit in a puddle making mud pies, not realizing that we're offered a bountiful feast. We think this life is good and we're not willing to give that up. But just turn around. The feast is right behind you. Sure, go ahead and make these fake pies out of the mud you're sitting in, or turn around and enjoy the bountiful feast. What are you waiting for?

Speaker 1: 21:19

Yeah, I love that I wanted to ask you, abdul. You speak so beautifully about Jesus and just watching some of these talks and some of these things that you, just the way you share, it's profound to me. You speak with such humility and I know you're so packed with knowledge and I want to ask you you know, in your search of searching for true truth, right when did it start shifting for you to be just this beautiful thing? Right when did it shift from like going? Oh, I know the answers now, and now you put it away, because I think for me, as I continue to learn, I go. God is just beautiful. I just I am so grateful that he allowed me to just have faith in Him through the years of doubting Him.

Speaker 3: 22:00

Yeah, that's a great question, I'll tell you. Now you're causing me to really reflect on some stuff. I'll say this as a Muslim, I always believed in the beauty of God. I always believed in that and that God is beautiful in general the all-knowing, the all-powerful, the ever-existing, the completely independent. He needs nothing and everything needs him, and all these things. I always thought that was beautiful. What ratcheted it up and I'll tell you, this actually happened before. I really took years before I became a Christian. You begin to see the seeds of beauty, these little things that get planted in your mind, and God gives you these things even before you're a believer.

Speaker 3: 22:40

I was sitting in a movie theater watching a movie called Dead man Walking and the movie is an account of Sister Helen Prejean, who's a nun, who is against the death penalty. And there's a guy named Matthew Ponsolet who went on trial for murder, convicted of it, murder and rape and all death penalty. And there's a guy named Matthew Ponsolet who went on trial for murder, convicted of it, murder and rape and all these things, and he wouldn't admit it and he's a pretty awful guy. He's like neo-Nazi, he's all this stuff. Well, she doesn't want him to die by death penalty, but she also thinks he's guilty of this horrible crime and she wants him to repent of it. So she's got dual purposes come to the Lord, but also I don't want you to die. Well, at some point he finally admits it. Because of her love and the way she serves him and the way she cares about him, he comes to admit what he's done and he confesses Christ. And at the end of the movie, toward the end, it's his last day, it's his last hours, in fact, on earth, before he's about to go under lethal injection.

Speaker 3: 23:35

She's behind these bars, she's in front of the bars, really he's behind the bars and the clocks are ticking and every tick of the clock sounds like a hammer being hit on, some huge thing that makes a noise. And he's asking her to sing and she says I can't sing. He says I don't care if you can't sing, just sing something. And there's this beautiful scene where Susan Sarandon, who plays her, puts her face up to the bars and you can tell she almost feels like she's willing herself to absorb herself into the cell. Almost that's the kind of thing that's happening there. And she sings be not afraid. And you know the lyrics go something like if you pass through the flames and all these things or you experience raging waters, the flames won't hurt you, the flood won't get you. This is Jesus talking, for I go before you always. In other words, he stands there and he takes it and it's like Superman in front of the fire and you can stand behind him and you'll not be harmed. And I remember sitting there thinking about that idea of Jesus takes it for you.

Speaker 3: 24:38

And I was a Muslim and I'm sitting in that theater and a tear escapes my eye and I remember thinking that's beautiful. If only it were true. And so that started it. That was the seedling that started. So I didn't believe it was true. I just thought if that were true, that would be beautiful. And then, over the course of some years, as I was wrestling with these things, I began to see the beauty of it and really it did in fact hit me. In fact, it's so funny. I was writing in the margins of these Bibles. I was reading, as I was a Muslim that's beautiful, that's beautiful, that's beautiful. I was writing it in the margins, and so I would say that there was no one moment where I was staggered by it. I was repeatedly halted over the course of the journey, even though I was still resistant, there was a beauty that I didn't think I could actually resist. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:27

Same. Sounds like another book. Just saying that's beautiful. Just sounds like you should write another book. Those are how those things happen. Just sounds like you should write another book.

Speaker 3: 25:35

Those are how those things happen. You know it's funny you say that because I was sort of thinking that while we were talking just now. But someone once asked me if I've written a testimony book. You know, like my good friend Nabil Qureshi, seeking Allah, finding Jesus and I haven't. I've put my testimony throughout.

Speaker 3: 25:52

Various books I've written, but I never just sat down and wrote the testimony book, for a couple of reasons. One of those reasons is because a book requires quite a bit of detail about personal interactions and relationships and I have people who are close to me. This is not just my story, it's their story as well. But the other thing is I've never. I also fear that it'll be derivative. You know it's like ah, other people have written on this and Nabil's written so powerfully on it, what would I add by adding my story? But I think about this idea of beauty, not just logic but beauty, and I think there is a good, legitimate argument from beauty for the gospel. But I think about this it's not just the historicity, it's not just the theology, but it's the beauty of how it all meshes together as something that is worth writing about. So you know, maybe you guys have inspired me. There you go.

Speaker 2: 26:39

I actually. I have a book that I wrote that's going to be coming out in January. It's called Jesus Christ. That's a Lot of Evidence. It's an apologetics book, but I have one right behind it that'll be coming out. It's actually a testimony of me as a Christian and it's called the Pharisee I Didn't See Christian and it's called the Pharisee I Didn't See. And it's all the mistakes Ooh, I love the title. It's all the mistakes that I'm thinking that I was doing the right thing as a Christian and kind of following my Judaism of here are the traditions I need to follow as a Christian, and then realizing that it's not about this anymore, it's about a relationship. All right.

Speaker 1: 27:08

well, I'm getting a copy of that as soon as it comes out.

Speaker 2: 27:11

Yeah, the beauty got right. There we go. I do have a question. I saw this in one of your talks and I thought it was beautiful and I just wanted to open up a little bit further on it. Christians today, when they try to tell the truth, their scene is very arrogant and they try to present people with what they believe is a truth. But people believe in their own good, their own ability to be righteous, and you made a statement about that when you were at one of the campuses. When you were at a of the campuses I believe you were at a college campus giving a talk about that. I thought it was beautiful. I hate to make you recall it if you don't, but can you try to recall a little bit for our audience of what you mean by when Christians are seen as arrogant, but people believe their own good and ability to be righteous.

Speaker 3: 27:49

Yeah, so actually it wasn't at a college campus, it was across the table from somebody I knew really well. Oh, so, it actually wasn't at a college campus, it was across the table from somebody I knew really well. Oh, okay, I've shared the story at college campuses, but I was sitting across the table. This was a personal conversation and there's a person who is really well-read, really thoughtful person, who knows quite a bit about stuff, and this person happens to be an ordained secular, humanist minister, which I thought was interesting, because the whole idea of ordination isn't that one person says you're qualified to do this, ordination comes from a higher power, but they don't believe in higher power. So I thought it was curious. So I was sitting across the table from him and I said, hey, so what is your biggest hangup about Christianity? If you could pick one right now? I mean you probably have many, but what's one you would want to talk about right now? He said, oh, arrogance. It's clearly the arrogance issue. I'm like, oh, wow, that was. You didn't think about it very long, you just said it. And he's like well, I thought about it for a while, that's my big one. So what do you mean? And he said well, christians are arrogant because they think they have a lock on the truth. You guys think that you guys are special, that everyone else is going to hell and you're going to heaven because of this one thing that you happen to believe. That thing is going to hell, and I find that to be the height of arrogance. Okay, that's a pretty tough charge. And I said well, let me ask you a question. You're an ordained secular humanist minister. He said, yeah, I said so. Would you ascribe to the secular humanist manifesto too? Now, secular humanists have a lot of manifestos, actually, but the manifesto, too, is one of the most popular. So he did say yes, I ascribe to it. Well, I have a part of it memorized. And I said so. Do you agree with the following statement Human beings have the ability and the responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of all.

Speaker 3: 29:32

Do you agree with that? And he said yeah, I agree with that. I said so. You agree that you have the ability not only the responsibility, but the ability to lead an ethical life of personal fulfillment that aspires to the greater good of every human being? He said of course I do. I believe that I said okay, great.

Speaker 3: 29:47

The gospel tells me that I'm a sinner, that as good as I might be and as much of God, the imagago Dei, as I might bear, there is a depravity in me that will always seek my own way. I have that, you have that, my kids have that, my wife has that, everybody has that. So I need a savior, who's not me, to save me from me. But you believe in yourself, who's arrogant? It seems to me that there is a fundamental difference between our belief systems. It seems to me that there is a fundamental difference between our belief systems, and he got it. He got it.

Speaker 3: 30:17

The conversation turned to something else, but it was a good start and I'll say this We've had many conversations after that and the conversations were always fruitful because, even though I pointed out that arrogance I think that people have when they trust themselves out, that arrogance I think that people have when they trust themselves, and it actually upends the conversation because Christians of all people although I think there are plenty of arrogant Christians of all people based on your actual worldview, you have no right to be arrogant because you need a savior. Who's not you, and I think that level of exposition on what the worldview teaches and then how that humbles allowed us to have much more fruitful conversations about faith issues, and he was far more open after that. So, yeah, it challenged him and even his own arrogance, but it also showed him I think I'm willing to admit when I'm arrogant and when I need to be made humble, and it advanced our relationship quite a bit.

Speaker 2: 31:17

Yeah, I loved it. I heard it. I was like I don't want to ruin the justice you gave it when you said it, but, man, for anybody who has not seen that, it was amazing. So I appreciate you doing that favor for me and reliving that moment.

Speaker 3: 31:31

Yeah, you bet Wow.

Speaker 1: 31:34

To ask you Abdul, if I can and I think this is only because I read this on your page Embrace the Truth. You like to speak about the Trinity, love it. I know we're far into this podcast, but the Trinity is something I feel a lot of Christians don't know how to wrap their head around, or people anyone most people don't know how to wrap their head around. Or people anyone most people don't know how to wrap their head around. How would you explain, maybe, the Trinity to a skeptic? Or just explain the Trinity period?

Speaker 2: 32:02

I mean, it's hard to really wrap your head around, like I said yeah Well, thanks for asking, because this is my favorite topic to talk about, for two reasons.

Speaker 3: 32:10

One is that it used to be the thing I would go after the most when I was not a Christian. I would go after it the most because most Christians couldn't even define it, let alone defend it. And then, when I came to see its beauty and the way in which it covers so many things in Christian theology, the way it makes it illumines so many beautiful truths in the Christian faith Like, why don't we talk about this more? Yeah, so where Christians run away from it, I run towards it and I think it's a beautiful tool. So I have three levels at which I just try to describe the Trinity. Level one is that it's logically possible. Level two is that it's biblically warranted, it's actually in the Bible. And level three is it is theologically necessary. So one, it's possible. Two, it's in the Bible. And three, it's necessary, necessary. So one, it's possible. Two, it's in the Bible. And three, it's necessary if God is truly to be great. So for our purposes. I mean I have a whole section in my book, saving Truth, not Saving Truth in the Great Social Question, where I give the scriptural references about how it's in the Bible. So I'm going to just do level one and level three. So level one is it's logically possible. So how I make sure we understand it is we have to make sure we define the Trinity before we can defend it. And how we can define it is that the classical Trinitarian theology teaches that God is one in his essence, or one substance. One, what one being who exists in three divine persons. Now, when I say the word person, everyone starts to think an individual, ontological being. Like you, javi and David. You guys are separate persons and therefore separate beings than I am. But let's, I want to change the. I want to use a different version of the word person to mean mind or personality. It's a different center of consciousness. So the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are different consciousnesses who aren't each other, but they share the same nature, the same what. So how we define it is God is one, what that exists in the world in three who's three centers of consciousness. So here's how I understand it God has one nature and three personhoods.

Speaker 3: 34:14

So if I were to hold up my iPhone and I were to say what is this, you could say computer, you could say phone. It's not really a phone anymore. I mean, it makes calls, but no one makes calls on these things. It's a computer, it's a. Whatever device you name it, ultimately its basic nature is it's a non-living thing. Its whatness. Ultimately, its basic nature is it's a non-living thing. Its what-ness is essentially a non-living object.

Speaker 3: 34:34

You can look at me and you can say what is that? I have a what-ness as well. I'm a human male, I'm a Lebanese guy. You can name it all. Ultimately, I'm a living being. So I'm an organic living being. So I have a what. My nature is that I'm a living being.

Speaker 3: 34:50

The iPhone is a what. It is a non-living being. But you can't say about the iPhone who is that? I know you have all the AI stuff in the world going on with this, but it has no real personhood. It's got no soul, it's got no mind, it's got no consciousness that interacts with the outside world. But I do so I have a whoness, I have a what, just like the iPhone has a what. But I also have an additional quality, which is a who. So I have a personhood. I am the living being.

Speaker 3: 35:19

Who is Abdu? So that's a different thing than what I am. Who I am and what I am are different. Why that's important is because it shows that the Trinity is not a contradiction If we say God is one and three in the same way, that's a contradiction. But if we say God is one in one way and three in a different way, that's not a contradiction because they're mutually exclusive. So God is one. What one nature, divine being with three distinct who's? Father, son, holy Spirit. So already you see, there is no contradiction here. So it's logically possible that God can exist this way.

Speaker 3: 36:01

Now, can you fully grasp it? Well, of course not. Why? Because we're all unipersonal beings. We don't know what it's like to have three minds. I also don't know what it's like to be eternal. I had a beginning, but things can be eternal. We know that they can be, or at least one thing can be, and so that ought not to bother us. And if your inability to fully comprehend a being disqualifies that being from existence, well then you cannot possibly believe in a greatest possible being, because you're conceiving him to be like you, and that would seem to be utterly self-defeating. So it's possible that God exists as a Trinitarian being.

Speaker 3: 36:38

Now I'm going to jump to the. It's actually necessary for him to act that way, because if God is the greatest possible being and by definition God would be the greatest possible being. He would need nothing. To be who he is, everything would need him. He would lack nothing. Be who he is, everything would need him. He would lack nothing. He would be perfect, and perfection means that there are no lacks. There is nothing he needs that he doesn't already have.

Speaker 3: 37:00

So God is personal, and a personal God, who is ultimately the greatest being, wouldn't need anything else to exist in order for him to express relationality and a personal aspect to himself. But if God is one, there's one God and he's one in every single way. He is an undifferentiated absolute, like a monistic God. Well, there's a problem there, because in order for him to be relational, in order for him to love, to be compassionate, to sacrifice all these things, in order for him to be relational, there has to be an object of that relation. Every relational aspect of life requires a relator and the related to it requires a subject and an object. So God, then, if he was one, absolutely one, with no differentiation, would need something else outside of himself to exist in order for him to be who he is. And that means he's not the greatest possible being. But the Trinity solves it, because the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Spirit, and the Spirit loves the Father and the Son in the eternity of the community of the Trinity, and he always was like that. There was never a time when he wasn't relational, and that means he needs nothing to be who he is, and so he doesn't create us because he's lonely. He creates us not so that he can have relationship, but so that each one of us has the opportunity to have relationship with him, and it's a selfless act.

Speaker 3: 38:30

And I can go on and on about the ways in which the Trinity works through Christian theology and these kind of things. But someone once asked me well, wait, wait. If it's necessary that God be multi-personal, why not 17 persons in the Trinity, why not just two? And my answer is Occam's razor. Occam's razor says that you don't multiply explanations beyond what is necessary, and if you were to have a being who is perfectly love, you'd have to have the three kinds of love. There would be Self-directed love, which requires one person, an others-directed love, which requires two persons, and then communal love, which requires three. And it's exactly what we have. We don't have more, we don't have less in the Trinity. So God fulfills every aspect of what it means to be love, which is why the Bible doesn't just say God is loving. 1 John 4, verses 8 and 16, you see that God is love and the Trinity actually makes sense of that.

Speaker 1: 39:25

That's good. I usually describe it in using the egg.

Speaker 2: 39:29

Don't say the egg. I knew you were going to say the egg. Oh wait, Hold on.

Speaker 3: 39:32

Hold on. No, I'm a big fan of. I'm glad you said that, because I burst a lot of bubbles and I hate when I do this, but it just is what it is. Why are you hardest not to use analogies? Analogies are good only so far, and at a certain point they all break down into some form of a heresy. Yeah, a certain point they all break down into some form of a heresy.

Speaker 3: 39:50

So, we've got to be careful with that, which is why you've got to go through the hard work of steps one, two and three, and the analogies might help a bit, but remember all of them. Even the best of them break down at some point because you are analogizing the creator to the creation and it becomes tough, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:07

It's interesting that you talk about love.

Speaker 2: 40:09

I actually wrote an epistemology a little while ago where you know, there's a lot of this free will discussion and things like that, and for me it was. You know, you were born with a reverence for God and I was born with a reverence for God and what I believe is that on our creation, we're all created with a reverence for God, but we have the free will to love. And because God lives outside of time, time isn't the relationship, it's love. And that's why you see somebody who's showing love the thief on the cross he doesn't need a lifetime of time to believe in God. He only needs that one moment to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior, to have the relationship to love him. And so my epistemology was just based on exactly that. It was love, not time, and it was humans who have this born natural reverence. But we have a free will of what we do with that reverence.

Speaker 2: 41:01

There are some people that choose to walk away. There are some people that choose to love. It really is our choice at that point. But that's kind of one of the epistemologies I worked on for a little while.

Speaker 3: 41:10

It really is our choice at that point. But that's kind of one of the epistemologies I worked on for a little while. I like that. What I like about it is it's got a qualitative over quantitative feature to it and it actually makes sense that love would be that qualitative feature because it reflects the quality of the maker. Who is being in love? Who defines love? And Javi, I just want to make sure it was clear. My guess is you were being tongue in cheek about the analogy?

Speaker 1: 41:36

Yes, of course.

Speaker 3: 41:37

I want to make sure everybody knows Javi doesn't use those. But he was making a joke about it, Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 41:42

I don't want to keep you here too long. I just kind of will finish up with one last question, if you don't mind, please. When we talk especially me I talk a lot about apologetics. Javi's a huge fan of apologetics. When somebody asks a question like, hey, you know how do you believe in God? Because God is evil, he allows evil and you know, therefore, there is no God, I used to give every argument under the sun.

Speaker 2: 42:03

That I've learned from every single book, and what I've realized over time is that what people are really saying is hey, there are evil things that happen. Something might've happened to me. I lost a loved one, life has been rough, something is in my life and what I've realized is, over time, that that somebody needs. They need love, not logic. They need a hug at the moment, not a lecture. And and what I find sometimes is that with me, my brain and my heart. Sometimes, you know, my brain is on and I forget about the emotional, loving part. And for somebody who debates people often, how do you keep that both alive? Because I've seen you in debates and both your heart and your mind are alive at the same time. How do you do that?

Speaker 2: 42:48

I can't say it's always easy, you know how do you do that?

Speaker 3: 42:49

I can't say it's always easy, you know, depending on the way in which the engagement is going. I've got to remind myself sometimes. There is a fundamental thing I remind myself of over and over again and it's based on the loved ones that I have that don't believe in Jesus Is if I were talking to them, what would they hear? How would they interact? Would they feel cared for and loved? Because the minute I walk away from an engagement where I've, you know, I've owned one of them, you know, and I, the language has bothered me when thus and such destroys us in such a person, I have to remember something. That person walks away and they either feel humiliated or they feel, as Greg Koukos put it, you know, a little bit annoyed because they have a stone in their shoe that they have to get out. And I'm okay, annoying someone a little bit, so they think about the issues. But I always try to remember what will that person feel like after we're done? Will they feel respected and understand that there is a subtle difference, but it's an important difference, between not all ideas deserving respect, but every human being who has an idea deserves respect, and I have to remember they're made in the Imago Dei that Christ died for these people. And what I want them more than anything is to know who Jesus is, not how clever of a debater Abdu Murray is. If they walk away thinking, wow, that guy debates well, I think I'll have failed and I hope I'm convicted of that if I ever succumb to it. So I have to keep that in mind is that it's Jesus who I want them to see, and I want them to see that because I want them to be in heaven. And you keep that Imago Dei always there. And then you remember your own journey, remember how stubborn you were, remember how unwilling you were, remember how truculent and impassioned oftentimes you were, and realize this is the journey for everybody.

Speaker 3: 44:40

I think that's what keeps it going is that there is always and this goes back to the way I was taught, the way I was attracted to the gospel in the first place, the way I was mentored by people who were doing ministry and apologetics, and ultimately the way we're doing it now is that there's always a person behind every question, and no question is ever merely academic.

Speaker 3: 45:00

I can't think of one time I've been asked a merely academic question. Everyone brings baggage to those questions, just like I did, and I'm so glad people treated me like a person, not a question, and I think that helps me. I have failed at this, but I'd like to think that I've succeeded more than I failed. And where I have failed, I've asked the Lord please show me and please have someone come alongside me to hit me with the nearest brick and say you know, you need to change your mind about how you handled that. I hope that happens and I'm glad it has happened. There's been people who've told me hey, you know what, not so gracious, but I thank you for the compliment and I hope we can all remember that these are sinners for whom Christ died, not foes to defeat.

Speaker 2: 45:44

That's great. Javi actually mentioned, you know, one of your. One of the times you opened a Q&A, you were very specific about how you opened it up and saying you know, have a reason for your question before you come up. I know he was going to mention here as well and I think that's beautiful. It's exactly what you're saying is you know? It's yeah, just recently.

Speaker 1: 46:01

I was like I think you opened up I forgot what talk was it and you kind of just stopped the room before you started and just like, just ask yourself why. Like, why are you in this room? Why are you asking these questions? Right, you're here for a reason. You're asking it what's? What's? What's led you beforehand, before you ask that. And I think that that led me to maybe share that at at at church, you know, with, with my group and my within ministry, and just going, why are you here? Why are you serving? In a sense, what's deeper here? Right, and I think we could lose the heart of why we do what we do, why we're here serving and worshiping and all that stuff. But just sometimes it just becomes mundane, and I've been there before, so that was profound, it was just simple but just easy, and I think that's what you do, Mr Murray, that's what you do.

Speaker 3: 46:48

Cool, Thank you very much. Yeah, and it's the kind of thing I have to remind myself often because you can, here I am sitting in my office, in my ministry's office, with folks across the hall who do wonderful work for our ministry, and we just got back from doing a dialogue with a Hindu who was a former Catholic, became a Hindu, and we had this dialogue back and forth and there was a guy in the audience who was Hindu and he said you really made me think about this one aspect so much. And I remember thinking to myself I hope I never get tired of hearing that, that I never get tired of hearing how Christ touches someone from a different worldview, and I'm just perpetually in amazement. One of our values as a ministry is to be expectant. God does crazy things despite your failures and sometimes to augment your successes, and I just never want to get used to it and the good news is I haven't been. I'm just in perpetual awe of what he's done and what ministry does. And if anybody's listening and they want to get involved in ministry in some way, whether it's bivocational or whatever it might be I hope that you do so with the goal of making other people your priority.

Speaker 3: 48:00

One of our mantras that's probably a bad way to put it actually, now that I think about it one of our slogans and our mottos at our ministry is kingdom, not castles, and people, not platforms. And if you put people above your platform, God will give you the right platform, but if you go for platform, you will run right over people. And any mistakes I've made I hope I've learned from. But what a pleasure and an honor this is. You get to have a front row seat to watch God work. You're not doing a whole lot, you are just a conduit through which the Lord works and we need to remember that over and over again. That's amazing.

Speaker 2: 48:36

Love it, abdu. I'm assuming Embrace the Truth is the best way for people to learn about you. Get your. Any books you have. I'm sure are listed there as well, so if you want to learn more about him. Please go to Embrace the Truth. Ahav, you want to wrap us up?

Speaker 1: 48:49

Yeah, yeah. I just want to thank you, abdu, just for just amazing pleasure to have you here on this the Balanced Bible podcast. Thank you for sharing the depth of your background, but also just a profound love and passion for our faith, for Christianity, for Jesus, for God, and I thank you for that, sir.

Speaker 3: 49:08

It's a pleasure, guys. Keep it up Well for God, and I thank you for that, sir.

Speaker 1: 49:11

It's a pleasure. Guys, keep it up Well, thank you, please, guys out there, check out Abdu. We have links in the description below. Please check it out. If you liked this episode, please like it, drop a comment and, of course, follow us anywhere you are consuming this podcast. Have a blessed day.