Islam - a religion of peace

[OzSpen]

Sorry, OzSpen for the delay:

10“When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. 11“If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. 12“However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13“When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. 14“Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you. 15“Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations nearby. 16“Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. 17“But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you, 18so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the LORD your God." (Deuteronomy 20:10-18 NASB)

You can see the Muslims have their own particular spin on it.

The whole of Deut 20 deals with Israel's war against its enemies.
Notice vv 10-12 of the passage you quoted:

10“When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. 11“If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. 12“However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.​

So the starting point is to offer peace. For the Muslim, the Quran tells them to kill unbelievers in Islam. I don't find the approach to be identical of the OT and the Quran.

Oz

 

[Jethro Bodine]

So the starting point is to offer peace. For the Muslim, the Quran tells them to kill unbelievers in Islam. I don't find the approach to be identical of the OT and the Quran.

Which is why I said, "It's basically a copy of the old covenant with a few twists here and there" in my original post.

 

[th1b.taylor]

Which is one of the tenets of the religion of Christianity.

Yes it is and it is an easy bridge into the relationship that saves and still, better than 99% of the World and 98% of the Church Roll misses the bridge and that is sad.

 

[Roro1972]

Roro,

Thanks to Christ's blood sacrifice and resurrection we are under the new covenant. Heb 8:13 (ESV) explains one aspect of the new one: 'In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away'.

However, some object to Christianity because of its acceptance of the OT where there are some severe punishments for sin. For example, this was the punishment for adultery in Israel, according to the OT law, 'If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel' (Deut 22:22 ESV).

So OT punishment for adultery was capital punishment. What did Jesus do with the the woman? Even though it's not in the earliest MSS, the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) demonstrated the Christian approach: 'Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more' (Jn 8:11 ESV).

The response is sometimes made to me, 'Your Bible is not much different to the Muslim's Quran. Look what happened to people in the OT!'

We are under the New Covenant, but there were some strict punishments for Israel, as articulated in the NT.

Oz

Thanks Oz I rarely get a post directed toward me. I understand your post and agree. Now I see some talking about Christians slaughtering cities; I may have this wrong and you can correct me if need be. God directed Abraham to a
particular place to live, where then line stayed until a famine. and Joseph sold into slavery and made his way to Egypt
before the famine I mentioned later when they came out I thought they were retaking the land they had 400 yearsbefore. they were not randomly attacking any cities only where Abraham started.

 

[OzSpen]

Which is why I said, "It's basically a copy of the old covenant with a few twists here and there" in my original post.

The Old Covenant was for Israel. Islam's punishments are for all infidels. Any parallels of the punishments for Islam with the Old Covenant are incidental. They are not parallel, in my understanding.

 

[OzSpen]

Thanks Oz I rarely get a post directed toward me. I understand your post and agree. Now I see some talking about Christians slaughtering cities; I may have this wrong and you can correct me if need be. God directed Abraham to a
particular place to live, where then line stayed until a famine. and Joseph sold into slavery and made his way to Egypt
before the famine I mentioned later when they came out I thought they were retaking the land they had 400 yearsbefore. they were not randomly attacking any cities only where Abraham started.

I would need more specifics to understand exactly what you are referring to. However, what you are saying here seems to be compatible with the Joseph, slavery, Egypt, retaking the land, perspective.