No Zakir Naik! Muslims are not more Christian than the Christians

Photo credit: Huda TV on YouTube

Our Muslim friends claim to love Jesus more than Christians do. Very debatable because you cannot really love somebody you do not know. But they tend to go further sometimes by claiming that they follow the teachings of Jesus even more than the Christians. To quote Zakir Naik, “Muslims are more Christian than the Christians” and more recently the Muslim Lantern has also made a similar kind of claim as well. They have both claimed to follow Jesus more than Christians because Muslims get circumcised, fast and abstain from pork!

I proceed to produce a list of thirty teachings of Jesus Muslims do not follow. Have these handy the next time your Muslim friend claims to be more Christian than you.

1. Jesus expected people to call Him Lord Lord (Luke 6:46, Matthew 7:21, John 13:13–14)
2. Jesus taught that fasting and prayer should be done in secret (Matthew 6:1–18)
3. Jesus taught that marriage was between ONE man and ONE woman forever (Matthew 19:4–6), not one man and multiple women or one man and a child
4. Jesus taught that divorce is only permitted in very limited instances and is not the design of God (Matthew 19:7–10)
5. Jesus taught there is no way to the true God except Him, which excludes Muhammad
6. Jesus taught His followers to address God as “Father” when they pray, an idea mocked in the Quran (Surah 5:18)
7. Jesus declared all foods clean when He said it was not what went into the mouth that defiles but what comes out of it (Mark 7:19, See also Acts 10:13–16)
8. Jesus taught people to pray for their enemies (Matthew 5:44), Islam teaches you not to pray for Non-Muslims (Surah 60:1–4, 9:114)
9. Jesus permitted His followers to pray Him (John 14:13–14)
10. Jesus taught that He could forgive sin, Islam says Allah alone forgives sin (Surah 3:135)
11. Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11), Muhammad insisted on stoning adulterers and even initially had a Quran verse about it revealed until a sheep ate it (Sunan Ibn Majah 2553 and 1944)
12. Jesus taught that He is the truth, the light of the world and had been given dominion over all heaven and earth. Allah claims to be the light of the world (Surah 24:35) and the sole holder of dominion over heaven and earth (Surah 25:2)
13. Jesus taught that His followers to regard Him as the final judge on the day of judgment
14. Jesus taught that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all share in the Singular NAME of God (Matthew 28:19)
15. Jesus taught His followers that He will die and rise again (Mark 8:31, 9:31)
16. Jesus taught His followers that His death and resurrection would be for the remission of their sins (Luke 24:46–47)
17. Jesus taught His followers to observe the Holy Communion — with the bread representing His body and the wine, His blood — in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19)
18. Jesus affirmed the Old Testament we know today as scripture (Matthew 22:29–32, Matthew 19:4, Matthew 22:31). He definitely did not deem them corrupted
19. Jesus endorsed Paul as His apostle (Acts 9:15–16)
20. Jesus endorsed Paul’s message (Acts 18:9–11)
21. Jesus received worship from His followers (Luke 24:52, Matthew 14:33)
22. Jesus claimed to be the unique and divine Son of God (John 3:16)
23. Jesus expected His followers to gather in His name (Matthew 18:20)
24. Jesus had female disciples (Luke 8:1–3), there is no female prophet in Islam
25. Jesus did not deem women deficient in intelligence or religion (Luke 10:38–42) like Muhammad did (Sahih Bukhari 304).
26. Jesus sang a hymn (Matthew 26:30) and as such endorsed singing in worship to God, music is haram in Islam
27. Jesus drank alcohol (wine), thus not forbidding His followers alcohol, (Matthew 11:19), wine is haram in Islam
28. Jesus taught that He gives eternal life (John 10:27–28).
29. Jesus taught that all of scripture was pointing to Him (John 5:39, Luke 24:27,44)
30. Jesus taught that whoever had seen Him had seen God (John 14:9)

Which of the above 30 teachings of Christ would our Muslim friends agree with or follow?

Until they harmonise all the above teachings of Jesus with the Quran and the hadith corpus, they cannot with a straight face tell us they are more Christian than the Christians!