- Well, welcome backto the show, everyone.

Last weekend, I had the privilege

of sitting next to a verysweet older man on my flight

from San Diego to Philadelphia,west coast to east coast.

He was 90 years young.

He was from the country ofSyria, and he was Muslim.

It was such a memorable experience

chatting with him on ourfour-and-a-half-hour flight.

We recognized our different religions

and respected one another.

But he said he didn't understand

why Christians believethat God is three in one.

He said it's more than logical

to believe in one God versus three.

And to be honest, when he said this,

I didn't know how to really answer him.

I just said, you know, well,

we believe it's Father, Son,Holy Spirit, and Jesus is God.

And that's that.

And so I felt, kind of,discouraged a little bit

that I couldn't give himmore answers to basically,

an explanation of why webelieve in a three-in-one God?

- That's the typicalobjection that Muslim had,

Muslims have to Christianity,

where they say we're polytheists.

- [Ashley] Yeah, yeah.- And in that,

they're comparing us to idol worshipers,

so that we're polytheists.

We don't understand thatGod is transcendent.

There's a lot of different ways to answer.

- [Ashley] Yeah.

- One is Christianitydoes believe in one God.

Christianity is a monotheistic religion.

But what are the expressions of God?

- [Ashley] Here we go, yeah.

- And God, the Spirit, God has breath.

- Mm-hmm.

God has a physical body on the Messiah

and God has, is a God, The Father.

God has a central will.

- Yeah.

- Here's a more complicated one.

And I'll go to scripture with it.

- Yeah.

And in the book of Genesis,

it's very clear in the Hebrew,

let us make man in our image.

- Mm-hmm.

So from the beginning,there is an explanation

that there are multiplepersonalities in the Godhead.

So if we are made in the image of God,

does Ashley have a body?

- Yes.

- Does Ashley have a spirit?

Does Ashley have breath?

- Yes, I do, yeah.

- Do you have a central will?

- Yes, mm-hmm.

- Because sometimes your spirit

and your body disagreewith your central will.

- (laughs) Yes, yes.

Do they have minds of their own?

- Yeah, a-hem.

- So we're made in His image.

We reflect the Trinity.

- Yeah, that's right.

- And it's a profound truth.

- It is, yeah.

- It's not, and it's,

this is not the only reference to plural

when the Tower of Babel let us go down.

There, there's lots ofdifferent references

and when God shows up in physical form.

So who had lunch with Abraham?

Who appeared and stood withMoses at the tent of meeting?

- [Ashley] Who wrestled with Jacob?

Yeah, mm-hmm.- You got it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, so there's a whole list of,

what theologians call Theophanies.

- Well, yeah.

- Which is an appearance.- Yeah.

- A physical appearance of God.

- Yeah, I mean, I wasdefinitely put on the spot.

(laughs) I was like, oh, man.

All right, we're going there.

Another objection thathe had was, you know,

oh, you have all these different people

who have written the Bible.- Mm-hmm.

- And I said, well, just as you know,

God inspired Mohammad towrite the Quran, God-inspired.

- I would say he didn't, but.

- Oh, I don't know, I was doing my best.

(Gordon laughs)

I was like, well, you know,they were inspired by God.

So we just, it was areally awesome experience.

- All right, just for ourMuslims, just point out.

Well, aren't the earlierwritings of Muhammad different

from the later writings?

And that's been a real problemwithin the Muslim theology

because his later writingsare far more militant.

He's more peaceful inthe earlier writings.

- So how does that have acontinuity and a wholeness to it?

The rabbis, I mean, it's wonderful

how they point out thatthe Tanakh writings,

the Torah, the Psalms, the prophets,

are a cohesive wholethat they don't disagree

with one another.

Even though they're multiple writers,

and that's because they wereinspired by the Holy Spirit

to write these things.

The New Testament reflectsthat, and what Peter said,

holy men were inspired by God-

- [Ashley] Yeah.- To write these things.

The great miracle of theBible is that it agrees.

- Yeah, that's true.

- You have so many different authors

of different time periods,

but at their core it'sin agreement and it,

there's a Hebrew concept thatpoetry is rhyming thoughts.

- Wow.- So in our concept,

it's a rhyming vocal sound,

but it's rhyming thoughts.

The Bible rhymes.

- Yeah.

- The thoughts all come into agreement.

It's a cohesive whole.

That is evidence of itbeing divinely inspired,

divinely breath.

- Yes, yeah, Amen. (hands tapping)

Well, you just said.

- I think I'm a preacher.

- You are.- All right.

If you wanna have more of a-

- [Ashley] Discussions like these.

- Discussions with me,and Ashley, she says,

I'm getting ready to getschooled on that, everyone.

I don't wanna call it that's why.

We have a podcast for you.

It's called The Lesson, and wetake on a variety of topics,

including topics thatthe audience suggests.

So if you'd like to go watch it,

all you have to do is go tothe cbnfamily.com, or YouTube.

And it's also availablewherever podcasts are available.

So join with us on the lesson.