Jesus’ Way

Jesus’ Way

        

    First and foremost, it must be realized that Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, was the last in the line of Jewish prophets. He lived according to the Torah, the law of Moses, and taught his followers to do likewise. In Matthew  5:17-18, Jesus stated: “17 Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the [way of] the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. ¹⁸For, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Unfortunately, about five years after the end of Jesus’ ministry, a young rabbi by the name of Saul of Tarsus, who claimed to have seen Jesus in a vision, began to change Jesus’ way. Paul (his Roman name) had considerable respect for Roman philosophy and he spoke proudly of his own Roman citizenship. His conviction was that non-Jews who became Christians should not be burdened with the Torah in any respect. The author of Acts 13:39 quotes Paul as saying, “And by him every one that believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.” It was primarily through the efforts of Paul that the Church began to take on its non-Jewish character. Paul[137] wrote most of the New Testament letters (epistles), which the Church accepts as the official doctrine and inspired Scripture.  These letters do not preserve the Gospel of Jesus or even represent it;[138] instead, Paul transformed the teachings of Christ into a Hellenic (Graeco-Roman) philosophy.

            The following are some examples of teachings which Prophet Jesus followed and taught, but which were later abandoned by the Church. However, most of these teachings were revived in the final message of Islaam brought by Prophet Muhammad (e) and remain a fundamental part of Muslim religious practices until today.