Loving Muslims, Following Jesus: A Pastor and Army Chaplain on Islam

8‑minute read · Updated May 31, 2026

If you are a Christian in 2026, you almost certainly know a Muslim. They are your coworker, your neighbor, your child's friend, the family down the street. And if you take Jesus seriously, you have probably wondered how the love He commands and the truth He proclaims are supposed to fit together when those things seem to pull in different directions.

This post is for you.

The Christian command is not complicated, but it is hard to hold both halves at once. Jesus said the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31) - and that absolutely includes your Muslim neighbor. At the same time, Paul wrote that even if an angel from heaven preached a different gospel, it should be rejected (Galatians 1:8). Faithfulness to Christ requires both the kindness and the conviction. You cannot drop either one.

So this is what I want to help you do as your pastor: Love Muslims. Understand Islam. Share Jesus. Three movements. None of them optional. All of them flowing from the same Gospel.

Love Muslims - they are made in God's image

Start here, before anything else. Every Muslim man, woman, and child you will ever meet was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). That is not negotiable. It is not contingent on what they believe. The Bible's anthropology is clear: the dignity of every human being is rooted in the fact that God made them.

Jesus died for Muslims. He has called His church to love them, to serve them, to share life with them, to weep with them when they suffer. Many of our Muslim friends and neighbors are some of the most hospitable, generous, family-honoring people you will ever meet. You can admire and love a person deeply while still wrestling honestly with the truth claims of their religion. Those two things are not in conflict.

The first time many Muslims have ever encountered a serious Christian voice in their life is when a believer sits down with them, eats with them, listens to their story, prays for their family, and refuses to treat them as a category. That kind of love is not a tactic. It is the Gospel showing up in skin.

Understand Islam - what Muhammad actually taught

To love well, you have to understand. And to understand, you have to look honestly at the sources - not at caricatures from cable news, but at what Muslims themselves believe, taught by Muhammad himself in the Qur'an and the Hadith.

Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570 AD. His father died before his birth; his mother died when he was young. He was raised by relatives and grew up in the trade caravans of Arabia, where he encountered Jews, Christians (often from non-orthodox or apocryphal traditions), and pagans. He began receiving what he understood to be revelations around 610 AD. The early Meccan preaching emphasized monotheism and divine judgment, and often spoke positively of Jews and Christians as "People of the Book."

After he was rejected in Mecca, Muhammad and his followers migrated to Medina in 622 AD - what Muslims call the Hijrah, the starting point of the Islamic calendar. In Medina, Muhammad became both a religious leader and a political and military one. The verses revealed during this Medinan period are noticeably more confrontational toward unbelievers than the earlier Meccan ones. Qur'an 9:29, for example, commands Muslims to fight against Jews and Christians "until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled" - the foundation of what later became dhimmi status (protected but taxed and subordinate non-Muslims under Islamic rule).

It is also important to note that much of what Muhammad taught about Christianity appears to have come not from the New Testament itself, but from oral traditions and Gnostic sects. For example, Qur'an 5:116 presents the Trinity as Father, Jesus, and Mary - which is not, and has never been, what historic Christianity teaches. The Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Muhammad's exposure to Christian doctrine appears to have come through second-hand sources rather than the actual creeds and Scripture of the early church.

The Gospel difference - grace vs. submission

This is the heart of the matter, and it is where loving honesty has to come in.

Christianity and Islam make fundamentally different claims about God, about Jesus, about sin, about salvation, and about eternal life. These are not surface differences. They are the bones.

Look at the contrast in how each faith presents its central figure:

Jesus is presented in the Bible as the sinless Son of God, eternally one with the Father (John 1:1-14, Colossians 2:9, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 2:22). He never married. He never took up arms. He told Peter to put away his sword in the garden (Matthew 26:52). He commanded His followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecuted them (Matthew 5:44). And He died on a cross for the very people who hated Him - including you and me, before we ever loved Him back.

Muhammad is presented in Islamic sources as a human prophet, the final messenger of Allah, and the ideal man (uswa hasana) whom Muslims are to imitate in every area of life. Islamic sources also record that Muhammad sinned and asked for forgiveness (Qur'an 47:19, 48:2), led military campaigns after the Hijrah, took multiple wives - including, according to Sahih al-Bukhari 5134, marriage to Aisha at age six with consummation at age nine - and ordered the execution of the fighting-age men of the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe after their surrender in 627 AD.

These are not Christian polemics. They are recorded in Islam's own most trusted sources. And this is why the two faiths produce such different fruit in the world - because the men they hold up as their highest standard lived such different lives.

The Gospel difference goes deeper than the founders, though. In Islam, salvation is by submission to Allah, by good works, and by hope for mercy on Judgment Day. There is no guarantee. In Christianity, salvation is a free gift, received by faith alone in Christ's finished work on the cross (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is not earned. It is not maybe. It is given.

The Qur'an, in 4:157, denies that Jesus was crucified at all - claiming it only appeared so. Paul tells the Corinthians that Christ's crucifixion and resurrection are the heart of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). One of these claims is true. They cannot both be.

How Christianity shaped the world - and why fruit matters

Jesus told His followers, "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). Apply that to civilizations.

The Christian worldview gave the West the ideas that birthed modern democratic societies. Human dignity - every person made in God's image, with inherent rights. Rule of law - moral law above kings, not the whim of rulers. Equality and liberty - Paul writes that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). That single verse undermined slavery, caste systems, and arbitrary power. Limited government - Jesus' own teaching to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17) made room for the separation of church and state.

These biblical ideas shaped the Magna Carta. The Declaration of Independence. The abolition of the slave trade by Christians like William Wilberforce. The founding of nearly every major Western university (Harvard, Yale, Oxford - all originally Christian institutions). The hospital movement. The Red Cross. The orphanage. Modern science (which has its roots in the Christian conviction that a rational God made a rational universe that human minds could understand).

Today, the nations with deep Christian heritage - the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia - consistently rank at the top of global measures of political freedom, civil liberty, economic opportunity, and human flourishing. Meanwhile, of the roughly fifty Muslim-majority nations today, very few rank in the top fifty on the Human Development Index. Religious freedom is restricted in many (see Pew Research on global religious restrictions). Conversion away from Islam is criminalized in some. Women's rights, by global measure, sit near the bottom.

This is not to say every Muslim person is one thing or every Western Christian another. Many Muslims live admirable lives, and the West is full of serious sins and growing secular problems of its own. But when we look at the long-term fruit of the two worldviews, the contrast is real. Societies shaped by the teachings of Jesus have produced - overall, across centuries, across continents - greater liberty, justice, opportunity, and care for the vulnerable. Societies built on the Medinan model of fused religion and state have not matched that record. Ideas have consequences. The Gospel lifts people and cultures. We give all glory to Christ, not to ourselves.

Share Jesus - the practical next step

So what does this look like for you this week?

Peter said: "Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15). Paul reminded us that our real battle is not against people: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but… against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12).

Two things flow from that.

One: never let understanding Islam turn into hating Muslims. They are sinners for whom Christ died, exactly like you and me. Pray for your Muslim friends and neighbors by name. Pray for the persecuted church across Muslim-majority countries. Ask the Father to send laborers into the harvest.

Two: be the clearest on truth and the kindest in the room. Many former Muslims who now follow Jesus say that the relationships they had with Christians, the consistent Christlike love shown to them over years, mattered more than any argument or debate. Christ won them through His people first.

If you want to go deeper, two resources I would point you to: Nabeel Qureshi's Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus - a moving autobiography by a former Muslim who came to Christ. And Thabiti Anyabwile's The Gospel for Muslims - short, pastoral, Christ-centered. Both will help you love better while staying faithful.

Don't fear. Don't hate. Don't compromise.

Christians have nothing to fear. The Lord we serve has already conquered death. He is building His church across every nation, including the Islamic world, often at a pace and scale that goes largely unreported in the West.

Our calling is simple. Love Muslims - they are image-bearers Christ died for. Understand Islam - honestly, from the sources, without caricature. Share Jesus - the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6) - the only Savior, the only sacrifice that pays for sin, the only Person who rose from the dead, the only Lord whose hands still bear the scars of His love.

Don't fear. Don't hate. Don't compromise. Be the clearest on truth and the kindest in the room. And pray that Christ, who is patient and merciful, would draw every Muslim friend and family member you love into the fellowship of the Father and the Son (1 John 1:3).

Your servant for Christ's sake,
Pastor James Drake

Frequently Asked Questions

Recommended further study

Books worth picking up:

• Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus - Nabeel Qureshi
• Reaching Your Muslim Neighbor with the Gospel - Ayman S. Ibrahim
• The Gospel for Muslims - Thabiti Anyabwile
• No God but One: Allah or Jesus? - Nabeel Qureshi
• What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur'an - James R. White

Ministries:

• i2 Ministries / Mission Muslim World University
• Jesus to Muslims
• Encountering Muslims (Pioneers)