Dear Christians,
If Jesus is God, why were his disciples never called a *Prophet* ?
Some Christians believe that Jesus is God, if this is so, when Jesus _directly_ spoke to his disciples, they should have been referred to as Prophets.
It seems that out of the 13 (Jesus and his disciples) the only one that was
called a Prophet is Jesus himself .:
"Nevertheless I (Jesus) must walk to day, and to morrow, and the [day] following: for it cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Jerusalem." Luke 13:33
"And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A Prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house." Matthew 13:57 also in Mark 6:4, Luke 4:24, John 4:43
Jesus refers to himself as a Prophet, Others also called Jesus a Prophet but Never called his disciples "A group of Prophets"
Jesus was called a Prophet by others:
"And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet." Matthew 14:5
"And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee." Matthew 21:11
"But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet." Matthew 21:46
"And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:" Luke 24:19
"The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." John 4:19
"Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world."John 6:14
"Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet." John 7:40
Now the Greek word for Prophet is: prophetes ( profetev ) {prof-ay'-tace} which means "one who, moved by the Spirit of God and hence his organ or spokesman"
The disciples on the otherhand in Greek, are called;
"apostolos ( apostolov ) {ap-os'-tol-os} which means "a delegate, messenger, one sent forth with orders"
Christian Violence in History| Saint Augustine’s cognite intrare (“lead them in”—i.e. “force them to convert”). In fact the Qur’an says the exact opposite: There is no compulsion in religion ( 2:256 ). Augustine’s frightening idea that all must be compelled to “conform” to the “true Christian faith” has unleashed centuries of unparalleled bloodshed. Indeed, Christians have suffered more under the rule of Christian civilization than under pre- Christian Roman rule or any other rule in history. | Millions were tortured and slaughtered in the name of Christianity during the periods of the Arian, Donatist and Albigensian heresies |
| The Crusades | The European armies were saying, as they slaughtered both Christian and Muslim Arabs: “Kill them all, God will know his own.” |
| Europe's Reformation and Counter Reformation Era | Two thirds of the Christian population of Europe was slaughtered by Christians |
| The African slave trade | Claimed the lives of 10 million |
| The Colonial Conquests | Estimates for the number of Native Americans slaughtered by the Europeans in North, Central and South America run as high as 20 million within three generations. |
| The 20 th century's Western Civilization took warfare to new extremes | A conservative estimate puts the total number of brutal deaths in the 20 th century at more than 250 million. Of these, Muslims are responsible for less than 10 million deaths. Christians, or those coming from Christian backgrounds account for more than 200 million of these! The greatest death totals come from World War I (about 20 million, at least 90 % of which were inflicted by “Christians”) and World War II ( 90 million, at least 50% of which were inflicted by “Christians,” the majority of the rest occurring in the Far East). Given this grim history, it appears that we Europeans must all come to grips with the fact that Islamic civilization has actually been incomparably less brutal than Christian civilization. Did the Holocaust of over 6 million Jews occur out of the background of a Muslim Civilization? |
| In the 20th century alone
| Western and/or Christian powers have been responsible for at least twenty times more deaths than have Muslim powers. In this most brutal of centuries, we created incomparably more civilian casualties than have Muslims in the whole of Islamic history. |
| In the 20th century, Rawanda, 1994 | Witness the slaughter of 900,000 Rwandans in 1994 in a population that was over 90 % Christian |
| 1992-1995 Bosnia | The genocide of over 300,000 Muslims and systematic rape of over 100,000 Muslim women by Christian Serbs |
| Western popular culture | It should also be mentioned that although Islam has the concept of legitimate war in self-defense (as does Christianity, and even Buddhism), nowhere in Islamic culture (or in other cultures that survive today) is there latent the idealization, and perhaps idolization, of violence that exists in Western Culture. Westerners think of themselves as peaceful, but in fact the gentleness and sublimity of the New Testament, and the peace-loving nature of the principles of democracy, are scarcely reflected in Western popular culture. Rather, the entire inclination of popular culture— Hollywood movies, Western television, video games, popular music and sports entertainment—is to glorify and inculcate violence. Accordingly, the relative rates of murder (especially random and serial murder) are higher in the Western World (particularly in the U.S., but even in Europe, taken as a whole) than they are in the Islamic world in counties that are not suffering civil wars, and this true despite the much greater wealth of the West. |
| Reference: http://www.islamicamagazine.com/content/view/159/59/ | |
| | http://www.isuramu.net/kuruan/index.html |
