I’ve got a Muslim classmate–actually, I’m sure that I have several Muslim classmates. But I have one particular Muslim classmate with whom I converse on occasion.<\/p>\n
I’m not sure how we met or started talking. But somehow, we did. And since our paths often lie in the same direction, we walk together and talk every so often.<\/p>\n
The thing is, I’m acutely aware that he is a man and I a woman. And I’m not sure where propriety draws a line. I know enough of Muslim culture to know not to initiate friendship with a Muslim man. I haven’t done that. But what about when a Muslim man initiates friendship with a single, non-Muslim woman? That’s where the tricky part comes in.<\/p>\n
What culture does Muhammad (I’ll call him that here, for it is his name, even though I call him by another name in “real life”) belong to, and which culture’s rules should I follow in responding to him? He is Libyan by birth, he studied in Malaysia, and now he is here in the US pursuing an advanced degree.<\/p>\n
Do I treat him as just a fellow grad student? Do I treat him as an international student (whatever that might look like)? Or do I treat him as a Muslim man? <\/p>\n
Most of you probably know that I don’t believe in “best friendships” with guys. I don’t think that kind of heart intimacy is appropriate for a platonic male-female relationship. So I have no intention of taking this friendship to a heart level. <\/p>\n
The “problem” is that I want for Muhammad to know Christ–just as I want all of my friends to know Christ. But sharing Christ with a Muslim man is different than sharing Christ with a non-Muslim man. I don’t know if I’m equal to the task. I don’t know if I should be.<\/p>\n
So for now, I pray that I would walk in wisdom. I pray that the Holy Spirit would guide me to not act or speak out of turn–and to know when and if it is appropriate to speak. Most of all, I pray that God would give Muhammad male Christian friends who would be bold to share the gospel with him.<\/p>\n
Will you join me in praying?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve got a Muslim classmate–actually, I’m sure that I have several Muslim classmates. But I have one particular Muslim classmate with whom I converse on occasion. I’m not sure how we met or started talking. But somehow, we did. And since our paths often lie in the same direction, we walk together and talk every … Read more My Muslim Friend<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[9],"tags":[398,464,596,791],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}