Because most people who say they are Christians are not obeying Jesus, you could say that this study is about all religions, because there is no religion in the world today that is obeying Jesus. (
Luke 13:26-27)
There are some things that are true for all religions. For example, they each say that they are better than other religions. This is why they fight with each other. But not one of them teaches people to obey Jesus.
Jesus said that all people can and should live by faith in God, and work for love (not for money). This is what makes the teachings of Jesus different from the teachings of every other religion. (
Matthew 6:31-33) He is the only one who can promise that God will feed his followers, because he is God's Son.
But we need to understand that Jesus was not trying to make a new religion. He did not need to say bad things about other religions. (
Luke 9:50,
Matthew 12:50) He was a Jew, and he believed the Jewish religion said many good things. (
John 4:19-24) There are good things in other religions too. Religions that say they are "Christian" have the teachings of Jesus in their Bibles. This is good too. The one big problem is that they do not obey the teachings of Jesus. This is bad.
Other religions teach people to believe in God and to love others. Most religions say that greed is wrong, and that we should not believe physical things will make us happy. The Muslim religion started with a fight against people loving idols. And the Hindu religion teaches that it is good for young men to leave their families and all that they have, so that they can live a life of faith and love. From this we see that there is much in other religions that is close to what Jesus was saying. (
Romans 2:14-15)
When a religion teaches that Jesus said things that he did not teach, we must tell people that this is wrong. But we do not need to argue against most of the things religions teach. It is better to talk about the good things and to say nothing about the bad things. Good people in these religions will follow the truth in their religion, but they will quickly stop following the false teachings if and when they find something better. If we teach the truth and say nothing about the bad teachings, good people will listen to us, and bad leaders will not be able to say we are making trouble.
We are not trying to take people out of one religion and put them into another. We are trying to encourage them to have more love and faith. The bigger picture of truth that we have will free them from all that is false. (
John 8:31-32) People follow Jesus when they live the way that he said we should live. (
John 15:10) If we teach the things that Jesus was teaching, and people follow us, they are following Jesus. (
John 13:20) Jesus did not tell us to teach that he is God, or that he is the Messiah. (
Mark 8:30) He did not tell us to talk about miracles. (
Mark 7:36) He said that good people will be helping him when they help poor people. Some good people will not even know that they are helping Jesus, but he will reward them because they helped people who were in need. (
Matthew 25:34-40)
We do not need to fight against any religion, but if we teach the truth, we know that many religions will fight against us. When this happens, remember that good people will know that what we are saying is true. They will not believe what others say against us. (
Mark 12:37)
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