A Movement to Jesus among Muslims Rick Brown

Rick Brown is a Bible scholar and missiologist. He has been involved in outreach in Africa and Asia since 1977. He currently teaches with Perspectives. Adapted from “Brother Jacob and Master Isaac: How One Insider Movement Began,” International Journal of Frontier Missiology 24, no. 1 (2007). Used by permission.

The following account is based on the testimony of Brother Jacob and a foreign missionary. It was also investigated and verified by several Christian leaders in the country concerned.

There was a holy man, a Sufi master, whom I’ll call Ibrahim. He lived in a remote and traditional region of the country, where several thousand people looked to him for spiritual guidance, blessings for their crops, prayers for health, and most of all, intercession for their eternal salvation. It troubled him that thousands of followers believed he could save them on the day of judgment, while he worried about his own salvation. So he began to pray in earnest that God would show him the sirat al-mustaqim, the true path to salvation.

One night while Ibrahim was praying to know the way of salvation, Jesus appeared to him, radiant in white clothing. He told him to travel to a certain town and consult a holy man from such-and-such a village whose father and grandfather were named so-and-so. Jesus showed him in a vision the way to the house. Ibrahim was excited, realizing that this man’s grandfather had been his very own Sufi master.

Ibrahim vowed not to eat or drink until he met the man of God and had discovered from him the way of salvation. He got up when it was still very early and walked through a terrible rainstorm to catch an early bus to a town some forty miles away.

Ibrahim soon reached the town, found the house that Jesus had revealed to him, and knocked on the door. He was surprised to see a man wearing ordinary clothes, not the robes of a Sufi master. It was Brother Jacob, the leader of a growing movement of Muslims who follow Jesus. When Ibrahim asked Jacob about his father, his grandfather, and the village he came from, he knew that this was the very man that Jesus had told him to consult. So he told Jacob about the vision and asked him to tell him the way of salvation.

Citing passages from both the Qur’an and the Bible, Brother Jacob told Ibrahim the story of creation, how Satan tempted Adam and Eve, and how they disobeyed God. He explained how their sin had caused alienation from God and enslaved them to darkness, sin, and death.

Brother Jacob went on to talk about Cain and Abel, the descent of the world into evil, and the rescue of Noah and his family. He described how God called Abraham to follow Him and gave him eight sons. He talked about Abraham’s promised descendants, about David, and the disobedience of Solomon and his sons. Then he told him about the true son of David, the true heir of Abraham’s promises, the second Adam, Jesus, who was the first human being in history to completely submit Himself to the will of God. He explained that it was the will of God that Jesus the Messiah suffered death on the cross to save humankind and that God had raised Him back to life and exalted Him to sit at His right hand as Lord and Savior of the world.

Brother Jacob told Ibrahim that the Lord Jesus had appeared to him in 1969 and had shown him that He is the true way of salvation. He read Jesus’s words in the Gospel, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus, he said, was Himself the sirat al-mustaqim. Master Ibrahim believed in Jesus and was ready to serve Him. He wanted to be baptized right then and there. Brother Jacob, however, counseled him to wait. “God has made you a great leader, and he wants all of your followers to know that Jesus, the Messiah, is the way of salvation. Go home and tell your wives and children first, and then tell your closest disciples.” Ibrahim agreed, and they set a date for Jacob to come visit.

About two weeks later, Jacob arrived to find a gathering of 2,500 of Ibrahim’s leading disciples. The Sufi master began by telling the story of his prayer and the vision he was given by God. He described traveling during a storm to get to Brother Jacob’s house to ask him the secret of salvation. Then Brother Jacob spoke.

He told the same story he had told to Ibrahim, starting with the Qur’an and then moving to the Bible, from Adam down to Jesus the Messiah. He called them to put their faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. All of the leaders agreed, but they said they must first share this news with their wives and children.

A few weeks later Master Ibrahim called Brother Jacob to come back. Brother Jacob arrived to find the Sufi master and 250 of his leading disciples, ready to be baptized, so he baptized Ibrahim and his wives and son. Then he told Ibrahim’s wives to baptize their daughters. He then instructed Ibrahim to baptize the 250 senior leaders of his movement and to send them home to baptize their wives and children. He told them to share the word with others and to baptize those who believe. On that day several thousand people were baptized into the kingdom of God. Thus began a faith movement to Christ within a Muslim community.

Brother Jacob had brought with him three cases of New Testaments, which he gave to Master Ibrahim to distribute to his leaders. But three days later, Ibrahim returned the cases saying they were obviously not for his people. There were too many words that were foreign or that pertained to a different ethnic group. Brother Jacob offered another book that he had prepared—a poetic paraphrase of the gospel story using familiar and acceptable language. Master Ibrahim saw that this book was wonderful, and he took a large quantity back with him for his disciples. Brother Jacob realized that these new followers of Christ needed a Bible in familiar and intelligible language, so he initiated a Bible translation project for them, starting with the Gospel of Mark.

These two Christ-following insider fellowships continue as house church movements in spite of slander, threats, and persecution instigated by people in traditional churches in that country. Master Ibrahim has died, but the movement he led continues under the pastoral care of his sons. They are confident that since it was the Lord Jesus Himself who directed them to Brother Jacob and his message, the Lord will also guide and protect them, and through them bless the Muslim communities to which they belong.

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