Many Christians, when they think about the Gospel, think about ‘the Gospel, about Jesus’. But I think it's really important to think of ‘the Gospel of Jesus’. What was the Gospel for Jesus? And if we read the scripture, over and over again, ‘the Gospel of Jesus’ was about ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom of God’ or ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth’. And in the Beatitudes, Jesus introduces us to a way that we can incarnate that ‘Kingdom of Heaven on Earth’. Because the first verse of the Beatitudes is ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven’ and the last verse in the Beatitudes is ‘Blessed are those that are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven’. The Beatitudes actually suggest that if we practice these attitudes, we can incarnate something of the Kingdom of Heaven now. So Jesus’ passion is that we will bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth. And the Beatitudes is a simple, eightfold step by step process, by which we can embody the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Now, when I read my books on the Beatitudes I actually asked my Muslim friend, Nora Amath, to launch these books. Because I said, I think it's really important that the Beatitudes be seen as a way for all people not just for Christians. In fact, I said to her that I think the Beatitudes are the ‘Shari'a of Jesus’. And I wanted her as a Muslim to launch my books on the Beatitudes so that Jesus would be liberated from Christianity and his words could resonate with people of all traditions and religions. So she read the books on the Beatitudes and she launched them and she said: ‘You may think it strange that here is a Muslim woman in a hijab launching this book by a Christian. But when Dave asked me to read these books on the Beatitudes, I said “Yes I certainly will”.’ And she said: ‘Now I know that as a Muslim. to be a true Muslim, I need to practice the Beatitudes, because they are the way that we can embody this truth in the context of a world of poverty and violence’. And so she puts the Beatitudes up on her fridge and puts him up on her website. Because in the same way, I learned about the Bismillah from her, she learned about the Beatitudes from me. And we are becoming better Christians and better Muslims from our engagement with each other around these texts.
