Subtitle: A quick study from Galatians 4:21-31 separating the false from the truth.

Excerpt: Islam and Christianity, both Abrahamic faiths, diverge beyond monotheism. Galatians 4:21-31 illustrates this through the conflict between Ishmael (Islam) and Isaac (Christianity), highlighting a false religion from the truth.

Author: Jeff Hilles

Muslims and Christians trace their spiritual lineage to Abraham, who is regarded by both as a model of faith and obedience to the one true God. This monotheistic belief in a single God and Creator was in contrast to the polytheism prevalent at the time. However, beyond Abraham, Islam and Christianity take extremely divergent paths, one promoted by our Lord and the other by His adversary.

The differences between Christianity and Islam are significant, made more so by a common root in Abraham. Galatians chapter 4 is clear on the true lineage from the source, the sons of Father Abraham, to Christ Jesus.

Despite their old age, God promised Abraham and Sarah they would have a son who would be the father of a great nation (Israel and the Jewish people), the race that would bring Jesus into the world.

Galatians 4:21-23 - For it is written that Abraham had two sons [Ishmael and Isaac], one by a slave woman [Hagar] and one by a free woman [Sarah]. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

Hagar, who was a slave in Abraham’s house, bore a son named Ishmael, but this was against God’s will, as He had made it clear that the son would come from Sarah.

As God often does, Isaac was to be a miracle birth, given how old Sarah was (ninety) and how long and unsuccessful she and Abraham had been in childbearing.

I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her. - Genesis 17:16

From Abraham and Sarah came Isaac, and through his line of the Jewish race, Jesus Christ, the savior of the world (1 John 4:14).

Galatians: 4:28-29 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 

The animosity between these two brothers, Isaac and Ishmael, is the foundation of the conflicts between Jews and Muslims to this day. Further, since Jesus broadened Christianity to include gentiles (non-Jews), in Galatians, Paul includes all who follow Jesus as “children of the promise” and are in conflict with Islam as a false religion. Finally, persecution is to be an expected part of the Christian life (2 Timothy 3:12).

Galatians 4:30-31 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

We are not children of the slave women (Islam), but those who have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior are sons “of the free women.”

Below is a detailed summary of how the Muslim faith differs from Biblical Christianity.