Project 5 — The Bridge Paper

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” — Colossians 4:6 (ESV)

Chapter: 5 — Who Do You Say That I Am? Answering Islam’s Claims About Jesus Submit: one document named bridge-paper.docx (or .pdf) — see Appendix A for how to turn in projects. Keep Appendix B, the Quick Answer Card, open beside you.

The brief

Yusuf isn’t hypothetical. Somewhere in your actual life — the break room, the next desk, the school pickup line, the family that moved in two doors down — there is, or will be, a person who honors Jesus as a virgin-born, miracle-working prophet and, in the same warm breath, tells you God has no Son and Jesus was never crucified. This week you learned what Islam actually teaches, how to answer its two great denials with history and Scripture instead of heat, and how to do it without spending a friendship you’ll never get back.

This project makes those answers yours, on paper, before you need them out loud. You’re going to write three responses — each one built the same way: common ground + evidence + one honest question to ask back — prepared for a real conversation with a real person. Not a debate transcript. A bridge. The goal of conversation one is conversation two, and this paper is how you get ready to earn it.

What you’ll build

A single document, bridge-paper.docx, containing:

1. Your person and your common ground (one short paragraph). Name — first name or “a coworker,” to protect privacy — who this is really for, and open with the genuine common ground you share about Jesus (one Creator God, virgin birth, the miracles, Messiah). Honest, not overstated.
2. Three responses to three different claims chosen from Yusuf’s five: “Jesus never claimed to be God,” “the Injil was corrupted,” “God cannot have a son,” “Jesus wasn’t crucified — Allah raised him up,” “the Trinity is three gods.” Each response is one to three short paragraphs and follows the three-part shape below.
3. A closing line — the single sentence you’d most want to leave the conversation on (for many, the invitation: “Would you read the Gospel of Mark with me?”).

Every response must be structured as:

• Common ground — one or two sentences naming what you genuinely share on this point, so your friend hears respect before challenge.
• Evidence — the accurate historical and/or scriptural case: real dates, real sources (all four Gospels, the early creed of 1 Corinthians 15:3–4, Tacitus, the fourth-century codices predating Muhammad), and any Scripture quoted correctly in the ESV with citation.
• One honest question — a genuine question you’d be glad to hear answered, not a trap.

Steps

1. Pick your three claims. Choose the three of Yusuf’s five most likely to come up with your person. If crucifixion or tahrif is on your list, pull your Rep 2 paragraph and Rep 3 timeline from this week’s exercises — they’re already built.
2. Write the common ground first, every time. If you can’t name what you share on a given claim, you’re not ready to answer it yet. Start there.
3. Lay in the evidence — and check it. For the crucifixion, lead with early + many + non-Christian and the six-hundred-years-later point. For tahrif, use the dated manuscripts and the Quran’s own pointers to the Gospel (Surah 5:47; 5:68). For the Son, state the one-sentence Trinity and correct “three gods” and “God, Jesus, and Mary,” then show Jesus’ own claims (Mark 14:61–62; John 8:58). Verify every verse against your ESV and every fact against the chapter — no invented figures or Quran citations.
4. End each response with a real question. Read it back and ask: would I actually be glad to hear the answer? If it’s a gotcha in disguise, rewrite it.
5. Do the tone pass. Read the whole paper as if Yusuf were reading over your shoulder. Cut anything that mocks Muhammad, the Quran, or him. Frank is fine; sneering is not.
6. Add your closing line, and save as bridge-paper.docx.

A note on using AI. You may use a free assistant (Appendix A) to rehearse — but not to write your paper for you, and never as a source of fact. It can misrepresent both Islam and Christianity with total confidence. Verify every claim, date, verse, and Quran citation yourself; the writing and the judgment must be yours.

What good looks like

A strong Bridge Paper reads like it was written for a person you love, not at an opponent you’re beating. The common ground is real and would make Yusuf feel understood. The evidence is accurate and specific — you can say why the crucifixion is hard to deny and why the corrupted-Bible claim runs into a dated-manuscript wall, without overclaiming (“more manuscripts” means we know what the text said, not that the text is automatically true). Every verse is quoted correctly in the ESV. And each response lands on a question so genuine your friend would want to keep talking. If a stranger read your paper and couldn’t tell whether you liked Muslims or merely wanted to win, revise until they can.

Grading rubric — Normal (out of 100)

Coach’s Note — Don’t try to make this paper win all three arguments and slam the door. Make it open three doors. The measure of a good Bridge Paper isn’t how cornered Yusuf would feel — it’s whether, after reading your three responses, he’d want to have coffee with you again. That second coffee is the whole point. Write for it.