• It will make the jobs of front-line missionaries who have spent years (in many cases) building relationships with their Muslims neighbors in Muslim lands much more difficult.

• It will hurt evangelization, not help it.

• It is unnecessarily offensive, wrongheaded, and foolish.

• It flies in the face of Paul's example in Greece, to name just one example.  (I mean, imagine Paul kicking over the altar "To An Unknown God" instead of using it as a strategic point of evangelization.) 

• It will further endanger the lives of Americans living overseas.

• It does not communicate to our Muslim neighbors, "We love you and would like for you to hear the good news of Jesus Christ."

• It will not facilitate a hearing for the gospel or the kind of healthy relationships in which such a hearing is most naturally granted.

And, finally, a personal example.  I suppose the sharpest letter I ever wrote to anybody in my life was to a nationally famous Southern Baptist preacher whose name you would likely know.  It was a little over eight years ago when my wife was on a mission trip to Egypt with a friend of hers, a young lady who was a Southern Baptist Journeyman in that area.

At this time, this famous preacher shouted from his pulpit at a major conference of Southern Baptist preachers that Muhammed was "a demon-possessed pedophile."  This comment (coming from a famous American pulpit) was (not surprisingly) picked up by the media.  It sent the Muslim world into a furor.

It just so happened, as I have said, that my wife was in Egypt on a mission trip...and I grew concerned for her safety...and then I grew very, very irate.  The letter I penned and mailed lacked charity perhaps, but not clarity and I hope it was heard.  I basically stated that it is the very apex of cowardice to sit in the safety of an American church culture and spout off unnecessarily offensive and incendiary rhetoric thereby endangering Christians the world over.  Furthermore, I asked the pastor to please not undo the hard work of our missionaries just for a few cheap applause lines with a bunch of American pastors.  I was deeply disappointed but in no way surprised to see many of our denominational luminaries circle the wagons and sing this preacher's praises instead of rightly condemning his comments as careless and reckless.

Let me be perfectly clear:  Christians should and must preach the gospel.  The gospel is inherently offensive according to the New Testament, and for that we should not apologize.  We should in no way compromise the gospel so as to appease our Muslim neighbors, nor should we shrink from carefully addressing Islam with the gospel. 

But the gospel being inherently offensive when it is carefully and clearly proclaimed is not the same thing as us being carelessly offensive doing just whatever we want to do in the name of the gospel.

Preaching the gospel with love and boldness requires the Holy Spirit and a heart for lost people.

Burning a Koran requires nothing more than a set of matches, a big ego, and a puerile desire of attention

I, for one, think this is a terrible idea and hope that wisdom will prevail in the church in Florida that is planning to do this.