5:77-82

   In order to shorten my posts and avoid repeating the translation, I will try to only point out the underlying concepts as I understand from verses, hereafter.  Please note the number of verses only shows the reference for my comments, not the translation.

5:77,   it is up to the believers of the scriptures to verify for themselves to see if their religion has been partially exaggerated which has led to include untruth.  Today the Internet has made it possible for everyone to seek out the truth by weighing and comparing all sorts of opinions and arguments. We can now form our own judgment while hearing all internal and external voices. By internal I mean all voices we can hear in our heart and by external I mean voice of other people present or not.  I think this verse is an invitation from God to the followers of Torah and Gospel to double check their holy texts, an invitation that is worth accepting.

5:78,   God confirms in this verse that those who denied “Isa” and “Davood” were cursed by them which shows humans have the capability of asking God to favor or disfavor other humans, should the God be willing to.   In other parts of Quran and in our daily life perhaps, we have seen how praying to God can elevate other people’s lives.  The scope of this influence however, seems to be directly dependent on our relationship with God. In other words, humans with strong ties with God can influence positively the lives of those whom they love.  This is not to say we can cause harm to others or can benefit them directly, which would be conflicting to earlier verses of Quran as well, but we can ask God who is running the world continuously to affect their life for the better.

5:79-82,   the two points I would like to mention about these verses are firstly about friendship with those who are disbelievers and deniers, God has used the word “Ohlya” or “Vali” in Arabic which in context means do not take them as your guru whom we follow primarily for moral values and for our faith. It does not make sense otherwise. Secondly, the last wordings of verse 82 seem to bear striking evidence always seen in most debates between Christian scholars and God believers of other faith.  Christian clergy, most often, appear most friendly toward the monotheists. God says it is because there are priests and scholars among them who are modest and humble toward truth.