Matt. 3:9

And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.

John the Baptist was not the kind of man who minced words. After calling the crowd a “brood of vipers” (3:7), he went on to harshly scold them for thinking that their Jewish heritage was the source of their relationship with God. Isn’t it easy for Muslim peoples like the Bezhtas to fall into the same trap today?