UGOCHUKWU UGWUANYI
Bishop David Oyedepo has proven impervious to antagonism. Despite the denigration and denunciation of prosperity preaching, particularly in recent times, he has remained its propagator-in-chief. He’s so unapologetic about the “transactional gospel” that someone may say he is braggadocious about it from the pulpit. Why should the Living Faith cleric not proclaim his Weltanschauung (German for worldview) on the rooftop given how Kingdom Wealth has feathered his nest?
Here are some of the comments he made in that regard this past week: “They said I am the richest pastor in the world, and they are not lying. Money on its own is not evil. It is when it becomes a god to you that it becomes the root of all evils. There is no gang up of hell that can stop the prosperity of this commission. We are under a strong covenant covering. If you are not in the covenant, you can have industries that look like cemeteries. My wealth cannot be calculated by anybody because I have subscribed to the law of giving and receiving, once and again.”
Understandably, such statements may land as insensitive given that Nigeria is a country where only five percent of citizens can boast of having more than N500,000 in their bank accounts. This was disclosed in 2024 by the then minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, Wale Edun. The poverty rate can’t be said to have improved since then. But it appears that this pervasive poverty can be plugged through the keys to prosperity ingrained in Bishop Oyedepo’s so-called boasting. He has consistently exposed the panacea as covenant covering, the law of giving and receiving laced with positive confessions.
Those desirous of flourishing like the world’s richest pastor unabashedly live by his codes for prosperity, telling whoever cares to listen that they will never follow a poor pastor! This is consistent with their family tree’s purported pandering towards materialism, as persistently pilloried by other evangelicals. Lately, an eight-month-old video resurfaced online where Rev. Isaac Omolehin broke down in tears while apologising because his generation of preachers “have failed. Everywhere they are looking for money… I’ve been preaching for 50 years. The more I try to talk about righteousness, the more the place is spoilt,” he sobbed.
There was also the trending video of Rev. Yemi Ayodele insisting that, “there cannot be a revival in this country when all the members of the congregation are starving and the pastor has 10 cars and 20 houses. There are people who say they have private jets; we know how they started. Some of them made their congregation donate their cars. When the spirit of greed enters the Church, everything becomes business. You want to become a pastor; you go to your GO (General Overseer) and sow seed.”
Ministers who go all out to “honour” their men of God will likely ask this reverend gentleman to mind his business, what with many of them purportedly positioning themselves as their spiritual father’s beloved. According to Bishop Irabor Wisdom, “Carnal children parading themselves as number one sons everywhere. The other day, a number one son was given quit notice and his father, to whom he had given over ten cars, with hundreds of millions, watched them stay for weeks without church service until they were able to rent another place. Some fathers need to tell their sons, I won’t collect any seed from you until I hear that you’ve built.” Perhaps such unconscionable self-absorption informed Matthew 23:9, where the Lord Jesus said, “Do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.”
As it were, going all out to sate the palate of a spiritual mentor in return for fatherly blessings is predicated on the story of the savoury meat preyed upon by Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Esau in Genesis 27. Addressing his congregation in Ghana, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams recounted, “While God’s servant, Archbishop Benson Idahosa, was still alive, Bishop Oyedepo and I often visited him privately in his bedroom. Baba would say to me repeatedly, ‘Son, your brother here is a great help to me.’ Every single year, whenever we attended the convention, Bishop Oyedepo would arrive with a cheque – enough to cover the university’s expenses for the entire year: salaries, electricity bills, everything. He would hand it over quietly to Baba.
“I remember those moments vividly. Oyedepo and I would kneel by Baba’s bedside, and I would hear the prayers he prayed over him. Baba would say things like, ‘Because you have taken away my sweat, you will not sweat in Lagos.’ He would pronounce deep, weighty blessings upon him.” This submission and sacrificial support to a senior colleague is seen as an act of tapping into their anointing or being in covenant with the fathers in faith. Younger pastors have to get into the inner circle because lessons delivered during ministers’ conferences don’t compare to how prominent pastors coach their sons in covenant. But do they really need such teaching considering the Master’s injunction in Matthew 23:10 (NLT), “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah.” Pastors ought to know this scripture; ergo, their eagerness to still give an arm and a leg for mentorship indicates they are chasing something else.
BTW, this column doesn’t entirely see anything wrong with a Kingdom mentorship model like the David Oyedepo Ministry Int’l (DOMI). Jesus Christ had the disciples and a sea of followers; Elisha had the Sons of the Prophet (2 Kings 6:1–7). Even Paul the Apostle declared in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” The key phrase, however, is a follower of Christ, not mammon! We ought to be mindful of the difference because Jesus Christ, during his earthly ministry, would rather that alms be given to the poor than to Himself (Matthew 25:35-40). The words of the Master as recorded in Matthew 19:21 are definitively didactic: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
But what do we hear today in some ministries? Talks about fertile and barren lands! This cajoles congregants to sow into wealthy pastors for the “ROI” of enjoying their kind of anointing and affluence. The immensely influential Oyedepo tells a different story when he said, “When I chose to believe Matthew 6:33, there were mockeries. When I chose to stand on God’s Word concerning prosperity, people criticised me… One of the greatest decisions you can make is to choose what you will believe, regardless of people’s opinions.” With their Papa’s avowal of God’s Kingdom as his priority, let’s hope that his protégés will be fixated on the same – not just seeking to be in his good graces because he’s the world’s richest pastor. An inkling into the nature of the rampant father-son relationship in Nigerian Pentecostalism emerged lately when Pastor Korede Komaiya reportedly said, “I know a lot of gifted people that we left Winners together; but they left Winners dishonouring Bishop Oyedepo and they are as dry as panla (stockfish)… a lot of people today are suffering; nothing is working because they are living in dishonour (of their fathers).”
Moving on, the other thing we can learn from the Winners Chapel founder is the power of positive declarations. In Christianese, this is the act of “calling the things that be not as though they were.” According to Bishop Oyedepo, “When I said ‘I can never be poor,’ I had no bank account. I saw myself above all nations when I was below all churches, below all communities.” However, such faith-filled assertions and action must go pari passu in the light of what James 2:17 says about the faith that is devoid of works. The indolent is far removed from Oyedepo’s level of opulence because Brother Paul commanded in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 that “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” He has the bona fides to issue that command having declared in verse eight of the same chapter, “Nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. Instead, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.”
Why will his mentees not be hardworking when, despite the “no-sweat” blessing pronounced on him by Archbishop Idahosa many decades ago, Oyedepo still rolls up his sleeves? The DOMI operator is not one to idle away waiting to be “honoured” by his numerous sons. The Lord’s General is regularly in the field winning souls for Christ and is currently occupied with delivering his 109,000-seat global wonder aptly called the Ark. You can then understand why he declared last week that “there are few people my age that can carry out my work schedule without stress or strain.”
Highlighting the limitations of sowing and giving in bringing about prosperity, Apostle Joshua Selman pointed out that giving and seed sowing aren’t the ultimate and only means to financial increase. While admitting that giving has an important place in prosperity, Selman insisted that it must operate alongside other biblical principles, including wisdom, diligence, planning and responsible stewardship. The preacher also warned against using seed sowing as a substitute for practical responsibility, such as having no plan for major monetary obligations while simply expecting that giving an offering will automatically solve everything.
Let it be known that being enterprising – not patronising – is the key to unlocking the blessings attached to any covenant with the successful spiritual leader. Proverbs 22:29, “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.”
VIS Ugochukwu is a sage, storyteller and branding specialist who welcomes feedback sent to [email protected]
