UGOCHUKWU UGWUANYI
From an innocuous tweet by Pastor Victoria Orenze to clips that took over timelines afterwards, Heaven must have been out to out transactional gospellers and their hoax. After a fortuitous dog-whistle from the singer, the usual suspects have bared their fangs, as the world feasted on viral videos of them misrepresenting scriptural passages with a straight poker face!
The chance spark was Orenze tweeting that, “Some pastors are reading the money bible, not the Holy Bible!” The Lord indeed works in mysterious ways. Around the same time, her social media post gained traction: “money mongers” used the pulpit to outdo themselves in purported service of mammon, peddling fallacy, as if they cannot be truth-checked (mind you, the truth outweighs the fact).
These preachers are meant to have the spirit of discernment, but infatuation and obsession with enrichment won’t allow them to smell the coffee. They can’t sense that this is the age Prophet Habakkuk referred to when he said, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” Nowadays, nobody can claim to be the sole custodian of knowledge of God and His ways. How long before they realise that the game of hoodwinking the people has grown cold in this Berean epoch? Acts 17:11, “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
The untoward practice of prebendal Pentecostalism in Nigeria makes for a better appreciation of the Roman Catholic order. Here is a denomination whose parishioners don’t come to Mass with their Bibles but rely on the passages printed in the bulletin. Yet, priests don’t twist the Word of God with their homilies to line their pockets. Imagine what would have been the case if members of these general overseers don’t have access to the Word or weren’t inclined to Bible study. Perhaps the money bible would not only be preached to worshippers, but also its verses would be projected on the pastors’ $11 million LED screens. The preacher who claimed that Job’s tribulations were tied to him not paying tithe would double down because he’s aware the congregation is blind to Job 1:1, “He (Job) was blameless – a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil.”
But how can tithing trump the godly and goodly virtues of Job? Other translations added that the man was upright, affirming Job as an obedient servant of the Lord. We therefore ask: is obedience no longer better than sacrifice? That’s indicative of how their teachings deviate from the Word.
Just as the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, the bishop’s spiritual son made the outlandish claim that “Adam was sent out of Eden for touching the tithe. Adam didn’t eat an apple. Adam didn’t commit adultery. Adam touched the tithe which belongs to God. Because Adam touched the tithe, God said to him, please get out of here!” Your guess is as good as mine whether this is an exegesis, a revelation, or another reading from the money bible.
Moving on, social media users have lately been dragging a pastor in that spiritual family for saying: “Before you eat, before you pay your children’s school fees, before you reinvest in the business, you must first pay your first fruit because first fruit terminates curses. Your offering will terminate your suffering.” Netizens went beyond berating the pastor to lampoon congregants who sat through such a sermon. This coincided with the son of a revered GO advising Christians to give their entire salary as first fruit. These pastors propagate these principles in defiance of Romans 6:14, which clearly states that we are not under law but under grace. First fruit is part of the law, the curse of which Jesus has cancelled by becoming a curse for those who believe in Him.
If offering is all it takes to terminate suffering, what then is the import of the finished work of Christ on the Cross? Demanding offering before one can enjoy what flows from the Throne of Grace contradicts Ephesians 1:6 (NIV), which emphasises that the glorious grace of the Lord has been freely given to the believer. More so, fear-induced giving cannot be rewarded by the Almighty who loves a cheerful giver. Still talking about suffering (time of need), offering is out of the equation in Hebrews 4:16, which enjoins the believer to “come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (NLT).
Tracing his disposition to the time when owning a car wasn’t as common, the pastor who earlier shocked the faithful by placing the invention of the airplane above the miraculous resurrection of Lazarus in the Bible said, “There is one church behind our house in Ajegunle. They do all night every day. Nobody has a car, not even the pastor. Is that the church you want me to go and join?” Also, during the week, a TikTok video had an Ikeja-based pastor tag congregants who offer a thousand naira every Sunday as enemies of the Church because their offering can’t foot the cost of diesel and other overheads. In his words, “When you talk about money, they are always angry. That there’s no gate fee in the Church doesn’t mean that there is no cost to you. Have some sense in your head… You are very wicked, an enemy of the Church. It is better you leave the Church and get out!” the man of God thundered. Get out, really?
You must have noticed that blogs and the mainstream media increasingly report what Nigerian pastors preach on the pulpit. Ordinarily, they would not, but are forced to, given the “oddity” determinant of news. They have to serve audiences who find such messages entertaining, salacious, and ridiculous. That’s not how the true Gospel lands! As it were, preachers of transactional sermons are called names, with their followers deemed simpletons. Christianity, which the Berean Jews of yore represented as noble, must not be so degraded, please!
Although Christianity is cryptic enough to be understood by reason, some comments bandied on the pulpit blatantly contradict what is generally known about the faith. Even if God’s ways are not our ways and “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the people of Israel,” what modern-day preachers are saying flies in the face of the preoccupation of Jesus while He walked the earth. “Never worship online and not give an offering; otherwise, you will go offline” was a warning from a pastor that got yours truly wondering whether offerings were collected whenever multitudes milled around Jesus for His wonders and teachings, including during the Sermon on the Mount.
If tithing and the payment of first fruits are as consequential to increase as claimed, it would have featured in the conversation between Prophet Elisha and the widow whose departed husband left her in huge debt (2 Kings 4:1-7). She sowed nothing for the oil to multiply, and after the miracle happened, no first fruit was required of her. She was simply told to sell the oil, settle her debt, and live on the remainder. This was under the Old Covenant, where tithing is supposed to be the norm. Now, if you think prosperity preachers in Nigeria don’t exploit even the widows, then I commend you to the following remarks by the General Superintendent of Deeper Life Christian Life Ministry in October 2024.
Ministering during a special programme tagged ‘Ministerial Renewal’ for church ministers and workers across the globe, Pastor William Kumuyi said, “There are preachers who take the little that the widows have. In our nation here, they say if you sow this seed the Lord will multiply it a hundredfold… Instead of the prophet that has millions already; instead of him looking for the widows who their children are not in school and sponsor them just for God’s glory, we don’t have that. We only have those that take from the widows and render them poorer and they are getting richer and richer.”
In the main, let no one misconstrue this column as being against seed sowing or offering unto the Lord. We verily subscribe to the giving recommended by the Lord Jesus in Luke 21:1-4. Offering is indeed part of our worship and service to the Almighty. We should give in acknowledgement that all things come from Him and as an expression of our love towards Him, not out of compulsion or intimidation. Giving should be our reflexive response to His unconditional love towards us. It’s just like Zacchaeus, who climbed a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus but got the honour of his life when the Master offered to be his guest. Moved by this compassion shown to a pariah like him, the tax collector declared, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8).
Victoria Orenze did the Lord’s work by highlighting some Nigerian pastors’ underhanded tactics. Her pithy social media post inspired this column. Before devotees accuse us of being irreverent, green-eyed, or out of touch with the realities of running a modern Church, let’s remind them of this charge from the venerated Kumuyi: “The preachers of today are getting richer at the expense of the members of their church. Let somebody speak out, tell our prophets, preachers, and bishops that this ought not to be!”
We can’t be silenced by “You can’t attract what you attack” blackmail, since curses are impotent in the sanctuary of Truth!
VIS Ugochukwu is a sage, branding specialist and media trainer who welcomes feedback sent to [email protected]
