Pastor Abel Damina has criticised Apostle Arome Osayi over his accounts of alleged personal encounters with Jesus Christ, questioning the biblical basis of the stories and warning against placing too much emphasis on supernatural experiences.
Damina addressed the controversy while preaching to his congregation on Thursday, October 8, 2026, after receiving numerous messages from people asking him to respond to Arome’s viral videos.
According to the pastor, the number of inquiries prompted him to address the issue publicly rather than respond to each message individually.
One of the accounts that attracted Damina’s attention was Arome’s narration of an alleged encounter with Jesus during a nine-hour flight from Johannesburg to London.
In the viral account, Arome reportedly said Jesus appeared to him during the journey and spent the entire flight crying over what had become of the spiritual investments he had made in Nigerian church leaders.
Arome’s account sparked discussions online, with Damina joining the conversation to challenge what he considered problematic teachings surrounding the alleged encounter.
The pastor also referred to another story in which Arome reportedly claimed that Jesus appeared to him while he was walking along a beach in Tanzania.
According to the account, Jesus allegedly instructed Arome to send ₦5 million to a particular pastor in exchange for the power to raise the dead and reverse autism.
Reacting to this claim, Damina cited Matthew 10:5-8, where Jesus instructed His disciples to heal the sick, raise the dead and perform other miracles without charging for their services.
He questioned the idea of associating such spiritual gifts with a financial transaction, arguing that the biblical passage presented a different approach to the ministry of healing and miracles.
Damina also raised questions about what he described as inconsistencies in some of Arome’s accounts of supernatural encounters.
He referred to a story involving angels allegedly scanning Nigeria from heaven in search of people with a particular colour on their foreheads.
According to Damina, Arome narrated the story in one setting as involving the colour orange but reportedly described the colour as green when recounting it at another church.
The pastor questioned the difference between the two versions, using it as part of his broader criticism of the accounts.
He further questioned a separate story involving Arome’s family, asking how the apostle’s wife and son could have failed to recognise him after 11 years away, particularly given the distinctive facial features Damina said he possessed.
Beyond the individual stories, Damina based his criticism on the message of 2 Corinthians 4, which he said emphasises the importance of ministers directing people’s attention towards Christ rather than themselves.
He argued that Christian ministers should focus on preaching the gospel instead of making their personal encounters, visions and supernatural experiences the centre of their messages.
According to Damina, publicly sharing such experiences can expose ministers to questions and scrutiny, particularly when the accounts become a major part of their public ministry.
He also referred to the Apostle Paul’s account of being caught up to the third heaven, noting that Paul described what he experienced as unspeakable rather than making it the focus of his public preaching.
Damina maintained that the central message of Christianity should remain the story of Jesus Christ, rather than the personal experiences of individual ministers.
Emphasising his position, the pastor said: “The gospel is not experiences. The gospel is not visions and dreams. The gospel is not my stories. The gospel is his story.”
His remarks have added to the ongoing discussions surrounding Arome’s viral accounts of encounters with Jesus, particularly the questions they have raised about the place of visions, revelations and supernatural experiences in Christian teaching.
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Read some comments below:
@kellytrigger1:”You recognized Abraham and Joel that you have never seen in ur life, people you only heard about in the Bible o.. U recognized those ones but you couldn’t recognize ur wife just after 11years.. Kai Arome sabi lie abeg.”
