Just believe

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In John chapter 6 it is recorded that after Jesus had fed 5,000 men (no woman or child was included in this figure) and left, the people looked for him till they found him. Jesus explained to them that they were looking for him because they had eaten the bread he gave them and were full but not because they understood his miracles. He cautioned them not to work for food that goes bad but for food that lasts for eternal life. In saying this he was pointing the people to himself. He said it is this food that the Father has put his mark of approval on. It was at this point that the people asked the question, “What can we do in order to do what God wants us to do.” (v. 28 GNB)

They were looking for something they themselves could do, perhaps a way to life, a moral code, or some rituals or steps to follow. Jesus answered them saying “What God wants you to do is to believe in the one he sent” (v.29 GNB). This was as unexpected and uncomfortable to the people then as it is for us today. “How can simply believing in this man give us eternal life?” they must have thought. In our technique-oriented world today we are always looking for the “5 methods,” “7 ways,” and “10 steps” to achieve many things, including our salvation. We want clear steps to follow. We may also want easy steps to follow (although we may not mind doing some difficult tasks) but Jesus’ prescription sounds suspiciously too easy. Just believe? We want to save ourselves so that we can pat ourselves on the back. But like C. S. Lewis once illustrated, if you are drowning in a river near its bank and a friend standing on the bank tries to save you by putting one of his feet in the river and extending his hand for you to hold on to it, will you put your hand in his or will you protest saying “This is not fair, you have one foot on the bank”? Spiritually we are helplessly lost, but God has extended his hand of help from heaven to save us.

Salvation is given freely by God alone to those who believe in the one he sent. It is not on merit so neither the believer who was born into a Christian family nor the person who converted from atheism or Islam or African Traditional religion can boast about it. It is God’s gracious gift to man. A noted Christian writer once said that he is not going to complain to God that there are not two doors to heaven but rather he is going to thank him that there is at least one door to heaven. I think he is spot on! Salvation comes only through Jesus Christ.

But lest we think that to ‘believe’ here simply means to give our mental approval of Jesus as the one sent by God, the context clarifies what is entailed in this believing.The people had eaten bread which was miraculously provided by Jesus. When he provided the bread, the people did not just look at the bread and believe that the bread existed – they ate it. “I am the bread of life. Those who come to me will never be hungry; ….” says Jesus (vs 35 GNB). There is a ‘coming’ to him. Jesus is not just asking us to believe in his existence as a person sent by God! No, he wants us to, as it were, eat him and digest him into our blood so that he becomes life to us. Food gives life to our mortal bodies only when it is digested into the blood, and not when we look at it and believe in the fact that it exists.

We must come to Jesus, we must give or make ourselves available to him (just as we make our hands, mouths, digestive systems and as a matter of fact, our whole physical bodies available to tangible foods). This way Jesus will penetrate our whole being – heart, soul, mind and body – with himself and with his life-giving words. This is what it means to believe in him who was sent by God. This kind of belief has a purifying effect upon our nature because the Spirit of God comes to indwell us and work within us to produce good works. “But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control. There is no law against such things as these. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have put to death their human nature with all its passions and desires,” writes the apostle Paul to the Galatian church (Gal 5:22&23 GNB).

You can never work your way to earn God’s salvation but you will begin to work out your salvation once you have believed in Christ Jesus because God himself through his Spirit will work in you both to will and to do. Without Jesus Christ you can do nothing remotely worthy of earning your salvation. Have you believed in Jesus Christ, in the sense of allowing him into the deepest parts of your being?

*GNB – Good News Bible, Second edition ©1994.

The Pastor Chris divorce – Modern Christianity and self-deception

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I was hoping that the rumours about Pastor Chris Oyahkhilome’s pending divorce proceedings with his wife Anita may just be one of those things – rumours, until I heard the man himself speak on the subject in a YouTube video. As is normal of human nature, those who love the man will defend him to the hilt in spite of his obvious flaws, and his critics will have found even more reason to be critical of him. I on the other hand choose to do exactly what an American theologian whose opinion I respect, Roger Olsen did about the resignation of a certain Mark Driscoll, a prominent pastor of the American megachurch called Mars Hill – I choose to analyze why this always happens and why without changing how we think about and run churches, these things will happen again and again.

Do not worry when I allude to resignation – I know that there tends to be very little difference between African politicians and a large percentage of African megachurch leaders and I’m not demanding nor expecting Pastor Chris to resign from leading his church in spite of how this does raise a lot of questions about the theology he expounds . What worries me the most is what contemporary Christians have come to expect as “normal” of church and church leaders.

OUR PASTORS ARE SUPERMEN

Modern Christianity is caught in the superstar mentalities of our generation. A number of churches tend to be built more around the personalities of their “founders” than they are built on Jesus Christ himself. It expects (and accept) flawless oratory, knowledge on everything from archeology to zoology, perfect lives and the assumption of perfect and always correct teaching. When I find myself in the company of certain “Christians”, they talk a lot more about their pastors than they do about Jesus and his kingdom. As a result of this elevation of these Christian leaders to the demigod status, they have also gotten it into their heads to demand absolute loyalty to them – whether this is warranted or not. There is this perception that these leaders have received a special “vision” from God about their ministry which cannot be challenged, and so even when they are expressly wrong in what they say and do, it is safer for the contemporary Christian to not ask questions but rather behave like sheep in a herd. It deludes Christians that there is safety in numbers and would rather not be the ones that ask questions. We therefore overtly support our leaders in their abusive and non-Jesus-like behaviour, all in a flawed interpretation of “touch not my anointed”.

 CELIBACY IS EVIL

Modern Christianity has somehow gotten it into its mind that a conscious decision to remain single in the service of the kingdom of God is bad. It views young men and women who are not married as second class citizens of our churches although we don’t realize that’s what we are doing. This is however in contrast to Jesus and Paul the apostle’s own attitude to marriage and divorce represented by Mt 19:1-11 and 1 Cor 7:1-16 respectively. This is summed up in 2 opposites, either stay married (and fulfill all your marital requirements as expected of you – “the husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise wife to her husband”) or be single so one can devote oneself to working for the Kingdom of God. If celibacy was still an option amongst contemporary Christian leaders, then those who feel marriage is not for them as well as our “supermen” pastors can save us all the crocodile tears they cry when, to use the American expression “it all goes south” in their marriages. There really is very little room to maneuver biblically when it comes to divorce, so let ALL Christians (not just the mere mortals amongst us) be sure that marriage is what they want and they should be willing to stick with it.

HUMILITY IS OVERRATED

Contrary to what pertains today, early Christianity was very unique and in some ways weird for being amongst the earliest religions that propound humility as a virtue. In the Greco-Roman world of the 1st century, pride was the norm, not the exception. For those who think “if you’ve got it flaunt it” is a modern notion, you will be mistaken to know that Epicureanism already had the goods on that one. The notion that we are all frail and worthless human beings who have somehow been favoured by God to be called into his kingdom, and who although redeemed by Jesus are still susceptible to these failures was central to the mindset of early Christianity. Peter the apostle, who received a lesson or two about humility from none other than Jesus himself, had a lot to say to both leaders and members of the church in his letter of 1st Peter chapter 5. To the leaders he says “Be shepherds of God’s flock … not lording it over one another but being examples to the flock” (v 2-3). To the whole church he says “all of you clothe yourselves with humility to one another”(v 5). Hence the notion of the body with many parts and all contributing their bit to build that body up.

Modern Christianity on the other hand, not realizing it has bought into Enlightenment ideologies and its earlier antecedent of Epicureanism, is fraught with pride, with people feeling they are special and should be treated as such. Showing oneself to be vulnerable and therefore actively taking steps (and not just “talking humility”) to make sure that our lives, both as leaders of the church and as ordinary Christians are open to questioning, change and support by others is out of the question.

It is because of this knowledge of frailty and the fact that one man can’t do it all that early Christians preferred a group of elders guiding the church than the CEO style leadership we are running today. This spreads the load of doing the work of God, and allows leaders to also lead normal lives and have time for their wives like the rest of us if they were married. But today’s “CEOisque” Church leaders must write devotionals, write their own “bibles”, preach every Sunday, be the only public voice of the church, attend every meeting, write books, be the church administrator and monitor church finances to boot.

OUR PASTOR/CHURCH IS THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD

Together with this lack of personal humility is an arrogance of theology that can sometimes be nauseating. Christianity has existed for well over 2000 years now, and yet some modern Christians think that what their pastor/church teaches today is the only (best/perfect) revealed truth. Whenever I personally question some Christians on their knowledge of Christian history, I’m scandalized by the monumental levels of ignorance exhibited. How have we allowed the philosopher George Santayana’s sayings that “those who do not remember the past are bound to repeat them” to be true of us? Even within the last 100 years, many “men of God” (preachers) have faced such spectacular personal failures and from which we must learn lessons, and yet somehow each generation of Christians thinks that it won’t happen to them and doesn’t make structural changes to prevent these things from happening again.

CONCLUSION

Modern Christianity simply sets up our leaders to fail. And when they do, most of us do the 2 things that unreflective human beings do – crucify them for their failure, or go on as if nothing has happened and find some means to excuse them for it by blaming something/someone else.

Instead of simply concluding that the main lesson from this is that “we all need to spend more time with our spouses” as I’ve heard some say, maybe Christianity as whole should be less naive and ask ourselves more critical questions about the structures we have adopted that lead to these failures. We can start by admitting to ourselves the possibility that we might be slightly insane. After all a certain wise scientist once said that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.

Maybe we need to admit that some humility is required of us, and expect the same of our leaders. Maybe we need to ask ourselves if celebrity pastors are what the church needs, or people who are just mere mortals like you and me will suffice. Maybe we need to take Jesus Christ seriously that Christian leadership must not be one that lords it over and exercises authority over its people like the gentiles do (Mk 10:42). Maybe instead of the categories of “men of God”, “preachers” and “the rest of us”, Christians will be more satisfied with “brothers and sisters in the Lord who need each other”. That way when we fail, we can have the guts to say “I’m sorry”.

Because it actually takes men of courage to recognize their mistakes and to apologize for them. That is the way of the Lamb, must we not follow it?

“Obia Nto Ne Collection”: Reflections On Castro and The Ghanaian God

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Author: Edem Morny

It has been a over a month now since the sad disappearance of the celebrated “Castro the Destroyer” and his female friend Janet Bandu whiles taking a ride on the Volta River in Ada. Many are the speculations as to what may have happened to them, and whiles the families of these 2 continue to hold out hope for their reappearance, the rest of the world can only mourn them and go on with life as usual. As is always common with the death/disappearance of any musician, their songs, especially the most recent hits become superhits with much airplay, and Castro’s “Adonai” song with Sarkodie is no exception. Paying more attention to this song vis-a-vis Castro’s demise certainly raises a lot of questions which we can either wish away, or confront somehow, and some of which I want to address here.

The song is indeed a good song melodically, and one can’t help dancing, tapping, nodding or singing along. However, one of the gifts of music is it’s ability to make you enjoy it without paying attention to it’s lyrics, and this song achieves this masterfully. I managed to find the lyrics dutifully written out here, which you can peruse yourself. Paying closer attention to them, one gets the impression that Castro together with his friend Sarkodie are praising God for making them the successful people they are today. In this attempt to praise God, they address their “enemies” or people who they suppose didn’t wish them well in life, and not only openly flaunt their vaunted success at these “enemies”, but also make a few disparaging comments about the inferiority of these “enemies” in comparison to them. All the while, Castro’s chorus continues to hook us in with its praise of God, encouraging us not to “lose guard”. All in all a brilliant musical composition no doubt.

First of all I’m not in the least bit surprised by the words of this song. It is the well established pattern in hip-hop culture to flaunt the “success” you’ve become and “diss” your perceived detractors. Coming from a people who have not only felt but experienced systemic poverty and economic marginalization, black American hip-hop culture has always felt that the music was a means to not only speak of the musician’s credentials as a bona fide “hustler who has made it”, but to rub everyone else’s nose in it, especially their perceived enemy. And so I’d rather have been surprised if Ghanaian hip-hop/hip-life songs like “Adonai” didn’t follow the pattern. In this respect, Sarkodie and Castro can pat themselves on the back for a good job done. But what happens when one says “Me nwuu y3 de3 na Nana Nyame te ase” (i.e. so far as I’m not dead, God is still alive) and dies a few months later? Shall we conclude that God is dead? Or more appropriately, shall we conclude that YOUR GOD is dead?

Ghanaians are known be a very religious people, if not one of the most religious in the world. In a country with over 65% claiming to be Christian, the term “God” tends to evoke the idea of the Christian conception of God. And yet I find that in much of Ghanaian discourse, the “God” we refer to is a god of our own creation, not the God revealed to us through the person of Jesus Christ. And to be frank, everyone worships one god or the other, even if they were atheists. So I don’t have a problem if we are referring to any number of these gods. But if we think we are referring to Jehovah as revealed through the person and ministry of Jesus, then we really need to think again.

Are we referring to the same Jehovah revealed through Jesus the Messiah, who told his disciples not only love their enemies but actually pray for them who persecute them, including the Roman soldiers who were persecuting them then (Mt 5:44)?

Are we referring to the same Jehovah revealed through Jesus the Messiah, who encourages his disciples that if forced (again by a Roman soldier, as they were legally empowered to do so) to carry a load one mile, they should carry it two miles (Mt 5:41)?

Are we talking about the same Jehovah revealed through Jesus the Messiah, who says that in his kingdom, blessed are the poor, those who are hungry, those who weep, those who are outcast (Lk 6:20-22), not because these states are states of bliss, but that in his kingdom now and in the future these people will experience reprieve from their troubles?

Are we talking about the same Jehovah revealed through Jesus the Messiah, who says the one thing that will mark his disciples out for the world to see is if they love one another (Jn 13:34-35)?

Or the same one who says the rich will have it much harder to enter into his kingdom (Mt 19:16-19), not because riches are bad, but can and has become a god that people, including musicians, serve?

Because if we are talking about this Jehovah, then he is not the one I see thanks being made to in Castro and Sarkodie’s song. And like I said, that’s alright, because everyone can create their own god and serve them and sing to them as they wish. But let not those who claim to follow Jehovah as revealed by Jesus the Messiah be fooled. They are talking about a different god. They are talking about the god of Ghanaian culture aka the Ghanaian God, under the cover of the Jewish title “Adonai”. For those who know which god they are referring to, at least they can enjoy their music and put on the appropriate filters when we hear “Nyame” and “Adonai” being mentioned. But for many ignorant ones, therein lies an even greater deception.

Because there is very little difference between songs like  “Adonai” and a host of other “gospel” songs that plague the airwaves today. A large majority of our supposed “gospel musicians” today are so clueless as to what they are singing about, supposing that they are singing about Jehovah as revealed by Jesus. No, they are singing about the Ghanaian God,

The Ghanaian God who is more worried about your enemies and their annihilation than he is about their redemption from sin and death. Who seems to be powerless in the face of “Abeyifuo” , “Kabrekyire” and “Obonsam”. The Ghanaian God who is a genie that exists to satisfy our personal agenda, working only for our personal success, whiles mowing down our enemies. The Ghanaian God who gives us riches so we can spend only on our extravagance, and watch our neighbours go to sleep hungry. The Ghanaian God who delights in tribalism and divisiveness, who doesn’t mind if we are corrupt at work so we can pay big tithes in church. The Ghanaian God who demands all our loyalty to this country only, so that you hardly ever hear Ghanaian Christians thinking, praying or working to alleviate the suffering that other Christians are going through in other countries. And when that Ghanaian God dies as he supposedly has in Castro’s case, we simply pretend nothing has happened and continue with business as usual.

There is definitely a god that most Ghanaian Christians serve, but I’m not sure his real name is Yahweh, whose son is Jesus Christ the King. No, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob left the building a long time ago. We are only feverishly serving a local substitute.

Constructing the circle of faith

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Author: John A. Turkson

Looking back some five years ago, in Junior High School, Pre-technical Skills was one of my favourite subjects; specifically the Technical drawing aspect of it. I don’t know how they call it these days, considering the frequent alterations in our curricula over these past few years.  There was something special about following all those given instructions to construct various fascinating figures, the precision that came with practicing, the accuracy you needed to employ in your drawing to gain the highest mark, the habit you needed to form to present the neatest work possible, the instruments you needed, even the wide range of pencils required to perform specific tasks. Those were the days; when you’d go to school carrying your big drawing board as if you were that architect chosen by God to draw the plan of an entire new world!

 It sounds funny at first, but that is exactly who we are: architects chosen by God to draw for the world to see His grand blue-print of love! With the tip of the compass firmly planted in Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, we Christians are supposed to describe certain circles in the world with our lives. Christ must be the centre! Christ must necessarily be our focus and salvation, our goal! But all we see in the ‘goalpost’ today are ‘balls’ of gospels about wealth, work promotions, favours, concocted prophesies etc. when the purpose of the gospel message is to reach as many as we can with God’s gift of salvation. Christ is no more the centre and without the centre, a circle does not exist! As tiny as that point is, Jesus, His death and resurrection—the gospel—holds us together in one piece. When our lives are void of this key ingredient, we are lost in the haze of hopelessness and like a lead-less pencil, our lives are pointless. Jesus must be the focus!

 Johannes Kepler, upon analyzing the astronomical observations of one Tycho Brahe proposed three laws supposed to describe the nature of planetary motion. In the first law, he asserted that the orbit of a planet was elliptical with the Sun at one of the two foci. An ellipse is an almost-circle with two ‘centres’ called foci (singular: focus). At one of these foci, in our solar system, the Sun holds the planets in place. Christianity is a kind of solar system in which Jesus is the Sun. The strategic position of the Sun is imperative to our survival. As it stands now, the Earth is hanging in space because it is suspended by threads of gravitation from the Sun; likewise the other planets. It’s been said about Jesus, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17, ESV). Jesus is our Sun, around whom we are supposed to revolve. Without him, we shall fall. Apart from him, we’d sink into darkness. But today, we hear about preachers instead of Jesus. The gospel which will lead to salvation has become relegated to the appendix session of our sermons when in the life of the early church, it was the main theme (Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, Paul’s famous Athenian sermon in Acts 17:16-31 and many more throughout the book of Acts). Apart from the Vine, the branches are as useful as firewood! If we are indeed bearing fruit apart from the Vine, I shudder to think we have decayed for some opportunistic multicellular fungus like mushroom to sprout on our ‘skin’! Have we not been deceived enough already? Look within and examine yourself: is Jesus at the centre?

 After the rains have fallen, the winged reproductive termites will want to congregate around a source of light. This forms part of their ‘nuptial’ flight ritual. In the process, they lose their wings. This mode of life is natural. The termite species will not survive without this process the same way we the branches cannot do without the Vine. Apart from the Vine, we lose our wings of faith. We lose our wings when we choose to hover around some drugging ‘miraculous’ light lit to trap our attention from the real Bull’s-eye, Jesus. Jesus promised us he’d send us a comforter, the Holy Spirit. Even as we believe Jesus has sent forth His Spirit to enable us bear fruit, the Holy Spirit will only flow through us through the Vine and not apart from Him. Jesus still remains a chief part of the equation! After all, the Holy Spirit was promised through Jesus to empower the Church (Acts 1:8)  to further the cause of reaching far and near with the gospel—that Jesus, died and resurrected and that it is only in believing in him that we are saved (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). The various gifts the Holy Spirit stirs in us are not to be used for amassing wealth, or procuring passports or visas, or promotions. The message must not be about how God wants us to be wealthy (really?), about prosperity, success etc but must be about Jesus in the right concentration—the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-11). The dilution thereof makes the ‘solution’ fake (Galatians 1:6-10). The centre must be Jesus, otherwise the fruit is wrong and the bearer, false! (2 John1:9-11).

 Today, the Prophet, the Apostle, the Miracle worker and the Teacher are the celebrities. Where is Jesus? Today, we can only have faith when we have that ‘special’ wrist band on our wrist, that white handkerchief, or that bottle of ‘anointing’ oil, or that ‘Florida’ water. Where is the Author and Finisher of our faith? Today, it’s all about prophesies and miracles (I am in no way saying they are not real. God reveals to redeem. He also works awesome miracles) but have we forgotten about the fruit of the Spirit; about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; the very ingredients that make us Christians? Have you even examined that Prophet and seen the fruit in him? What did Paul really mean in 1 Corinthians 12:28-31? What is the most excellent way? In the subsequent chapter, we read about love. Does that celebrity Preacher come to mind as a lover of the needy, friend of the widow or a vendor of the recipe to prosperity? Or Jesus does— the pure definition of love? Is Jesus at the centre of the web of ‘spirituality’ you are entangled in?

 Jesus still stands in the centre of time—He virtually holds history together with wood drenched in His blood. Blood He shed for you and I to earn a place at the centre of our hearts. Where is Jesus in relation to your life—outside that circle, inside somewhere or at the centre?

 In constructing that circle of faith in your life, Jesus MUST be the centre. Without Him, “things fall apart and the centre cannot hold”!

Unmasking the Prosperity Gospel

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Author: Robert G. Coleman

About two and a half decades ago, the popular Christian message that one often heard in Ghana was about salvation, and this was traditionally presented as relating to sin, righteousness and eternal life. The call then was “Repent and accept Jesus and you will be saved.” Today, in many places, salvation is presented as an experience with Jesus Christ that will give us the tools and power to be successful in life, enable us rub shoulders with rich non-Christians and make us happy. In addition, the understanding of the word “faith” has also been changed. Faith used to be seen as a living trust in God so that even when things did not go well, we still trusted in the Lord. Today, faith is understood in many quarters as a power or force that is used to get anything we want. This modern interpretation of the gospel is what theologians call the Prosperity Gospel.

This gospel may be presented in different forms and even with different words, depending on who is preaching it, but the core of the message is that Jesus died so that the one who believes in him will become materially or financially wealthy and will never fall sick. Some of this gospel’s oft-used vocabularies include “sow a seed,” “abundance,” “breakthrough,” “anointing for success,” “inheritance,” “prophesy into your life,” “you are destined for greatness,” “claim it by faith,” “positive confession,” etc. Another unique thing about this gospel is that it thrives on changing or playing with the meaning of particular words. The meanings of scriptural verses are often twisted in order to present a semblance of biblical grounding for the prosperity gospel’s non-biblical message.

He Became Poor So That You Might Be Rich

Prosperity preachers usually tell their hearers that God wants them to be rich or to have material abundance. It is not uncommon to hear them use a verse like 2 Corinthians 8:9 which teaches that Jesus became poor so that those who believe in him might be rich. But did the author, Apostle Paul, actually mean that Jesus’ agenda for his followers was to make them rich materially or financially? Ironically, the reason why Paul even brought up this issue was because he was seeking for donations to help the believers in Judea, who were in need. Now think about it, if believers in Christ are automatically to be materially rich just because Jesus “became poor,” as it were, then why were the believers in Judea so in need that Paul had to get the assistance of the churches in Macedonia and Corinth (2 Cor. 8:1-4, 8-15). If it was case that the believers in Judea had failed to “claim their inheritance or birthright,” as the prosperity gospel language goes, all Paul needed to do was to tell them to either “claim it by faith” or “prophesy it into their lives,” but he did not do this because this was not the kind of Christianity he was preaching. It is also worth noting that the apostle made particular mention of the fact that the churches in Macedonia gave generously “even though they are very poor” (vs. 2 GNB) and he meant this in terms of material wealth (vs. 3).

In verse 9 however, when he uses the word “rich” he does not imply financial or material wealth. The context bears witness. He clearly states what he means by “rich” in verse 7 of the same passage: “You are so rich in all you have: in faith, speech, and knowledge, in your eagerness to help and in your love for us.” GNB. There is no mention, literal or implied, of material riches here. Indeed if by “rich” Paul had meant material or financial riches then his actions would be either a joke or an insult to the Judea believers, on whose behalf he was asking for donations, because they would already be materially rich by virtue of Christ having “become poor.” But the prosperity preachers have a different agenda: they want the believer in Christ to see riches as a birthright, something to be grasped, something the Christian is entitled to. But this only leads many believers to disillusionment, because when God has not promised something and you force yourself to believe that he has, disappointment is inevitable in the long run.

The Blessing Of Abraham

It is also common to hear prosperity preachers make reference to the blessing of Abraham in the book of Genesis, in the Old Testament. At the same time these preachers are inclined to use Galatians 3:29, in the New Testament, which says that “If you belong to Christ then you are the descendants of Abraham and will receive what God has promised” (GNB) to explain why they believe a Christian ought to be materially rich and fulfilled as Abraham was. A successful linking of this passage in Galatians to the Genesis narrative about Abraham’s blessings seems to provide a solid foundation for preaching material prosperity in the Church today. But there are some important things to note here.

What really is the blessing of Abraham? Abraham is called blessed in Galatians not because he received prosperity or material wealth or good health. Instead he is called blessed because he believed God and God accepted him, on the basis of his faith, as righteous (Gal. 3:6). It is this “righteous” status that the apostle Paul has in mind when he says that all who believe are blessed as Abraham was (Gal 3:9). Any person who believes in Jesus today is blessed because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him. Galatians 3:13&14 explains: “But by becoming a curse for us Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the Law brings; for the scripture says, ‘Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God’s curse. Christ did this in order that the blessing which God promised Abraham might be given to the Gentiles by means of Christ Jesus, so that through faith we might receive the Spirit promised by God.” GNB [Emphasis mine]

Paul’s meaning of “God’s promise to Abraham” is very clear. He does not have in his mind any idea about Abraham’s material blessing nor does he allow room for extending the meaning of this phrase beyond Abraham’s spiritual blessing of righteousness to include “everything” (Gen. 24:1) else in Abraham’s life, like the prosperity preachers like to do. The promise of blessing for the whole human race through Abraham, according to the Spirit-filled Apostle Paul is spiritual not worldly – it is the receipt of the Spirit promised by God. Interestingly, the author of Galatians, Apostle Paul, whose words prosperity preachers like to use to justify their material wealth preaching, actually wrote disapprovingly about people who try to interpret the Christian faith materialistically in 1 Timothy 6:5-12 saying:

“…They think that religion is a way to become rich. Well, religion does make us very rich, if we are satisfied with what we have. What did we bring into the world? Nothing! What can we take out of the world? Nothing! So then, if we have food and clothes that should be enough for us. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and are caught in the trap of many foolish and harmful desires, which pull them down to ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows. But you, man of God, avoid all these things. Strive for righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Run your best in the race of faith, and win eternal life for yourself; for it was to this life that God called you when you firmly professed your faith before many witnesses.”(GNB) [Emphasis mine].

Paul lifts the attention of his readers from the material to what really matters – the fruits of the Holy Spirit: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.

Sickness

Typical prosperity gospel does not allow room for a believer to get sick. It claims that a Christian, full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit and who has favour from the Lord simply cannot get sick; Jesus has redeemed the believer from every disease. Thus if you get sick it must be because of your sin or unfaithfulness. But as if to refute the prosperity gospel on this particular point, the Bible contains a record of several godly men (both those who can be described as physical seeds of Abraham and those who are spiritual seeds of Abraham) who suffered sickness yet the Scriptures put no blame on them: Elisha, a man with the “double portion anointing” died of a fatal disease (2 Kings 13:14); King Hezekiah, a man described as one who did what was pleasing to the Lord (2 Kings 18:3), actually got sick and almost died (2 Kings 20:1); Timothy, Apostle Paul’s son in the faith, had frequent stomach problems (1 Tim 5:23); Trophimus, one of the early Christians, was left in Miletus by Paul because he was ill (2 Tim 4:20); Epaphroditus, Paul’s fellow worker in the faith, fell ill and almost died (Philippians 2:25-30); the great Apostle Paul himself got ill physically (Gal 4:13). If the Prosperity preachers’ teaching is true then we must question whether the apostle Paul (whose letters we consider as part of Scripture) and his colleagues in the early church, who got sick, were truly the seeds of Abraham or even Christians at all.

Conclusion

In a developing country like Ghana, where many people struggle financially and with health issues, and where a lot of young people are upwardly mobile, the Prosperity Gospel sounds appealing and inspiring. But it would be in our interest to heed the warnings of Scripture and also the warning of Jim Bakker, the former American prosperity preacher, whose ministry was hit by financial scandals in the 1980s and was subsequently imprisoned. From prison, he repentantly wrote in a letter saying: “It’s time the call from the pulpit be changed from ‘Who wants a life of pleasure and good things, new homes, cars, material possessions etc?’ to ‘Who will come forward to accept Jesus Christ and the fellowship of his suffering?’ … I believe the heart of God is grieved when we cannot delay self-gratification for earthly things in exchange for life in eternity with Him.” Having deceived masses of people, Jim Bakker finally saw the light. I hope the prosperity preachers of our day and their sympathizers will also come to the same realization before it is too late. C. H. Spurgeon once insightfully noted that, “The old covenant was a covenant of prosperity. The new covenant is a covenant of adversity whereby we are being weaned from this present world and made meet for the world to come.”

While Biblical Christianity does not teach believers to actively seek poverty or sickness, it does warn against seeking worldly riches (2 Tim. 6:9&10) and worldly fulfilment (Matt. 16:26) and also entreats Christians to pray for the sick and care for the poor, both within the Church and outside of it. In the Christian life, whatever the believer does, he is to work at it with all his heart as though he were working for God and not for human beings (Col. 3:23). Hard work is encouraged. In the end, however, whether a believer becomes rich or poor or in-between, sick or healthy, the important thing is to have a living trust in Jesus. Faith, in the Christian sense, is a confidence in Jesus Christ and in his power so that even when his power does not take away the unpleasantness you face in this world, your confidence in him remains because of who Jesus is. He is a loving God who can be trusted to always do what is good for those who belong to him.

The Two Kingdoms

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I’m sure to most Christians, this title will evoke thoughts of the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of darkness. Well, you have every right to. However, my thoughts today are not focused on a comparison of those two, much us they do exist in the Christian conversation. Today, my focus is on the kingdom coming and the kingdom come, because in as much as we do mention the coming kingdom in our discourse, there seems very little mention of the kingdom come, and it’s effects on our lives, attitudes and actions.

The Gospels do make use of the phrase “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven” very often (in fact over 50 times), but have we ever stopped to ask what exactly it is, and what it meant to those in Jesus Christ’s day? Today you hardly hear a message from the pulpit about this kingdom, yet the Gospels are full of Jesus saying “the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. Secondly, Jesus does inform us that his kingdom is not only a far away reality, but one in which we now live in as a result of his coming onto the earth – “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you”.Luke 17:20-21 (KJV). I prefer “among you” rather, but then I digress.

One of the clear statements about the kingdom come (not the future “kingdom coming”) is recorded in Luke 4:16. After Jesus has been presented with a scroll of Isaiah the prophet in a Nazarene synagogue, he proceeds to read from what we now know as Isaiah 61.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” (Luke 4:18-19 NIV).

He then proceeds to say that this prophecy is fulfilled in him. Isaiah 61 has always been considered a Messianic prophecy, speaking of what the Messiah will do when he establishes his kingdom. Therefore once Jesus read that and says that “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”, he was without doubt stating the claim that he was the Messiah, though he didn’t say it directly. And if that was so, then the kingdom of the Messiah prophesied by the prophets was not just a future realization, but a real thing now. No wonder the people were amazed – because the hope of their fathers is about to be fulfilled in their age.

And trust me, the people were truly waiting for a Messiah, for most of them were quite despondent. They had just returned some centuries back from exile, and weren’t being ruled again by the house of David any more, but by all kinds of other leaders – from the Hasmonean dynasty (from the Judas Maccabeus lineage) to the Herodian one (King Herod, Herod Agrippa etc), both of which were at least Jewish; to being directly ruled by Roman appointees like Pontius Pilate. Their High Priest was no longer from the family of Zadok in the tribe of Levi as was always the case historically, but now could be any person who could pay the highest bribe to the current political leader.

And their Roman rulers were exacting quite a heavy toll on them. Apart from having to pay their normal temple tax i.e. tithe (which in those days was more than the 10% we have come to accept today, but rather closer to 23%), they were now also supposed to pay tax to the Romans (hence tax collectors like Zaccheus and Levi). And the religious fundamentalists, referred to as the Zealots, who felt that it was unlawful for God’s people to be ruled by Gentiles, and for them to be paying taxes to them and the like, were continuously formenting trouble by violently attacking Roman installations and symbols of Roman rule, as well as anyone of the leaders of the Jews who they felt were predisposed to Roman manipulation. Barrabas who was exchanged for Jesus Christ is a typical example.

This and a whole lot more meant that a lot of people were looking forward to someone who could come and break the chains of bondage that Rome had put on them, and set them free. They were looking for a political solution, and really looked to the old days of the David and Solomon etc. as the golden days. In this light then, indeed they could not have understood Jesus in any other way.

And yet the most striking part about Jesus claiming of Isaiah 61 is his stopping short of the rest of the v 2, specifically “and the day of vengeance of our God”. To most people, without an exacting of “the vengeance of our God”, there was no way the current political situation of slavery to Rome will change. But Jesus didn’t go in that direction, for he came this time to achieve something, and that must be achieved in this dispensation. He never said the day of vengeance of God will not come, but rather that he had come not to exact judgement, but to extend mercy. This is exactly what the beginning of Isaiah 61 dealt with, but since they were more interested in a political solution involving the removal of Roman rule, the Jews rejected him and crucified him.

But I will not dwell on their rejection, neither will I dwell on the kingdom that is to come in which the vengeance will be exacted, but I will dwell on the Kingdom Come, the Kingdom Now. For it is entirely possible (as is evident throughout history to date in all nations) for a people to live in sovereignty, but still be plagued with the effects of sin. The question then is what is the nature of the Kingdom Now? Who is a part of the Kingdom Now and what effect should it have on it’s participants?

One of the cardinal requirements of the OT which unfortunately most Israelites were reluctant to apply for very obvious reasons was the Jubilee. Every 7 years, Israelites were to leave the land fallow for it to regenerate. After 7 cycles of such 7 years i.e. 49 years, the 50th year should be declared a year of liberty, a Jubilee (Lev 25). No farming was to be done, every Jew sold into slavery was to be freed and all land sold to another person as a result of poverty and need was to be returned. This was to afford the people a chance to start again, and in that vain was truly called a year of liberty. See Unger’s Bible Dictionary on Jubilee:

“It would seem that there must have been a perfect remission of all debts in the year of Jubilee from the fact that all persons who were in bondage for debt, as well as all landed property of debtors, were freely returned. Thus the Jubilee year become one of freedom and grace for all suffering, bringing not only redemption to the captive and deliverance from want to the poor, but also release to the congregation of the Lord form the sore labour of the earth, and representing the time of refreshing (Ac 3:19) which the Lord provides for his people. For in this year every kind of oppression was to cease and every member of the covenant people find his Redeemer in the Lord, who brings him back to his possession and family.” (Festivals, Jubilee, pp 352, Unger’s Bible Dictionary)

It is evident from the above that the prophet Isaiah had the restoration of the Jubilee in mind in the 61st chapter of his prophecies, and Jesus wouldn’t have disappointed in re-quoting him. Evidence of the fact that Jesus had the same thing in mind is expounded in the Lord’s prayer, which when properly interpreted, should read:

“Remit us our debts, as we ourselves have also remitted them to our debtors”(Matt 6:12)

and not the “spiritualized” version that we were taught in Sunday school referring to “sins” instead.

“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”

Note that all of these requirements of the Jubilee were not to be implemented by God, but by the people themselves. God wasn’t going to work a miracle to set the enslaved Israelite free or get back the poor man’s land for him. The requirement was enshrined in the law that they obey. Therefore the poor, the captive and the heartbroken would receive their release based on the willingness of their fellow brethren to adhere to this set down law.

It is noted by OT and NT historians alike that this was one of the most difficult practices for the people of Israel, especially for the well-to-do. In fact, many people just ignored it, and some tried to create loop holes in the law to escape canceling debts owed or releasing land back to their owners. We could go into how they achieved these except that time and space will not allow us to. But the point is moot that such observance was very minimal as the years went by. No wonder then that people (including the prophet Isaiah himself) expected that in that Messianic kingdom, this Messiah will enforce the observance of these laws, bringing freedom to the poor, captive and destitute.

I posit and believe you will agree with me the notion that the Kingdom Now is experienced in the body of Christ – his church. The question that lies before us then is that if we do claim to be living in the Kingdom Come, whiles we wait for the Kingdom Coming, how far have we gone in our practice of the Kingdom Come’s requirements?

For it is within the church that the poor are able to live out the good news – where they are counted worthy of participation in the riches of the kingdom which the king has placed at the disposal of the rich amongst them. It is within the church that the broken hearted receive strength endued from the Son to know that they are also loved and cherished no matter where they have been and what they’ve done before coming to him. And I’m not talking about the individual feeling that Jesus loves them alone, but also that they are in a community of people who love them as much as Christ does. It is within the church that captives and prisoners are integrated into a community of brethren who open their doors and their lives to them, instead of treating them like castaways. It is within the church that the healing power of Jesus Christ is experienced, when all hope is lost. It is within the church that the class barriers and elitism is broken, not built up and entrenched.

And then to my favourite part of Christ’s radical declaration: It is in the church that the year of the Lord’s favour can be truly experienced. I know what some of my friends think with any whiff of reference to “the Lord’s favour”, but it is very evident here that the year of the Lord’s favour is not about the individualistic name-it-claim-it that we are used to. In fact, it is quite socially radical than our own myopic personal circumstances lead us to dwell upon.

Maybe it’s time we begin to think of how Jesus intends we fulfil his kingdom that is amongst us. Maybe it’s time we put our money where our mouths are and create systems that liberate, not enslave men and women who belong to Christ. Just like the Jubilee, God is not going to do a miracle to have his kingdom established amongst us. We have to accept the guidance of his word and Spirit, as it leads us into self-sacrifice and servanthood for the advancement of each other in fulfilling the purpose that Christ himself has already said – “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”. It requires a change in our attitudes, priorities, desires and wishes. So, any pundits for the Kingdom Come?

Is ‘Trinity’ An Unwarranted Complication On The Christian Message?

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“… no doctrine more effectively demarcates biblical Christianity from a variety of modern cults.  Given the historical and contemporary significance of the doctrine, it is lamentable that many Christians today are unable to provide an account of the doctrine’s historical development and its present formulation…” –  John Y. Kwak & Douglas Geivett.

I, like many others in the Christian faith, do believe in the Trinity. But like someone humorously observed, “we often pray to the Trinity that nobody would question us about the Trinity”. Indeed the doctrine is felt by some to be an unnecessary complication imposed on the simple belief in the God. It is understandable but this does not warrant its dismissal by Christians. The fact that we do not understand something does not mean it is not true or real. But to be frank, it is hard to grasp a total understanding of it, isn’t it?  That notwithstanding, I still think we can get a rough idea which can go to strengthen our faith and also help us explain the Christian faith better to those seeking some answers.

In their article Trinity: A Historical and Theological Analysis John Y. Kwak and Douglas Geivett  note that key texts in the Bible about God’s nature fall into three groups:

“(1) those that stress continuity with Jewish monotheism in affirming that there is only one God (Mk 12:29; Rom 3:29-30; 1 Cor 8:4; 1 Tim 2:5; Jas 2:19), (2) those that represent the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three distinct individuals or persons (Mt 11:27; 26:39; 28:19; Mk 1:9-12; Lk 11:13; Jn 14:16-17, 26), and (3) those that variously refer to God in the person of the Father (Mt 6:9; cf. Is 63:16), the Son (Jn 1:1-3, 18; 20:28; Rom 9:5; Col 1:15-20; Tit 2:13; Heb 1:1-4, 8-12; 1 Jn 5:20), or the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4).  From these texts it is clear that the New Testament church, without yet formulating with precision the doctrine of the Trinity, fully endorsed the three key theological strands that would later be woven into a tight doctrinal cord: only one God exists; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons; and the title “God” befits each of them.”

The Trinity does present a mystery, but as one of the great philosophers and legal scholars of our time, Mortimer Adler, noted, “Any knowledge of God would be expected to bring both rudimentary clarity and legitimate mystery”. God is the basis of all reality and so his nature and his activity should provide an adequate explanation for what we see and experience in life.

There is a disturbing realization one gets from studying the Bible, on the issue of God’s nature. It becomes unambiguously clear that the God found in the biblical pages is not one that would fit our normal understanding of a ‘person’ as in an individual – one who can only be in one place at a time, is bound by space and changes over time through growth. For we see three persons, all portrayed as being One God together – eternal and infinite in all attributes possessed and also changeless in nature; they do not do things independent of the other. There is obviously a plurality going on in that one word ‘God’. Now some believers, I suspect, believe that we have a singular God who manifested himself over the cause of history in three forms – initially as the Father, then later as the Son and currently he is manifesting as Holy Spirit. But the Bible itself does not postulate a theory of a singular God revealing himself as three persons, each one coming into being after the last one has finished his job. From Genesis to Revelation it is demonstrated that these three persons are eternally co-existing and they work together. So it is not one God manifesting in three different forms over time, one after the other, but rather three persons manifesting their indivisible Oneness of being. “Us” is the word God uses in the creation story at the point when man is about to be created (Genesis 1:26). Yet in the rest of the Old Testament we mostly see God using “I”.

The Theory in Practice

As suggested earlier, what God is like in his being and activity ought to provide an adequate explanation for all that we see and experience. Let us look at a concept which we are all too familiar with – LOVE. Love is the embodiment of all virtue and the highest expression of godliness (indeed the greatest commandment of God tells us to love). God, being God, should not have to depend upon his creation to actualize his capacity to love, for that would make creation as important as the Creator since the Creator would be incomplete without his creation. But the Bible introduces love as an interpersonal quality requiring a subject-object relationship and this is what is shown in the Triune relationship of Father-Son- Holy Spirit. The Trinitarian God (which is the God preached by Christianity) is complete in his love relationship without reference to his creation. The Father loved the Son before the creation of the world (John 17:24). “Beloved let us love for God is love”, admonishes the Apostles John (1 John 4:7-8). I am convinced that the very concept of Love is explained satisfactorily only in the Christian worldview for it is embodied in God himself, the first cause of everything in the created world. On this score alone Christianity stands unrivalled and is therefore a serious contender in the world of ideas.

Looking through John 5:19-27; 16:13-15 is just fascinating. The Father entrusts all things to the Son: his authority, his power over life and judgment. But the Son will not do anything by himself; he will only do what he sees the Father doing. The Spirit will not speak of himself nor seek his own glory. He will bring glory to Jesus by taking what belongs to Jesus and showing them to us. Three self-giving, self-effacing persons constitute the amazing God whom Christians worship! Like the noted Christian Apologist, Dr. Ravi Zacharias often says, it is only in the Christian worldview that the concept of Unity in diversity can be explained in the very first cause – God Himself; we find unity in diversity in the community of the Trinity. It is this aspect of God’s character that we seek to reflect in our life and walk as the Church of Jesus Christ. Indeed Jesus, the head of the Church prayed to the father saying “I gave them the same glory you gave me, so that they may be one, just as you and I are one …” – John 17:22.

I still cannot claim a full understanding of the concept of Trinity but I do find comfort in the words of Mortimer Adler that any knowledge of God would be expected to bring both rudimentary clarity as well as legitimate mystery. God has given enough information to the world that makes having faith in him reasonable. A Christian thus has reason to confidently proclaim and defend the Christian faith in the market place of ideas.