Suboomi Plumptre. (Photo Credit: lawnigeria.com)
Sometime ago, Subomi Plumptre, a ‘social media denizen’, ‘sapiosexual’ and ‘brand-strategist’ with a leading branding outfit recently let loose a massive volume of tweets (at least 60 tweets made up of about 1,200 words! – not characters), under 24 hours. She entitled it –‘Sifts: Thoughts in April’.
She tackled just about everything she perceived as the failings of ‘Christianity’. She was also not shy as to what her change or shift for the Church MUST BE. This is a Bible-based Ethics-check reviewing her ideas of ‘failings’ and ‘change’.
In this piece, Sam Eleanya replies her audacious outrage.
Each relevant tweet is numbered and reproduced below – singly or in sense-units – and directly reviewed as short as possible.
#1 -He who owns the media owns the minds of the generation. As long as Christians don’t produce culturally relevant content they [should not] complain
No Subomi. All the combined power of the global media has nothing over a Christian elected and born again by the Holy Spirit and well-taught in Scriptures by godly parents and//or Pastors and who lives and fellowships with God-revering group of believers. None. Impossible. S/He is kept by the Power of God. S/he is Precious and Elect. Jesus said of such: “if it were AT ALL POSSIBLE, even the Elect would be deceived”. The Lord is faithful to keep His own until he takes them home in GLORY – not in shame or as part of a desperate rescue mission. Let’s not over-rate the power of the media – but we can discuss its usefulness as a tool. The earth and its fullness thereof (media inclusive) belongs to God. This is not a victim generation. “Guard your heart with all dilligence for out of it flows all the issues of lives” is the unfailing anchor for every Christian in every generation. Even Jesus tells us what corrupts the minds and it is not the media outside.
#2 – Pastors, God is calling on you to speak the truth to people and to stop being afraid of your congregation
Sounds good.
#3. Telling people the truth will not cause them to go haywire with grace. The truth SETS people free. It doesn’t cause them to sin.
Ehm, depends on what you mean. Hope that will be clearer somewhere down below because telling people the truth could cause them to punch your face or even kill you. Remember Paul? “Have I become your enemy because I told you the truth?”. Many have been murdered for daring to tell the truth. The truth is only valuable to those who know its value. You do not cast pearl to swine. Truth-telling cuts no ice with reprobates and apostates. Truth-telling is not always enough: truth-knowing must be its primary objective. It is important that we do not over-rate truth-telling and those who indulge in it. We need teachers and a setting which take truth-telling safely to the land of truth-knowing so that fruits can join the equation
.
#4. Drinking alcohol is NOT a sin. Jesus did NOT drink unfermented wine. Stop lying.
Okay, what a way to start telling TRUTH. This is the TOP truth? That Jesus drank fermented wine. Okay. Sorry Sister. That cannot be true. At least, you and I have no way of knowing. At best, that would be your researched best-guess. When the Bible wanted to talk about bread – it was clear about fermented and unfermented bread, aka leavened and unleavened bread. Nothing about that was said about the wines Jesus drank. So, there. Let’s not add to the Word of Scriptures – even if it is likely to be the truth. There is no blessing for that. If you like your white or red wine, find some good reason to enjoy it. Making Jesus your drinking role-model is not kosher. And talking about alcohol consumption through twitter the way you have done, so flippantly I think, is irresponsible, not to say an insensitive over-simplification of a complex issue. Possibly, you have never dealt with an alcoholic before up-close-and-personal. Or loved ones caught in the midst of the devastation of its collateral damages. Please, find a chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous closest to you and visit before you tweet again on a matter like that for young people to read.
#5. Listening to secular music is not a sin just like watching movies and reading novels are NOT sins. Stop lying.
Sister, even the most decadent nations on earth censor or classify visual or audio contents – as suitable for general viewing/listening, parental guidance, or ‘adult’/X-rated. In Nigeria, certain music and video are legally outlawed for being harmful to the general morality of society. And you say: we should just certify ‘secular’ music as un-sinful – and therefore acceptable and enjoyable? Of course you are wrong. And you should stop lying while screaming ‘stop lying’. A disproportionate number of generic musical or visual contents are sinful. Just a little use of Google would yield the meaning of secularism and the world-view –atheism – undergirding it. Which is the exact opposite of the Christian worldview and its commitments. Christians may enjoy the god-given general grace of good and decent music – and worship God in suitably reverential songs when they meet to fellowship. But secular music and video is for prodigals. Any barely taught Christian knows that.
#6. This generation will challenge lies. We do not only have the Bible, we now have Google too! We can search out the truth.
Chere!!! That’s the Igbo word for ‘wait’. So now, it is Google. Soon something better than Google will come and yet men will still drown in lies unable to find truth even with the billions of materials on truth, God and Jesus available. Reason? Because it is in the Bible that it has pleased God to enthrone Truth. And it may interest you that this generation, or any generation for that matter, is not wired to challenge lies. No generation is. Only those who are led by the Spirit of God can discern lies and eke up the commitment or outrage to confront errors and lies. That strain belong in every generation. There is nothing new or great about the lie-detection capability of this generation beyond those that have gone before it. In fact, Jesus says the very opposite should be expected– increasing lies along with greater coldness, lukewarmness or plain blindness towards lies would be the trending-fad as the generational gap from Jesus’ earthly sojourn widens.
#7. We have our own pulpits – social media and we will broadcast the truth if you fail to do so.
Again, that sounds like usurpation and presumptuousness. Disorder. Anarchy. Disrespect to the idea of the Lordship of Jesus through the Holy Spirit in the Church and the designated authority-line he gave to His children. The Holy Spirit grants His gift as He will. Teaching the word, the Bible says, is not a vocation to be assumed or executed lightly – it is not one to be approached with social media anointing and free access. Because the consequence of misleading even one single soul is dire. Surely, you must know at least 3 scriptures about teachers of the word and the need to be faithful as people who would give account to God?
#8. I was once in a church when the Pastor said Christians should not be found in bars… …I promptly tweeted that since I was a Christian who goes to bars & my sanctification was quite intact, his sermon was factually incomplete
Hilarious. You have a great sense of humour. What a comeback! Does the Pastor mean that Lawyers who are members of the Nigerian Bar Association are not sanctified? Still, you may need to pause and consider this: this is the second time you are defending your little alcohol-drinking turf. “Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall”. If by going to bars you mean participating in the daily or frequent ritual of the local drinking hole or pub, of course, you are not sanctified. You are filled with pub-holey-spirit – not the Holy Spirit. And you need help. Love commends me to say that to you.
#9. Sometimes Pastors forget that they have a diverse audience and it is not everyone who is a baby Christian. Feed us meat for Christ’s sake!
Uhm, sorry, again – Pastors do not feed meat: they feed milk or STRONG meat. If you do not know the difference between both, then your Pastor is doing you a favour giving you milk. When a baby is ready, good parents wean them – except if the child has a condition that dictates s/he be kept on a staple of milk for life. But, I agree, in principle, that making weaning a key part of the process needs to become something frequently emphasized according to Scriptural injunctions. When you are weaned, you will learn that designing person-specific gospel is not the purpose of teaching in the Church-corporate. That is the role of families, units of the Church and direct care-takers or ‘mentors’.
#10. I’m tired of motivational sermons. What about those who do not need motivation but desire deep truths about God. We are tired!
Speak for yourself. ‘We’ are not tired: the market is booming and the consumers still outstrip demand. In spite of its well-known failings, we do need motivation every now and then but it cannot be THE Gospel or a major part of the Gospel. But it just goes to this point, if you are in a place where all they do is motivational gospel, as the Diamond Bank ad says: You need a new Church.
#11. Stop trying to protect us from the world, you who got born again at 12! What do you technically know of it? That’s why [you] can’t relate to us.
Now, this is the clearest indictment of godly childhood and upbringing that I have seen in a long while! Hitherto, the innuendo has been there that the gospel is better preached by ex-drug addicts, prostitutes, converted but escaped armed robbers/cultists and generally former gentle-men of the underworld. But now, you really hit it on the head: modern gospel has no place for naive people with godly background. Poor Timothy. Poor, poor Samuel Elkanah. And poor poor very poor Jesus who all His life has never known sin. How did He hope to save the world? Right? Wrong. You just turned Scriptures on its head. Protecting you from the world –and equipping you – until you can fruitfully engage the world without torpedoing your eternity and calling is the chief role of a godly Church or Pastor. And the best Pastor you can find is the one that has loved God for most of his life and still counting. They are rare – but an invaluable treasure.
#12. You are unable to comprehend the sophisticated challenges Christians go through in the world. You live in a cloistered alternate reality!
Too much grammar. Again the presumptuousness of it all. You are facing sophisticated challenges? Who has bewitched you? There is nothing new –cloistered, alternate or real – about what you are facing. New packaging or branding quotients but same old, same old tricks. Our High Priest knows – intimately. So does our ancient cloud of witnesses who have gone ahead of us. And if you are under godly men, you will see that those sayings are faithful and true.
#13. Because the congregation is like sheep, they follow you and heed your mind controlling behavioural dictates!
It is a virtue for a Christian congregation to be like Sheep. That’s the nature the Lord and Chief High Priest –Jesus – commends to every believer. But you are wrong thinking that nature makes them naive and easy to manipulate. What it actually accomplishes is the exact opposite. To those who stay sheep, He has promised to be with them till the end of the age. Those He has called, He will keep – even if all the apostates on the earth migrate to Nigeria today and seize every inch of the media space. The Word of God would prove true and prevail. It is IMPOSSIBLE for His elect to be led astray permanently.
#14. But a generation will arise who will ask WHY; who will say WHY NOT. Who will say JESUS NEVER SAID THAT!!!
I know rebellion is trendy – but godly people do not do revolution for the sake of it. Those who love the honour of the name of their Father and the integrity of His estate are already here working. If you are looking for them or expecting them, then you are not one of them. Their voice may not be very loud but it is speaking and would effectuate the will of their Father. They don’t just ask why: they know why. And they know when ‘Why Not’ is a wrong question. And they treasure the Words Jesus spoke to them because they are Spirit and Life – and are jealous to safeguard it from corruption in packaging or substance. .
#15. There’s a group of really annoying unintellectual group of Christians I call the “BUT” Christians…You tell them truth or what the Bible factually says and they go “BUT we need to balance things”…Like God needs your help in instructing his own children or in defending truth…
I know a few of them too – BUT (that scary word), they may not be as unintellectual as you make them out to be. They may just be nice, or not have the gift or the preparation to answer you – especially, seeing how strongly opinionated you are. Or they are probably in a process of learning or relearning. Whatever, if they are truly Christians, I would be very careful to call them ‘ really annoying” and “unintellectual”: they are the sons and carry the seed of the All-Knowing God.
#16. Then there’s a second annoying unintellectual group of Christians called “THE BIBLE SAYS” group…Unable to argue principles and a coherent line of argument, their fall back is “the Bible says”…
I looked in the mirror and guess what I saw? Me. That really fits me very well. Like my Skin. The Jesus-said- Bible-thumping-Group. But you know what, my only fear is that one day, I would become so puffed up that I too begin to count direct reference and dependence on the revealed and living Word and Wisdom of God as an annoying unintellectual standard that should end every argumentation on principles or line of argument. (Now, it’s your turn to look in the mirror).
#17. When they meet an atheist who does not subscribe to the Bible, they suddenly have no argument and look like fools…
I would think that only a fool would consider a fool a person who comes away looking like a fool after engaging with another person who says in his own heart [and lips] that there is no God: a divinely designated fool. Of course, an atheist pulls the plug on any argument by denying every external objective standard –God, Bible, morality, ethics – including the noble purpose of language. Only an amoral man or a fool who is wise in his own eyes would have a debate with an atheist and come away looking like and actually affirmed as brilliant. “Him that walks with the wise shall be wise”: the corollary applies to walking with or tangoing with an atheist, sorry, fool.
#18. They are unable to interpret the global principles of the Bible to adduce sound logic and unassailable wisdom.
I know about globalisation and Global warming but, global principles of the Bible kwa? Actually, faithfulness in small things is what it takes because every principle of Scripture is spiritual and eternal: way far higher than global measures. The deep things of God are foolishness to the world. So, I can understand the need for those set on worldly domination to make the Bible serve their ambition but that is not the purpose of Scriptures. Its hidden treasures are available to those who have thrown up their hands as to pursuing the world and wants to come serve God by knowing how he wants to be served: right from their Jerusalem. And if their Lord wills, in His unassailable wisdom and sovereignty- to the uttermost part of the earth. And in any place – Church, policy, business or family – whatever the level or position.
#19. There’s an entire generation of Christians that vacated the media space because they thought secular media was sinful… Satan vacated them nicely through the erroneous teachings of their Pastors and had a field day!
It would be nice to read your ‘History of Secular Media’ and see when Christians dominated and then vacated. Howbeit, I will not be careful to answer you in this: secular media is not just sinful, it is deadly. That’s if we define secular media properly as a platform devoted to the total denial and removal of every trace or mention of God, divinity or spiritual realities from public discourse. (Just google secular worldview to find the definition: its not mine) Obedient Christians live to pull down everything that sets itself against the knowledge of God. So, it would make sense, if at all it happened, that Christians vacated secular media so that the roof does not fall down with them in the building. Truth: there is media as an idea and platform and there is secular media. Christians are a part of the media as a matter of course: it’s not possible to vacate it. They could be more strategic in its use to salt it and light up the glory of their Lord so that He can draw those he has called to himself. But secular media as properly defined, staying in it is to do the work of the atheist or syncretist.
#20…Then an entire generation of men became entangled in sexual confusion and guilt. They were told their wives needed to look ugly… At work, they looked upon beauty & sophistication, at home they were confronted with ugliness and the guilt & torment began…
Presumptuousness again – probably based on some of those soppy sermons talking down on the old gospellers. It would be nice if you would give us some background – any church where their Pastor preaches ‘Ugly women Only for Marriage’ as a doctrine. If by beauty you mean this plasticisation and objectification of our young women in the pragmatic gospel circles – to support a booming but godliness-hating ‘beauty’ and ‘style’ industry with little or no interest in the real beauty that would count when the chips are down both now and in eternity, then you are wrong. There is also absolutely no statistics to support your assertion that men with ugly wives go into sexual confusion and guilt more than those with ‘beautiful’ wives. I mean, just look at the men of the Kardashians. Look at Hollywood or even at our backyard here, Nollywood. All of those fabulous women catching their men in adultery –serially? Give us a run down of 30 former Miss Nigeria winners and the fabulous marriage they have built because of their beauty. The Bible tells us why a man gets drawn into sexual sins. And also how a man can keep his way pure even if his wife is a physically mangled invalid on a deathbed. You may need to check out those.
#21. That entire generation could not aspire to the heights of business and politics. Their religion did not permit mixing with the world……and so those spaces were vacated.
Presumptuousness again. You really do put a lot of stock on ambition, aspirations: dizzying heights. Success. Bunkum. Which height did Moses, Joseph, Daniel, David, Mary, Jesus aspire after when God lifted them up for His own purposes? Of course, it is a dud check – a scam – being sold to millions of young persons and many are trying to cash-in but are ending up crashing – and running back to God to lay it all down. Devil, as Lucifer, aspired to greater height of honour and came crashing to the earth: he is not an example to follow. This is the gospel: “Humble thyself and the Lord will lift you up”. And this: “Whatever your hand findeth to do, do it as unto the Lord”. Excellently and faithfully stewarding our assigned place is the Christian’s thing. It is His –our Lord’s – prerogative to decide which placement he wants each and everyone He calls His own to fill as a vessel in His great House. Our ambitions and aspirations go to no moment ultimately. Remember John and James wanting to sit at Jesus’ right hand in Heaven and what he said to them? None knows – except the Father.
#22. …Now, you want to repeat the same crap in MY generation? You dare not and will not.
Short answer: it is not your generation. It is Jesus’. And it is not crap. (Mind your language!) And if you wrestle with the Church, the Church will win: the Lord of the Church will be against you. You do not have what it takes to dare the Church of the living God. So, you may need to choose another opponent. Getting the Church to mix-it with the world cannot be your calling. So, it is not worth turning vigilante over.
#23. You WILL NOT limit the destinies and aspirations of Christian youth and creatives with your web of lies and uninformed teaching.
Look in the mirror. Pause. Swallow. And consider. The idea of limits is well established in Scriptures. Restraints. Yoke. Burden. Are not all negative. If you do not let them take on Jesus’ version, they would take on the hideous and destructive versions designed by the world. And, their blood would be on your hands. But of course, those who know the voice of their master would know when to lie down even in green pastures instead of going gambolling with you to the other more greener side of ‘creatives’. Before they were born, He knew them by name and gave them a commission. And He is faithful and has promised to be with them till the end of the age. All you and I can do is teach them the truth as given by their Lord.
#24. Think about this: The Church has a direct line to the ultimate source of inspiration – the Holy Ghost – as well as the mind of Christ…Why then do we produce such CRAP CRAP CRAP media?????!!!! What is this religion that has blinded us? Do we even think?!
If you like type the crap 1million times to the power 1 million, bold and underline them, it would simply make your language crap-rich – not the work done by faithful servants of God in the so-called media. By their fruits, counted in real lives saved, groomed and matured, is their work measured. By fire would their Lord test them. Same applies to you too. And you better hope your media crap-sanitising work passes Jesus’ fire-testing someday or you would be sorry. Besides, I don’t know what you call media or who you think the competition is or what you think the measurable outcomes are that our Lord and Development Strategist-in-heaven is expecting, but it is certainly not yours. If you want to change the marking scheme, you will need to re-enact Golgotha and take the place of Christ. If you are the media genius and believe that the highroad to Heaven leads down a crap-free media route, sit down and pioneer it, at least, in this corner of this world: one that would glorify God. And please, no more coarse CRAP talk.
#25. The stupidity of the church: alienated celebrities & the media; left them holding bigger microphones & in control of bigger audiences…
I believe this is that part of a rant where Editors of serious media platforms dedact obscenities and crappy-language with symbols like $$$$$$$$$$$ or ********* to preserve the mental health of decent people. You should be ashamed of yourself railing on God’s elect and Jesus’ Bride the way you have.
#26. Now church complains of the content celebrities/media dish out. You rejected the soul now you complain about the content the soul produces.
Sounds like a complainant complaining of the presumed complaints of others. Pray, are you owning up to not being part of the Church? Your preferred form of address hints so strongly. There is a difference between a rant to third and self-caution or warning to members of one’s houselhold. It is the role of the Church to caution its members about decadent content. It does not matter what you – Subomi Plumptre will do in the next 50 years, there would always be media content that the Church needs to warn its members to stay away from.
#27. Celebrities care about their privacy & confidentiality. If you will not protect them (and their confidences), they won’t trust you oh Pastor
Of course. Sounds like the rich young man who came to Jesus – and couldn’t stay. Because he had too much earthly ‘valuables’ – and needed to sign a pre-nuptial memorandum of understanding that would enable him have both worlds– instead of giving one up at the behest of Jesus. If only he was not born 2000 years before you came on the scene, maybe, he would have had you to cater to him – according to his life-style and whimsical preferences with his Confidentiality guaranteed. But Jesus didn’t: couldn’t. Who is your example?
#28. Gone are the days when excommunication was the church’s biggest threat in ensuring conformist behaviour…
You wish. The days are still here. There would always be a remnant. Just that the horde and the crowd would go with you on that one. Sons will not despise the home that offers them tough love and public discipline. A bastard is the only one who seeks out a place where little beyond a slap on the wrist is guaranteed with little regard for discipline or accountability. It is the Spirit of Saul, the son of Kish – ever wanting to be honoured even when a public shaming and repentance – like David – would preserve his line forever more.
#29. People say what they like now on social media and if they leave your church, they just carry on saying it. Worse: you’ve just lost a soul
Jesus prophesied it. So, no surprises there. People saying what they like: anarchy. Everyone doing what is good in his/her own eye. Those who do that are no loss to the Church or its Lord. They were never part of the Church. That is the Spirit of the Anti-Christ. The Spirit of lawlessness.
#30. You do not put out darkness by informing people there is no light. You do so by shining a light…In the same way you do not counter negative hate-filled media by decrying its existence. You provide a credible alternative.
Sounds good – but it is not the Gospel. That’s your sound-bite. The Gospel has room for temporary or permanent exit from a decadent culturo-media space: “if they reject you in one town, shake off the dust of your feet and go to another”, said Jesus. Christianity is not a commission to colonize the alien cultural space, dominate it and conform the Body of Christ into the new-new, willy-nilly, it remains first and foremost, a community of called out people – in the world but not of the world, aliens but ambassadors of the King of Kings living to please their Lord. Doing the work he has committed to them. It is paradox – but we live at the behest of the Sovereign according to the Word he has given us: Scriptures. It is not a wrestling against flesh and blood – or material culture. The battle is the Lord – and He leads His army for his purposes which sometimes could look so off-the-mark and slow to the carnally ambitious and foolish to the wise of this earth.His ways are not your ways.
#31. When a member of the choir is pregnant and you excommunicate her; you send a dangerous signal…….first, she is already in her Father’s house – where are you sending her to? You only knew she was having sex because of the evidence……If we go by your rationale, we must ask every other choir member who has been having sex…
This is a totally corrupt way to look at sexual purity in the Body of Christ and church discipline. Pastors with integrity know that they bless their people when they discipline them and teach them about the deep dangers of sinning against their own bodies. Equally, false teachers and apostates who lead sinful lifestyles know the best way to have members screaming ‘We love you, Pastor” when they fall into grievous scandal – is to first foul up the Church with licentiousness and permissive living. That is the way to create a vicious cycle that makes the idea of discipline very ‘complex’ and well-nigh ‘impossible’. Happily, Paul made it very clear how to deal with KNOWN sexual sins and excommunication is right at the top.
#32. If we go by Jesus’ standard for sexual sin we must also ask the Pastor the last time he looked on another woman lustfully……worse, you just lost a soul and sent a message that people should henceforth hide their sins……you punished the woman who chose to have the baby more severely than the ones who aborted and those who think sex everyday…Church must find a better way in LOVE. Even Paul realised excommunication has no long term value.
So, you finally concede you have thrown away Jesus’ standard for sexual sin? That you want to review the whole thing – probably borrowing from a new manual you have written on the subject. Simply because the church as you ‘know’ it is now a carricature fit for a reality television show scripted to provide endless x-rated entertainment where everyone is DOING it – led and leaders. A low view of the Gospel produces a low view of the Church which produces a low view of the Holy Spirit and of course a low view of the Lord of the Church – reducing inexorably to decadent lifestyles. Again, like that Diamond Bank ad says, you really do need to change your ‘Church’ and get a good one for once: this one is failing you. Worse, you do not seem to have ever known a good church or Pastor – a not uncommon tragedy ever since the charismatic movement arrived on the scene. The Church in obedience to its Lord – for your own eternal good – mustn’t find any better way to accommodate your idea of LOVE. It needs you to present to you the true love that can only found in the bossom of the Church.
#33. If u start a (youth) church, 1st assignment should be an online resource of scriptural but intelligent essays on fundamentals. I’ve spoken to young people and they are at a loss over how to defend their faith in an increasingly sophisticated world…Provide sound arguments (written, audio, video) they can use that’s accessible online. Topics should include: Topics: Sex, alcohol, secular arts, homosexuality, money, power, politics even obvious ones like covering hair, women in trousers etc.
First: your idea for a start-up youth ‘church’ is a recipe for disaster. It is exactly the reason why the Churches you know are all made up of lustful Pastors and brothel choir stands. The 1st order of business is not an online platform for media-resources, it is prayer and proper articulation of the fundamental truths those youth need to learn, urgently and how to communicate them. There must be a Gospel sediment for the formation of the godly worldview needed to to learn the other things. Teens or youth raised on that sexually charged and ‘sophisticated’ staple – you outlined – would only grow abs and muscle made up of the protein they have been fed. There is a clear conflict between your way and the Lord’s way. Joseph, Samuel, Daniel, the 3 Hebrew Children Jesus, Timothy were the product of the Lord’s way and their testimony shows that no degree of sophistication they faced fazed them – grounded as they were in the fundamentals that matter: the Word of God. “How shall a young man keep his way pure? By paying heed according to Your Word”. Going by your way, it would be simply ‘garbage in, well dressed and coiffured garbage out”.
#34. There’s a woman who was shamed for being a Virgin at 30 by a man she liked. I asked:.. “If you sleep with him to prove a point, isn’t that giving him what he wants in the first place”? Define YOUR reasons and make YOUR decision…I see young uns debating over whether it’s a sin to kiss & Pastors legislating the 11th commandment instead of a reliance on the Holy Ghost…I see “technical” virgins with superiority complexes. They masturbate & fantasise but think they’re better than those who go all the way…They’re more messed up sexually than those who had the honesty to admit their frailties…What’s up with the virginity thing? Are u saving it cause you love God or are afraid of sin. Anything done in fear is sin already.
Again, plenty of your sad but subjective experience. Plenty of your judgment based on your understanding and experience in pragmatic gospel environments. Plenty of your assertion are clearly based neither on ascertainable facts or credible research. Affirming the point that you should leave teachings to men of God with integrity. Disavow and leave your church if it is failing you and people you know directly – especially in equipping you with the real fundamentals you need to walk victoriously through life. We need more people with media skills like you committed to prayer and advocacy for the restoration and multiplication of Pastors and local church platforms who teach and live what they preach with integrity – in Nigeria and globally. You cannot raise and equip believers on twitter and social media: you need the family and local churches who operate with the love and FEAR of God.
#35. There is a grievous evil under the sun: when the Pastor’s authority over another man’s wife supercedes that of her husband’s…Another evil: where you seek your Pastor’s permission (not opinion) over what to do on life and who to marry…Your Pastor is not your personal Ifa Priest. He is not your access to God. Jesus is. Read the Bible for yourself. Hear God for yourself.
Sad to be ending this on a disagreeable note. But, you are wrong. The authority given to a Pastor over everyone of his sheep is different from the one given to the husband over his wife. They are not in conflict either. God is not the author of confusion. Same goes for the role a pastor plays over members who may want to marry. Where there is a genuine ground for a pastor acting in loco parentis, it is an honour to seek and receive the ‘permission’ or really the blessing of a person you hold in high esteem before your marriage. If by Ifa Priest, you mean the person who teaches you the whole counsel of God and labours in prayer over you, then you are wrong again – because that’s exactly the primary purpose of the Pastor. But if by Ifa Priest, you mean the one who gives ‘prophetic revelations about tomorrow or the next 10 minute’ and 5 nuggets to sharp sharp prosperity or global celebrity, then of course, that’s not who the pastor is. Can we, rephrase, should we follow our Pastor as he follows Christ? Yes!!! Which is why getting a Pastor worth following in words and deed is one of the greatest treasure on earth. And did Jesus envisage that one day his lamb would need to hear God for themselves and teach themselves the Bible? No. That’s why He asked Peter to feed and tend His sheep and lamb. That’s why Paul commended Timothy to commit the gospel to faithful men. May the day never come when Christianity would become a Babel tower of everyone disconnected and left to their own devices – doing their own things for themselves complete with a ‘Yourself’ credo: access God yourself; read the Bible and interpret for yourself; and hear God yourself. It did not work in Babel. It won’t work even in this sophisticated world.
Sam Eleanya, writer, Ethicist, Policy and Justice sector strategist is the Executive Director of Tree & Trees JusticeMedia (facilitators of www.lawnigeria.com and the Standards and Enterprise Development Center, Lagos)
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