EVANGEL AFRICA

Today I am not going to be the one teaching, instead, I will be the student who desires to learn from my readers. As you might know, the best student is the one who shows his willingness to learn by asking a lot of questions. Even better, you don’t have to write your answers anywhere, just ponder my questions through your mind and keep the answers to your conscience and hopefully one day we will hear you teaching others. Our subject matter is giving in the house of God (church). Giving is by far the most preached about topic during Sunday services today. Well then, what is the God-accepted giving and what is the wrong kind of offering that the good Lord will never accept under any conditions?   Clear conscience? Does the Lord accept anything that is not coming from a heart that is free from manipulation, intimidation and pressure, regardless of the amount? I think Paul mentions something like “cheerful giving” somewhere in one of his writings. Suppose you made a good profit in you...

  Apparently, the reason why you are poor, the reason why your business is not progressing, the reason why you get sick, and the reason why your family member passed away is that you have a terrible curse that runs all the way to your great grandfather. What concerns me is not that there are people who believe this (of course, everyone has a right to believe whatever they want), but my biggest worry is that Believers, I mean those washed in the blood are the ones propagating this as part of the Gospel message. Can you imagine that?   As in the case of all false doctrines, this generational curse teaching also claims to come from the Bible. They are able to look for any Bible verse, for example, Exodus 33:34 and force it to mean their preconceived doctrine — completely ignoring the basic principles of Biblical interpretation and hermeneutics. Yet the real truth is that this teaching actually comes from traditional African beliefs. Its basic idea is that whatever you are, whate...

I am human as a human can be. This means I don’t only sympathize with the troubles of my fellow kind, but I also share the same. Yet, my issue today is this famous statement that is all over social media, television and radio talk shows, which says that “people are going through a lot.” Indeed, a lot of my brothers and sisters are finding life harder than they can bear. I can pause here and start to detail true life stories of women who are abused, young people who are forced into drugs, black people who are oppressed, fathers who are underappreciated and mothers who are abandoned. Some even have real physical conditions that have contributed much to their discomfort on this earth. I don’t think it’s even needless to write about the mental stress that people deal with every day, as evidenced by the number of suicide cases. Therefore, my point is not to deny that people are causalities of these circumstances but to express my legitimate concerns about the way we are making much of our t...

When we talk of a Spirit-filled place where the presence of God is moving powerfully, many people imagine the minister screaming “fire!”, waiving his hand and the crowd responding in frantic shaking, screaming, falling and vomiting all over the place. This phenomenon is believed to be the power of God at work, mainly to confound and confuse the powers of darkness in people’s lives. This is supposed to be a mark – on the minister’s part – that he is a powerful man of God who is being “mightily used” to liberate people from the troubles of life – poverty included. In fact, an average charismatic preacher loves this so much that he doesn’t like it when he touches you and you fail to respond by falling. Some are never content even after you fall, because as soon as you are on your feet, you are sprayed to the grown again and again until they are satisfied. I cannot count how many church services I have seen, where people folk in numbers, just to have the pastor touch them on the forehead s...

There is a very popular theology that the African church imported from American televangelists. Its basic idea is that your faith in God will get you a free ticket out of life’s hardship. “Just believe in Jesus and you will live like a king; you will be healthy and wealthy; all the desires of your heart will be fulfilled.” According to that mindset, all you need is to speak positive words and perhaps plant a financial seed and all your problems are gone. Just like all the false teachings, this one is also based on a wrong understanding, or many times willful twisting of Scripture, most particularly Jeremiah 29:11 . As I hinted in one of the articles, the Jeremiah 29:11 promise was given in the context of a people that were beginning their 70 years of suffering in Babylon under the cruel hands of Nebuchadnezzar . All that teaches us that God many times allows the best of His children to face the worst kind of suffering on this earth. That is not only biblical but it is also the reality...

Throughout the Bible, music has always been a significant part of God and His people, from the days of Israelites all the way to the modern church age. Which means it didn’t begin with this generation. If you go back as far as Genesis, you'll encounter arguably the first musician ever recorded in Scripture by the name of Jubal, the 4th generation from Adam through Cain ( Gen 4:21 ). Other early references to music include Exodus 15, which records the Israelites being led to sing a song of victory after the overthrow of the Egyptian army. Most notable figures in the Bible, such as Moses and David, were professional musicians. If we want, we can also include, the sons of Korah, Asaph, Solomon and Heman as part of our singers list. In fact, the longest book in the Bible contains only songs (psalms). Believe it or not, Scripture also records our Lord Jesus singing with His disciples ( Mat 26:30 ). Paul the good Apostle also gave instructions regarding the use of music during Christian ...

Of all the concerning issues we have discussed, nothing is as worrying as the habit of some believers who boldly stand before others and announce that “the Lord spoke to me”, when in reality, there is no proof – even in their consciences – that it was indeed God Himself or just an imagination of their minds . This, I tell you, is the source of confusion that we have in the African church today. It needs to be addressed, lest we become guilty of turning a blind eye to the very thing that brings dishonor to the Name of the Holy One. Our aim today is to answer the question; why do people do that in the first place? Believe it or not, everything man does always has a motive; good or bad. Although no one can truly know or judge other people’s motives except the Almighty Himself, still, I believe, anyone who has diligently studied his Bible – which is able to discern thoughts and secret intents of the heart ( Heb 4:12 ) – can surely know the hidden truth about human nature.  Influence fr...