by Simon Utsu
I picked up my bible this morning and turned to the 2nd chapter in Galatians as prodded from within… I read from the 4th to the 12th verse and interestingly stumbled on a verse where Apostle Paul PUBLICLY REBUKED Apostle Peter for being two-faced.
I was excited after reading that verse. Here you can see a junior Christian leader calling his boss, Peter to order. Yes! Peter was Paul’s boss! We should not forget that Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16 vs 18 thus: “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it”. By virtue of this and also the fact that Peter was the leader of Jesus’s disciples, Peter was Paul’s boss and the head of the church up until his death.
Such criticism/rebuke is never the case today because when a religious leader goes astray and one tries to caution or even point it out, the “touch not my anointed” and “don’t judge a man of God” bandwagon swoop in on you and bomb you with those bible verses which they themselves don’t have a proper grasp of. Even in the English dictionary, the words “rebuke” and “judge”, have very different meanings. Well, I’m not saying we should start going around to look for faults in religious leaders so we can start criticising uncontrollably, what I’m saying is, as junior Christians(relative to the Pastors), we have the rights to OPENLY REBUKE unremorsefully erring religious leaders!
It’s on this note that I say the likes of Fr Ejike Mbaka, Rev Sunday Adelaja and Pastor Tunde Bakare are HYPOCRITES. These same men did all they could to sway public opinion against President Jonathan by calling him incompetent, corrupt etc but have refused to say anything in the open against the current government even when life has been so hard for Nigerians under them and Christians are being butchered in their thousands by Islamic ‘herdsmen’ whilst the government folds it’s arms.
It’s also on this note I’ll ask why some religious preachers have four private jets and schools(primary, secondary and universities) where the tuition is way beyond the reach of even the middle class in their congregation. Most of these our religious leaders studied all through primary and secondary school for free, is this their way of giving back?
Finally, why do you expect me to keep quiet when a man of God sexually abuses females in his congregation or divorces his wife against the tenets of new testament Christianity, and refuses to restitute and/or brazenly justifies it?
The fact that I’m pointing these out doesn’t mean my Christian faith is shaken, I won’t stop going to church or believing in God, NEVER! I’m only saying this on the behalf of the several voices that have been suppressed by bible verse twisters and also on behalf of those who left the church fold because they couldn’t understand or withstand such suppressive innuendos.
Maybe this is why Christians in Europe and America are able to develop their countries because they ask questions when the need arises, unlike Christians in Africa who haven’t been able to bring the African continent out of the doldrums.
Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
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