Rather than it being an indictment on the credibility of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is a bold stamp of approval. Let me explain. One of the strongest arguments anyone can ever make for the bible is its Prophetic essence. The bible is laden with the prophetic. Past events in human history were predicted by prophets of the ancient world. Jesus himself had to fulfill about 61 prophecies (According to this article) in the Old Testament as proof that he was the promised messiah. Daniel prophesied the global reign of various kingdoms of this world and how their reigns would be succeeded by others. There are so many prophecies in the bible that have been fulfilled and evident in our day. One of such prophecies is the eruption of false prophets and teachers. Jesus said it. Paul said it. Read how John put it:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1

Test all spirits. To test the credibility of anything, there must be a standardized system of measurement. To test or verify how straight a line is, you must use a ruler. To test for the alkalinity or acidity of a liquid, you use a litmus paper. To test the spirit of a prophet, the bible is that standardized testing kit. If what the prophet is doing is not biblical, he is false – as simple as that. But you know people are lazy, right? They don’t want to read and find out for themselves. One thing I have realized in my walk with God is that all he yearns for is a very strong relationship with us. God’s aim isn’t to rid your life of pain. Let me repeat this for emphasis. God’s aim isn’t to rid your life of pain. If that were the case, he would have said, ‘take up your pillows and wait for me’. Instead he said, ‘… take up your cross and follow me’. That is supposed to be painful.

This truth is even more evident in the story of Lazarus. John’s account stated clearly that Jesus loved Lazarus and his two sisters. It doesn’t make sense why Jesus would love these people so much and yet there was no sense of urgency when news of Lazarus’ sickness reached him. If Jesus’ aim was merely to rid Lazarus of physical pain, he would have set off immediately to heal him. There was a bigger plan. He waited for the situation to deteriorate to the point where ancient – and even modern – medical expertise could not save Lazarus. After resurrecting Lazarus, all the Jews that saw the miracle believed in Jesus (John11:45). That is evangelism. Do you see the actual purpose of the miracles of God? They are not intended to just tickle you or make you happy. There is a greater purpose for God’s miracles: they are to build your faith; establish your relationship with him and draw other men to him. My problem with some of these preachers is that they ‘advertise’ God – or themselves – as a quick fix for every problem. You are definitely walking away with a miracle once you encounter them.  God is not a genie. You don’t rub a lamp for his nebulous self to appear to you, ready to do your bidding like he doesn’t have a grand scheme that you are just a pawn in. I am by no means introducing you to a sadistic God who derives pleasure from the pain of his children. All I am saying, is if it took the death of one man to make salvation available to all men, then you should best believe your physical pain can be useful in making the world a better place. The financial challenges you are facing now will be the very reason for you to extend a philanthropic hand to the needy when you become wealthy; because you have been there before. For every pain you go through, God will give you boundless joy and pleasures unthinkable in heaven if you remain faithful to him. Be encouraged and be of good cheer.

Now, let’s get back to these fetish pastors. One thing that is prominent in their ministry is the glorification of Christian paraphernalia and sometimes the sale of it. The very moment a pastor or prophet exalts anything physical above God, I try not to have anything to do with him. The sale of special anointing oil; holy water; anointed handkerchiefs etc. are all not biblical.  However, it is clear from scripture that believers are admonished to use the anointing oil to pray for people and take the communion in remembrance of Christ.

The bible is rife with instances where Jesus and the apostles deflected attention from themselves or anything physical and rather pointed people to God. Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well is an example. Jesus told her that there is a time coming where ‘the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth’. Simply put, no physical entity will matter in how we worship God – neither geographical location, nor paraphernalia nor anything else. Worship is a spiritual experience. Every man of God is supposed to STAY OUT OF THE WAY and let the people worship God in spirit and in truth. Human beings have this inherent desire to worship. I believe God put it in us for the purpose of the worship of him alone. But people who turn away from God tend to make idols of anything at all. They make idols of their pastors. They make idols of their jobs, marriages, academics etc. These pastors are taking advantage of this and that is why they sell ‘anointed’ items to their congregants. Study the life of the apostles and Jesus himself; you will notice that whenever they performed a miracle with the aid of anything physical, they barely repeated it. Remember when Jesus healed a blind man with his spittle and mud, how many times did he do that? He knew if he had made a practice of this act, people would be after his saliva and not him. This is what is happening now. People are after the miracles and not the giver of all miracles. So God may tell these pastors to do something symbolic just one time, like, praying over water for their congregants; but they will turn it into an entire ministry. If it were one of these pastors who healed the blind man with spittle and mud, they’d probably name their churches after this. Paul didn’t start an apron ministry when people rubbed aprons on him and took them home to heal the sick with. Peter didn’t start a shadow ministry, when his shadow fell on the sick and they recovered immediately. But holy water is for sale in a certain church as we speak. I even hear the blood of Jesus is for sale too. This is more fetish than Christian.

Do not fall for the acts. I believe every man of God is a messenger. Every messenger bears a message. God still sent Moses to be a deliverer in spite of his speech impairment. When you know the sender of the message, you can easily detect whether or not the message is coming from him. Let’s look at the case of Moses vs. Pharaoh’s magicians. Notice how they replicated most of the plagues wrought by Moses’ staff. The miracles can be replicated by foul spirits but the message can never be replicated.  One of the plagues they couldn’t replicate is the one God prides himself in most: the killing of firstborns as a precedence for the freedom of those in bondage. This was just a foreshadow of the death of Christ. If Christ is described as the firstborn of all creation, then his death – just like in Moses’ story – is that which can never be imitated or done by anybody else. Just like the death of the firstborns of the Egyptians was the last straw that broke the camel’s back and set the Israelites free, the death of the firstborn of all creation set us all free. And that is what we are supposed to keep our minds stayed on. If your eyes are fixed on Christ, his death and resurrection, no wind of doctrine can blow you away. In John 10, Jesus said that he is the door hence anyone who enters into the sheepfold without passing through him is a thief. As sheep of his fold, we must keep our eyes on the door. Not the window. Not the crack in the roof, but the door. For this is where genuine, qualified shepherds will come from.

Christianity is not Jewish cultural assimilation: where we are supposed to copy Jewish traditions. Some of these traditions were vehemently opposed by Christ himself. My stomach turns at the new trend in some churches these days. They are of the view that the more Jewish they are, the more spiritual they are. Some pray covering their heads with prayer shawls, like the Jews do. Some pray at certain times because that is what the Jews do. Some also travel all the way to Israel to touch the Wailing Wall to say a prayer. Here again, I will make reference to Jesus’ response to the woman at the well: the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth.

It is very easy for people to assume this is an African phenomenon. The propagation of the prosperity gospel in America is just a westernized form of the situation in Africa. Jim Jones is one clear example of such fetish men of God from the west. The thing is, because of the traditional background of Africans, we are used to the mode of operarion of spiritualists. A spiritualist or fetish priest will give you what you need at a fee. He will give you a token to keep and rituals to do to maintain the efficacy of whatever token he gives you. So even after being converted to Christianity, we expect same from our pastor – which is so wrong. There is nothing wrong with asking a man of God to pray for you. But he shouldn’t take the place of God in your life.

 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Matthew 24:24

See? So this is why Ghana may never go into the production of cars. Because other countries produce cars at a lower comparative cost and therefore we would have to concentrate on the production of goods that we have comparative advantage in. All I am trying to say is this, to the layman, the government of Ghana must attempt producing cars and assist private companies like Katanka. But this seemingly intelligent suggestion doesn’t make economic sense. Therefore, what seems logical to the layman isn’t logical in the field of Economics.

When it comes to religion – Christianity to be specific – people do not understand this simple idea. People do not understand the fact that what is completely logical in Christianity may come across as nonsense to them because they aren’t Christians. It is simple, just know that once you are not a Christian, certain things Christians do will never make sense to you so you just have to respect that and move on. I am saying this in connection with the recent frenzy about what men of God say. I think nowadays, too many journalists go to church for the wrong reasons (to fish for catchy headlines). Archbishop Duncan-Williams prayed a few months ago, commanding the cedi to rise! Well, I don’t particularly know what inspired him to do that but I was shocked when he became a laughing stock after that. Wait, shouldn’t we be laughing at the people who were trained in school to fix the problem and are in the position to do so but are fumbling badly like they were being electrocuted?  He is a man of God, what do you expect him to do? Pass a bill? Implement government’s policies? Clearly, he did what he was supposed to do and maybe if we all did same this country would be a million miles away from where we are. It isn’t as if he declared a fast and required everybody to stop working and pray? He just said a simple prayer and this prayer, when its answer materializes, will be beneficial to all of us. So what’s up with all the demeaning comments? For some mysterious reason, people believe prayer is a cheap getaway for lazy people and being prayerful simply means inactivity. Really? It is the bible that stated that faith without works is dead.

Let’s discuss the merits of that command the Archbishop uttered. He said ‘I command the cedi to rise’. This is a statement of authority which can only come from someone with spiritual oversight and jurisdiction over a particular area. What is wrong with this? Oh yeh, I get it, he was speaking to an inanimate entity and expected it to obey his voice. Excuse me, have you heard about Jesus Christ? Jesus was out there speaking and commanding invisible things like the wind. He cursed a fig tree. He healed an epileptic boy, not by casting out epilepsy, but by casting out a demon. I am not saying that every single physical occurrence has its roots in the spiritual world, but a lot of them do. I am more concerned about the fact that some Christians came out to openly deride the man of God. My question to them is this, is the bible a fable to you? Jesus said he who has faith can command a mountain to be uprooted and be thrown into the sea and it will happen. Well, maybe you are right when you assume He was speaking metaphorically. If He was, then it is only right for the man of God to command a mountainous economic situation. Remember what I said earlier, logic isn’t absolute; it varies from field to field. So what is logical in a particular worldview may be irrational in another.

As I stated earlier, people tend to assume that prayer gives prayerful people the impression that things are happening for them supernaturally hence they can fold their arms and look into the skies and manna would pour down. This isn’t correct. What prayer does sometimes is it sets physical processes in motion. The tree that Jesus cursed started withering from the roots gradually. Let’s look at the creation story for example; it is recorded in two different chapters in Genesis: these are Genesis one and two. Chapter 1 contains all the commands: the ‘let there be’s’ and the ‘calling forths’. But chapter two contains an account of the physical processes that were underway for the commands to materialize. Let’s take for example the creation of plants or the calling forth of vegetation. In verse 11 of chapter1, we see God command the earth to sprout vegetation. Nevertheless, in verse 5-7 of chapter 2, the bible says because there was no rain, plants couldn’t grow. So God caused a mist to hover on the earth thereby watering the earth which created an enabling environment for plants to grow. This is what the creation story in chapter2 of Genesis gives us: a detailed account of what transpired after God commanded. This goes to support my earlier point that commanding things spiritually(Prayer) comes to begin or even quicken physical processes. What if the Archbishop’s prayer was actually meant to give ideas to the economic team at the Central Bank of Ghana? What if it was going to quicken the process? A command is a command but there are things that work in the background to make it materialize. And this is seen vividly in the creation story.

On the other hand, we have seen many things happen in the church that don’t even make logical sense in Christianity. It seems the church is the last place to think. The truth is, you need to know the bible for yourself and weigh what you hear in church by it. As the bible itself said, in the last days there will be an eruption of false teachers and prophets. Therefore there is the need to be guarded with the truth of the word of God. Believers must think. Thinkers must believe. Nowadays, people seem to be drawn by miracles and signs and wonders more than the unadulterated word of God. On TV these days, we see so many churches airing deliverance sessions and it is an awful sight mostly. This is what a friend of mine, Abotsi, calls ‘prophetic journalism’ or ‘spiritual journalism’. These prophets seem to enjoy interviewing demons that are manifesting through people. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t like to be in a church where I would hear the voice of a demon more than the voice of God through my pastor. They spend countless minutes having discourses with demons meanwhile Jesus and Paul didn’t waste time on demons at all. They cast them out immediately; Paul and Silas cast out a demon from a girl who was even speaking the truth about them. The truth is you can’t trust the words of a demon. So to prevent confusion, shut them up and cast them out. I believe that a deliverance-centered ministration won’t waste precious time on one case but would want to deal with one quickly and totally before moving on to another. A lot of these things, I believe are just for showmanship.

Anyway, let’s just respect the fact that the activities of people who hold a different worldview may never make sense to us if we are not believers of that worldview. Also, the best way to judge if someone is doing what his worldview dictates, is to look at the originator. In Christianity, Jesus is the originator. So if Jesus didn’t interrogate demons, then it isn’t biblical to do so. But if Jesus spoke to inanimate objects, we SHOULD do same.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK.