The practice of city pastors commandeering all the tithes and offerings to themselves while pauperizing their village counterparts is one of the reasons every pastor is running to the city to establish a church. Tithes and offerings are biblical injunctions which a religious faithful or lover of God uses to show appreciation to the creator for gifts of life, health, abundance, protection etc. It is also God's way of taking care of the levites, pastors, priests He called into the ministry so that they can concentrate on the work assigned them. God commanded the Israelites to pay tithes and offerings in leviticus 27 vs 30 - 32 stating that "'A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.." While tithes has a stated minimum of ten percent, offerings is of freewill nature, but Christians are enjoined to give according as God blesses and at times sacrificially.
Abraham
was the first recorded person in the Bible to pay tithe. He paid tithe
to Melchizedek, Priest of the Most High God and King of Salem some
hundreds of years before God officially gave the injunction on tithing
to Moses (Gen 14 vs 17-20). Therefore, tithes preceded the Law of
Moses. Jesus Christ, while supporting tithing, chided the Pharisees for
concentrating more on tithes while neglecting other religious
injunctions. According to Jesus Christ in Matthew 23 vs 23 "Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and
anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law:
justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone”
Therefore, Jesus supported both
tithes and keeping all other laws of God and the priesthood of Jesus was
in the order of Melchizedek while his Kingship was in the order of
Judah, the root of David.
Pollution of the church with all
sorts of unscriptural practices and doctrines, even in the Pentecostal
fold have caused a lot of pastors whose primary assignment was in the
villages and remote parts of the regions to abandon it for the city.
Part of what is chasing pastors out of the villages in search of
pastoral pastures in the cities is the polluted theory of tithes and
offerings. In this era of mega churches, flashy churches, digital
churches and rich churches, a lot of born again Christians have been
brainwashed to look down on pastors whom God called and stationed in the
villages to occupy and control the territorial sanctity of these remote
places from rampaging negative forces. According to the manipulated
city born again member, these village pastors are not looking trendy,
sharp, rich, gracious and elegant in dressings, mobility, feeding and
opulence and therefore, they cannot be representing the God of
prosperity. They are therefore seen as people who have lost out in their
callings and their poverty stricken personality are signs of God’s
abandonment.
Continue reading after the cut...The city pastors have given their
congregation impression that all their tithes and offerings must be
surrendered to their air conditioned churches so that their lives will
be air conditioned by God and that there is nothing their impoverished
village counterparts have to offer. This impression caused a lot of city
church members to look at the pastors in their villages with disdain
and where they manage to offer any sort of minute help, the over
grateful village pastor must continue to pay back with lots of night
vigils for the benefactor. To avoid this sort of embarrassment, and be
able to give their family members and wards decent education to the
highest levels, a lot of village pastors have abandoned where God posted
them and disappeared into the city to form one church, ministry, or
prayer group for purposes of poverty alleviation
Consequently, as the village pastors
are disappearing to the cities, the villages are gradually being over
run again by forces chased away many years ago and the villages have
become sorts of traps for many digital church members who must solicit
the protection of their city pastors and his God before they visit their
roots. The villages are being overrun by witches, wizards, marine
spirits, ogbanje , abiku, mammy water, occult and shrine powers and the
resultant effects are senseless militancy, rape, incest, murder,
robbery, kidnappings and gruesome wickedness. This is so because those
spiritually appointed to act as watchmen have all scampered to the city
for survival. The hero pastors in the city have convinced his
congregants that once all the tithes and offerings are not surrendered
to his edifice, God will never accept the sacrifice. The congregation
goes with the impression that God is found only in the city churches.
These people forget that God called
people to do different things. Melchizedek who received tithe from
patriarch Abraham, was both a King and a priest and Abraham is not a
part of his congregation. The churches in the villages are as important
as ones in the cities and one is not superior to the other. That is why
these born again city church members turn to pagans when they visit
their villages because the Christian counter force to stand against
idolatrous practices is lacking. When their relatives die, they must
bring all the he-goat, fowl, hot drinks and all paganistic ceremonies
that must accompany the burials because they have made the village
churches so weak that they cannot take over the burial, weddings or any
other celebrations decently. Therefore, they are firebrand in the cities
and unwilling idolaters in their hamlets because they neglected the
institutions that would have exhibited light of God in the villages.
Secondly, they must always carry about the pictures of their loved ones and sprinkle all sorts of religious oil, water, mantle, communion on them for protection from witches and wizards they permitted to reclaim the villages.
Secondly, they must always carry about the pictures of their loved ones and sprinkle all sorts of religious oil, water, mantle, communion on them for protection from witches and wizards they permitted to reclaim the villages.
During festive seasons that must
take them to their far villages, they must sow special seeds for the
hero pastor to extend his commission’s protection to them as they travel
to the darkness controlled villages and must surrender to another round
of cleansing prayers for deliverance from the misfortune they might
have contacted from their respective clan and hamlets immediately they
return. Why not empower their village pastors with part of their tithes,
offerings, seeds etc. It is the village pastors that help to control
the spiritual scavengers in the villages and forms part of the corporate
protection the city congregant enjoys.
Churches
like Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and
Apostolic Church etc. do not glorify city based priests. The parish
priest of St Anthony’s Catholic Church in Ifite-Ogwari town in Anambra
State cannot be intimidated by the presence of the parish priest of Holy
Trinity Church Catholic , Maitama. While the Abuja priest may have
excess cash, courtesy of super-rich politicians and their business
allies, the village priest is not lacking in any essential need. The
members of these churches support their pastors in the cities as well as
in the villages through donations to projects, harvests, thanksgiving,
bazaar etc.
Their Pentecostal counterpart paints a shameful picture. The 'super man of God' warns his congregation to ensure that they surrenders all their kingdom investments to the church office before leaving for the village festivals or else their God will be nowhere to be found with them in the remote places.
Their Pentecostal counterpart paints a shameful picture. The 'super man of God' warns his congregation to ensure that they surrenders all their kingdom investments to the church office before leaving for the village festivals or else their God will be nowhere to be found with them in the remote places.
Brainwashed
church members should know that the village ministers they failed to
empower are the reasons many villages are retrogressing as citadels of
evil practices and what they failed to do will soon haunt the church.
Everybody’s pastoral callings are very important, therefore, the city
church member should prayerfully ask God how to assist the churches,
pastors, evangelists, preachers and teachers in their villages and
hasten to do as God directs, despite the protestations of the city
pastor. The pauperization of village pastors is a time bomb, the work
of God there should be supported with our tithes, offerings and seed so that darkness does not overrun these places entirely.
- Obinna Akukwe (profetobinna2@yahoo.com)
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