Modern-Day Christianity: Is That the Teaching of Christ?

I attended a church on Sunday 27 August, 2017. I was surprised with the teaching of the priest in the church. A relation was the one that invited to the church. Honestly, I was seriously disappointed with the teaching of the priest towards the end of the service. That made me to ask if that was the teaching of Jesus Christ.The experience kept me thinking. The place I attended the church service was in one Anglican Church in Anambra State of Nigeria.

After the early stages of the service, there came the time for the priest to start sourcing money from the congregation. It was not new to me but the way the Anglican priest went towards it just captured my attention. Extorting money from the congregation by the priests and pastors in Nigerian churches is common.

When it was time for fund raising, the priest started by saying he has been seeing blood. This kind of threat is what most of the Christian leaders use to induce fear in the people they lead and at the end get what they want from them.

He further said that the kind of blood he was seeing was a heavy one. “I am seeing crisis in this country. This crisis will result to shedding of blood of many Nigerians. If you want to be shielded from your blood not to be wasted in this crisis that is forth coming, come out to the front of this altar and donate five thousand naira (N 5, 000)”. Those were the statement of the priest.

Because of this, I asked, is this the teaching of Christ? So people now buy protection of God with money? In the other words, people who did not have five thousand naira to give or buy protection will have their blood shed during the crisis he prophesied was forth coming. I laughed internally because that is the trick men of God of today are using to meet their financial obligations and at the same time raise the money they want for any project.

How many persons in the Bible did Jesus Christ collected money from before he blessed them or solved their problems? But today, money stands as priority before many modern day men of God can pray for you. So much have fallen apart in the Christianity of the day. The men of God collect money before carryout the function they suppose to do freely.

Let’s take a look at what happened in the Anglican Church I attended. From the reasoning of the priest, those who did not come out to donate from one thousand naira to ten thousand naira will fall victim of the so cold blood shed he was foreseeing. What a weak and shameful teaching. The most annoying thing was that he was saying that with all seriousness. All Christians should be careful not to fall victim of such teaching. Their threats are empty.

As one created in the image and likeness of God, I strongly believe in seed sowing in the church. It’s purely a thing of faith. It works because it had worked for me. Also, many who have done that have testified the positive results they received from it. It is a good thing and I advise all who are lovers of God to adopt and practice that.

But, this is quite different from the threatening messages which many preachers in places of worship induce into the congregation. What do you think when a religious teacher threatens you that disaster will befall you if you do not come out from where you are sitting to make cash donation. That is purely rubbish. It is purely different from the teaching of Jesus Christ. Many out of fear were compelled to fall victim of their threatening messages.

It is time for all Christians to chew and digest the messages they received from churches of the current generation before acting with the messages. The reason is because many are teaching off point. Many have left what the master instructed them to do and are teaching their own selfish message. The churches of today are filled with heads who teach selfishly. Their teachings are saturated with their personal interests. It is time to be wise and apply wisdom in what you heard from churches. I am using churches in Nigeria as a case study here. Do not allow any selfish religious leader mislead you.

Prayer and spiritual protection are not purchasable. Because of this, discard any message that tells you to pay before you get anything from God. God is the one that protects so do not allow yourself to be fooled in any way. The so called men of God of the modern generation have emptied the pockets of many of their members and enriched their own pockets. That is man inhumanity to man. They play on the intelligence of their illiterate worshipers. The illiterate ones go home hungry while the pastor ends up living luxurious lifestyle. All of us need to be careful with these hungry men. Some of them hunger for prosperity. They use what they have to get what they want negatively.

In Mark 5:21-43, Jesus performed two remarkable miracles. One was the healing of the woman who had been bleeding since birth. The other is the raising of the daughter of a synagogue leader (the man’s named was Jairus).

³⁰ At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

³¹ “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

³² But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. ³³ Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. ³⁴ He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

In this part of the chapter of the Bible, Jesus told the healed woman to go that her faith has healed her. He did not ask of anything from the woman. But what do we see in the Churches in Nigeria? Money and money are always the point discussed. That is completely different from the teachings of Jesus and his ministerial function.

The modern day churches are messing everything up. Some are turning the church of Christ into business. How can a person who calls himself a priest of God be threatening the people to come out and give money in the church and if they do otherwise, disaster will befall them.

Referring to the talks of the Anglican priest that was threatening the congregations in the church that disaster would occur on the 1st of October 2017, and the way people in the church on that day could overcome is by giving for the church’s development. October 1, 2017 has passed, yet people who did not fell to his threat are living happily without any form of disaster. Churches in Nigeria must be wise and be conscious of how to go about money. It is not a must that pastors and priests must empty the pockets of those that attend their churches before they go home.

Let us look at the last part of the Bible passage of Mark 5

³⁷ He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. ³⁸ When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. ³⁹ He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” ⁴⁰ But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). ⁴² Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. ⁴³ He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

What did the verse 43 said? “He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.”

Jesus is not a man of so many words. He does not like noise making and advertising. But we see the opposite in the pastors of today. So many of them are so empty and they make the loudest noise. Some can claim they cure the disease no one can cure, yet they are just empty. We learn from everything Jesus taught in the Bible.

He ordered the people not to advertise the miracle he did by raising the dead girl from death. But what do we see today? We see nothing but many advertisements from the men of God. Jesus does not teach that you should keep boasting because you have the gifts of the Holy Spirit in you. Some of the teachings of the modern day Christianity are not real. All Christians should be wise and follow the standard of Jesus Christ.

Coded scams have been going on in churches, specifically in churches in Africa. The most affected is the churches in Nigeria. People who are called men of God in quote are abusing the opportunity given to them to teach the masses. The preachers are brainwashing the attendants of the individual churches in the country. These so called men of God have turned Christianity into something else.

Time has come when you use your God’s given brain to analyze some of the things you are taught in the church. Do not adhere fully to some of their teachings because many are teaching off point. Some are teaching with sentiments and for their personal gains.

Who is that priest that is given power to pronounce disaster on the congregations because they refused to fall to his tricks? Christians of the twenty-first century should take the standard established in the Bible to analyze the teachings of their priests or pastors. Refuse to be threatened by any man that calls himself an Apostle of Christ because he wants to achieve a particular thing.