xandy84:

CAN YOU PLEASE SHOW ME WHERE IN NEW TESTAMENT THAT JESUS OR HIS FOLLOWER TALK ABOUT TITTLE. FIRST FRUIT ETC?

xandy84:

CAN YOU PLEASE SHOW ME WHERE IN NEW TESTAMENT THAT JESUS OR HIS FOLLOWER TALK ABOUT TITTLE. FIRST FRUIT ETC?

harakiri:

During my Christian days, i studied the new testament judiciously from beginning to revelation and i am yet to see one verse where Jesus asked the followers/congregation to bring offerings and tithes (not to talk of first fruits). People will always delude themselves and believe what they choose to believe all because of the hope and reassurance of blessings from Oga Pastor.

Preaching today is no longer about heaven and hell unlike the old days when Sunday preaching would scare the living daylights out of you with all the talk of eternal damnation. Today it's all about :

Divine blessings
Divine intervention
Miracles from above
Total changes in your life
Special blessings in 2011
No going back in 2011

And to get these highly priced promises, you must PAY the price. All people are getting is false hope at exorbitant prices. Funny thing is the most successful people in the world are not even religious. I used to give my offerings and tithes even when things were hard for me but ever since my eyes opened (after i saw religion for the fraud is really was), i have excelled beyond my expectations. I am free of the bondage of religion.

I don't blame my people though. Things are very hard especially in Nigeria and they have to find solace somewhere and religion promises a void where sorrows can be cast but at what price? We easily pass as the most religious nation in the world and yet. . .we are the most wicked and treacherous to ourselves. We have no regard for our fellow man in spite of all the jumping up and down on Sunday.

Rubbish! ! !

harakiri:

@uwex. . . I am using my phone now so i cannot type much but if i recall the scriptures clearly,what Abraham paid was TRIBUTE! Same with LOT! Why do ppl like 2 misquote the bible they so believe in? Who says you are a child of Abraham? Do you look like an Isrealite? Do you know dat real jews and hebrews dont believe in Jesus or the new testament 4 dat matter? Do you know how many times dat your bible has been manipulated,re-edited and finally endorsed by a pagan king (KING JAMES) who didnt believe in religion but saw it as a means of seizing d minds of ppl via proxy of d catholic elite/papacy hence the king james bible u all weild as the word of God. . .lol. The biggest joke ever. Religion appeals 2 d illogical part of d brain where ppl can delude themselves 2 believe anything e.g feeding 5,000 ppl with only 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread OR the talking donkey of Balaam OR a man called Jonah who lived in the belly of a whale for three days without air,food,water and without getting digested in its belly OR the resurrection of lazarus who had been dead and embalmed 4 three days OR the man who actually told the sun to stand still ! Na wa ooo! My ppl believe all this because a white brought the book to us and claimed it was the real deal and who are we not 2 obey d white man's wishes. The same white man took us away as slaves,brought guns and alcohol. How many i go talk sef? Even the pope at the first world war era gave his approval 4 d "righteous" war dat resulted in the death of millions. You call urself a child of Abraham not knowing that back in the day, his true descendants would have wiped your entire community from the earth in their greed 4 more land. Keep dwelling in self delusion.

harakiri:

@princess V. . . Karl Max who quoted religion as the opium of d masses knew what he was talking about. So according 2 your deluded logic anyone who is neither christian or moslem is evil. Do you that more ppl have died from religious disputes than any other cause? Do u know that the deadlist wars and mass genocide all have religious undertones? Your "holy" bible is filled with so many accounts where their god told them to wipe out entire civilizations in their quest or greed for land. Innocent men,women,children and sometimes LIVESTOCK were murdered and their cities burnt 2 d ground. What was their offense? According to the isrealites,they were not their god's children and worshiped other gods. These were innocent souls who were minding their own business in a time when there when evangelism was non existent. Same ppl would have killed all your forefathers without thinking twice and you are deluding urself claiming 2 be Abraham's children. What a joke! In btw, its not necessary to be religious. The fact that i am not religious doesnt make you better than me. Actually, the most sadistic and cruel ppl i have come across are ALL "holy" religious ppl. Look at the Jos crisis which is nothing compared to what the isrealites or catholic crusaders did in the past. . . Is the crisis not religious based? Keep deluding yourselves.

Jenwitemi:

I just can't stop laughing and shaking my head at the pro first fruits posts in here. Some folks are far gone and will be mugus all their lives. The church has become casino house, kalo kalo house. Bring all your salary and win 10 times over. What they need now are slot machines with Jesus' images on it to complete the picture.

Gombs:

LEAVE THOSE THAT WANT TO GIVE,TO GIVE,AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY,LEAVE THE PASTORS ALONE. . .its for your own good.

babaearly:

You are the problem ,and people like you. If we dont have you around, we wont change our minds, we will save and enjoy our hard earned money.

“Every year between January and Easter, pulpit pimps begin to lick their chops as they look forward to flogging the sheep into giving to their absolute favorite pyramid scheme of the year – the “First Fruit offering.”

Unlike the tithe scam (where the love-vendor puts a gun to the back of your head every Sunday and Wednesday by threatening holy wrath upon you and your descendants for “robbing God”), the “First Fruit” scam is a 1 day cash windfall for the pimps. Before I go any further, I invite you to watch two brief videos (courtesy of spirituallysound) featuring “Pretty” Paula White – the original Florida Gator – pimping with wreckless abandon. These videos are from 2008, but you can surely believe that the same hollow lie is being perpetuated in churches across the country today:

[videos at link here]

(breathe in…breathe out…breathe in the good…breathe out the bad)

Like Pretty Paula, many pimps want you to give them “your increase” (a day’s salary, a week’s salary, or a month’s salary) so that God will “protect your crops for the remainder of the year” - and they always start off with a poor exegesis of Proverbs 3:9 as justification. However (and, as always) when you read Proverbs 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on, you’ll see that the proverbs are (essentially) the letters of a father to a son extolling the virtue of knowledge, wisdom, insight into his royal court, instructions on relationship and correction. The Proverbs were written as “wisdom literature”, designed to produce meditation on God, and they should be read thoroughly and in context in order to see the deeper truth contained therein.

The Proverbs (in particular) are not “legal guarantees” from God (e.g “honor the Lord with the first fruit… so shall your barns be filled…) - they are written in hyperbolic language, based on the whole truth of the Old Testament. The entire Proverbs (all 31 chapters) are a very interesting read, but they are challenging, particularly because of the nature of wisdom literature (veiled understanding that must be studied thoroughly, hyperbole, etc). Further, the Proverbs are essentially “sayings” as opposed to direct Law given by God to Moses and the children of Israel.

Having said that, let’s start at the very beginning (where the pimps don’t dare tread)… the first fruit offering was initiated in Leviticus:

Leviticus 23:9-14 (New American Standard Bible)

9Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

10“Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.

11‘He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

12‘Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without defect for a burnt offering to the LORD.

13‘Its grain offering shall then be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire to the LORD for a soothing aroma, with its drink offering, a fourth of a hin of wine.

14‘Until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.

…and further detailed in Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 26:1-10 (New American Standard Bible)

1“Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, and you possess it and live in it,

2that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you bring in from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His name.

3“You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare this day to the LORD my God that I have entered the land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.’

4“Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God.

5“You shall answer and say before the LORD your God, ‘My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; but there he became a great, mighty and populous nation.

6‘And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us.

7‘Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression;

8and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders;

9and He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

10‘Now behold, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground which You, O LORD have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your God;

First fruits are mentioned in the New Testament, but only symbolically; new converts were referred to as “first fruits” in the early Church because they were often the first followers of Christ in their communities (Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:15). However, Paul and James made it explicitly clear that Christ was a type of first fruit for those of us in the faith (1 Corinthians 15:20; James 1:18). There is no mention of cash or money in regards to the biblical principle of first fruit (see every reference to “first fruit” or “first fruits” in Nave’s Topical Bible). Under the Law, sacrifices (animal, grain, burnt offerings, etc.) were required by God for the forgiveness of sin and for “covering” or “blessing” (Genesis 3:21; Genesis 4:4-5; Genesis 8:20-21; Genesis 22:10-13; Leviticus 4:35; Leviticus 5:10).

Jesus Christ became the final Passover Lamb when He shed His Reedeming Blood for His elect, rendering these ceremonial sacrifices moot, null, and void (John 1:29; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Timothy 2:5-6). There is no need or reason for ANY CHRISTIAN to “sacrifice” or present “sacrificial offerings” in a mock ceremony. The sad reality is that these hirelings (who have already spiritually molested you with the tithe, convincing you that God is moved by your money) now tell you that your “crops” need to be “blessed”, otherwise you’ll meet all manner of financial calamity and the “devourer” will wreak havoc over your finances.

“So, passa, bishop, apostle, evangelist Smith…how can I be assured that God is going to make my crops reap a huge harvest this year” you ask? They can barely hide their delight when they reply “You have to give a first fruit offering – the first and best of your harvest – so that God will cover you for the remainder of the year!”. Next thing you know, the hireling is standing before the congregation in his best ceremonial frock with a huge basket (full of your money), declaring that he’s going to “wave the heave offering (another sacrifice of grain that was rendered moot) over the congregation so that God will be pleased with our sacrifice”.

What you don’t know is that your “special offering” to (essentially) get God off your back is actually a windfall cash payment to your hireling – a payment that he’s been waiting for since he took it from you the previous year. Sure, you may be told that “this offering is going to programs in the church”, and you don’t even question it when those same “programs” require a payment from you if you want to participate in them (sound familiar, lemmings of the love-vendor of Hampton’s club?). Your pimps love of cash and material things has created an insatiable lust for stuff that is no longer satisfied by the consumption of even more cash:

Ecclesiastes 5:10-11 (New American Standard Bible)

10He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.

11When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on?

I know for a fact that the “first fruit offering” goes directly to the love-vendor as a love offering, so don’t attempt to defend your love-vendor’s money grab here. And even if the “first fruit offering” was used for “benevolence”, it was taken from you in the guise of a lie because (yet again) your hireling doesn’t trust you to give from your heart (2 Corinthians 9:7) – you must be threatened and cajoled. Further, some churches even move the date of the collection of the “first fruit” during the months of January through April. If this was a mandatory offering (mandated and honored by God), then don’t you think God would clearly say so (in His Word), something like: “My Bishops/Apostles/Pastors/Shepherds et al shall collect a first fruit offering on My behalf on the 3rd Sunday of January”.

Even further, I find it curious that these vipers will put a pistol to your head for (at least) two Old Testament customs (that NEVER EVER EVER APPLIED TO YOU), yet they overlook every other animal sacrifice, (real) grain offering, etc. The next time your love-vendor wants a “sacrificial first fruit offering”, then throw a New York strip steak or a bushel of oranges on his “altar” – and see what he does then.

Folks, I implore you from the bottom of my heart to flee these lying, wicked, vile, covetous, desperate pulpit pimps and degenerate hustlers. They wouldn’t get within spitting distance of you were it not for their profane lust for your money – that’s why they can dismiss you with no impunity when you remove their hands from your pockets.

Those of you who have paid (or are paying) into these money scams because your love-vendor has convinced you that God doesn’t even see you unless you have money in your hand, you need to repent of your fleshly desire to gain favor and material things from God. Jesus paid the sacrifice for you already, and God is not a slot machine.

If you truly love the Lord and are earnestly seeking to be transformed into the Image of Christ (Romans 12:1-2), then please get away from these money-grubbing thieves before they cause you to question your faith when you see that you (and them) aren’t prospering as they promised you would.

If you are a hireling that knowingly participates in and perpetuates this first fruit scam (among other parlor tricks) then you still have time to repent before the Lord, renounce your wickedness, and seek restoration through Jesus Christ. Now is the hour, because you do not know what tomorrow holds for you.”