Separation and not divorce.
Many ministers of the gospel in our churches these days suffers inwardly and secretly because of mis-interpretation of some Bible injunctions as it relates to divorce and the emphasis some Pentecostal churches placed on it.

The ministers of the gospel who are husbands and fathers in their homes inwardly suffers dejection, bad mood & a times ill health why enduring pains and untold hardship they faced secretly because of the way and manner their wives uses some biblical verses on the subject of marriage as a weapon of torture instead of as a weapon of love put in place by God Almighty to stabilize marriages and make it more & more heavenly like.
The wives of these so-called Pastors and Ministers of the gospel believes that no matter what they did to their husbands and no matter how deeply & inwardly hurting it may be he can never respond or take action that will lead to a divorce. Thus, these category of clergy wives thus engaged in torturing their husbands with words, insults and a times public humiliation knowing truly well that the man of God will prefer to keep silence and dare not to respond so as to prevent an escalation where the church will only take the words of his wife against him. The clergy wives do a times bragged openly believing that once they opened their mouth to speak against any of the so called man of God, it is their words that the people and the church will use to judge the spiritual state of their husbands.

Those that suffered most are the Ministers and Pastors of big churches who has very large congregations and whose church members are very prominent in the cities, and they are well known. The wives of these prominent Pastors and Ministers of the gospel whose husbands are big pastor of big model churches or their husbands are holding sensitive positions in large churches treat their husbands as slaves in their homes and humiliates them with accusations of adulteries which they knew the church and their followers are sensitive to just to keep their husbands in line and forced him to stay put as their pawns and slaves in the house.

Six months ago I asked my wife who is so close to the wife of our Pastor why the woman constantly bring up the issue of secret woman at any of her conversations with the Pastor. I asked the question because we know the man is never a person like that (this to the extent that we know him and for the number of years we have served under him). My wife laughed as he told me calmly that the Pastor wife knew that his husband is God fearing but that was her style whenever she wanted more of her husband attention. I found this evil and a very sinister act.

A man of God lives adjacent to our home, he is a man of prayer, preaches one man one marriage at every advantages. He also talked frequently about confession, restitution and holiness without which no man shall see God. I think DEVIL always use wives of men of God to torment them otherwise I see no reason why what happened to this man through his wife should happened at all. My thinking has always been that when a woman is married to a genuine man of God, she should count herself very lucky indeed.
One day I secretly followed him to a restaurant (Buka for short) where he goes every other day and in the evening. I met him at a corner of the buka where he balanced consuming amala with ewedu voraciously like a hungry lion who has never eaten for days, and we started talking.
I began to play with words from scriptures just to get him to talk to me, but he refused to speak. After he finished his food, seeing my persistence, I saw that drop of tears began to stroll down his cheeks as he began to speak.

I reveled in agony as this man talk, I can see an excruciating pain oozing out through his mouth from his heart epicenter. I didn’t know when I shouted at him as he kept saying that when a man divorces his wife such man will go to hell, and I don’t want to go to hell. I told him you are in hell already. You don’t need another one.

When it seemed he was done and was about to leave he ordered for another set of food which is meant for takeaway I decided to help him pay for that and volunteered to help him carry the nylon bag. As a lawyer I wanted to know his wife and pick up some evidence to prove all that the man had said to me during that brief encounter.
On entering their house, I saw that they normally remove their shoes and place them at the entrance. As I was removing the lacing of my boot the man took the food inside and instead of hearing welcome sir or welcome Daddy all I heard from a nearby parlor room was why did it take you so long to bring ordinary amala home? I was surprised as that statement hit me like a bullet fired at a very close distance.
I overheard the man explaining that he decided to eat his own food in the buka so that he won’t need to wash plates again in the house this evening.
I was shocked as I waited a little bit to hear more. The next thing I heard was please don’t bother to wake me up for any church tomorrow morning because if I am eating this late, I am not sure I will be able to sleep early enough to wake up early to go to your church tomorrow morning. Thus as she was talking I entered the parlor and greeted her ‘ good evening madam I came with Pastor he is my friend’.
The woman quickly stood up readjusted herself and welcome me politely and reverently. I was dazed. Not too long she called the Pastor into another room which is directly opposite the parlor and rebuked him fiercely saying “what is all these now you didn’t tell me someone is coming with you to our house what do we offer him now’ I heard the Pastor faintly saying to her that we met in the buka where we ate together not too long ago, kindly offer him water and that will be enough. ‘Water!’ the woman responded. “Do you think I am a shameless person like you?’. At that point I decided to speak out and loudly “Pastor please tell madam not to worry o I have just eaten”. People of God even as little as I am my wife cannot dare called me shameless.

To cut the long story short, after few days I met the man in the buka again and then invited him to my office in Falomo.

The man of God was in my office on the day we fixed and after listening to him for hours, I mean hours I can deduced with few forensic evidence that the summary of his problems lies in giving answers to the following questions the which I am going to address as a Lawyer:

Questions begging for answers

As a Pastor or a Minister in the household of faith, If I do or act like this against my wife unpleasant behavior at home.

What will people say?
What will the Church say?
What will my GO say?
What will God say?

The truth I found out;
This man because of the constant nagging of his wife his health has been severely affected. He hardly sleeps. He bottled so many infractions which hurts him so badly and because he could not speak out he suffers silently. I indeed asked him with the way things are with your health now how has the people and the church helped you, how has your GO helped you? He said they didn’t know about it as he had been managing to keep his home together as a Pastor.
He said further that he is trying to be a good example to the people and to the church he is pastoring. He said he had been tolerating and bearing the debilitating pains for people and the church to see me as a good and responsible husband. I said so you are carrying this burden alone even at the expense of your ill health you must be a fool.

A word for our Pastoral leaders
As a firm believer in Jesus Christ in the first place, let no one be in doubt that I believe so much in the sanctity of the word of God, I also believed that marriage is honorable, I believed in the fact that God may not be pleased with divorce, I also believes that adultery and fornication are sins God has decreed against. But as a Lawyer on another part, I do not believe that God will want a man to die in the hands of a woman who do not love him and in the hands of a merciless woman who does not have any form of respect and/or regards for the grace of God upon the life of her clergy husband. I do not believe also that God will want a man to die in the hands of a woman who constantly shows signs that she didn’t like him, but she is only using some biblical injunctions to keep this man with her at all times and hurting him with words and nagging.
I also believe that there are some women whom a man cannot put up with no matter what that man offered the woman. In my years of practicing law, I have seen men forgiving their wives, but I am yet to see a woman who has totally forgiven her husband. Some of them only put up with the man for economic gains and benefits or for the single reasons that she is old and can no longer get a suitor if she dares lives her husband. Thus, these categories of wives instead turned their matrimonial homes to hell secretly for their gospel minister husband. Some of them even go to the extent of committing sexual crime by constantly cheating on their husband while denying their husbands of his conjugal rights by giving him flimsy excuses instead and still come home to harass their husbands what rubbish?

Now let us go into the Bible to find a way out of this matter:

Something happened in the book of Mark 10:2-12 the Pharisees came to ask Jesus Christ whether it is lawful to put away our wives. In getting back to them the Lord asked what Moses commanded them. In their response to our Lord Jesus Christ, they said to him that Moses permitted us to send our wives away with divorcement notice. Our Lord responded that it is because of the hardness of your hearts that Moses permitted you to put away your wives but such was never in the plan of God from the beginning. Jesus Christ then told them that what God has joined together let no man put asunder. This clarifies that to the extent that a man will have to divorce his wife is never meant to be so from beginning. Jesus then gave us an inkling into the subject of divorce as it relates to every sons & daughters of God from that time and even till now. This I have decided to call a new commandment as recorded in verses 11-12 that a man who divorces his wife and marry another committed adultery against her.

From this verse there is a way out;
1. If you can no longer put up with a nagging woman in your life who constantly harasses you, who constantly annoyed you, who constantly maligned, insult, abuse and publicly disgraces you. If you can no longer bear the hurt, the pains & the terrific misdemeanor of the one you called your wife (check if you can hold unto yourself and not commit fornication with another woman, check if you can stay alone without marring another woman), you can divorce your wife and you wont be committing adultery against her.
The equation statement is
If a man divorces his wife + Remarry another woman = Adulterous relationship
Legally speaking and in the context of this biblical injunction, two variables must be present for a man to be guilty of adultery. From this statement only one of these variables can stand alone the other variables cannot as you have to divorce a legally constituted marriage first before you can remarry. However a man can issue a divorce notice to his wife and if he remains unmarry he has not committed adultery based on this point of biblical law.
2. Another way out of a toxic relationship has been provided for in Section 39 of the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1970. With this act, Legal and/or judicial separation can be obtained by a petition filed at any high court in Nigeria. The decree of Judicial Separation when ordered by the Court relives the petitioner from the obligation to cohabit with the other party to the marriage while the decree remains in operation, it does not affect the marriage or the status, right and obligations of the parties to the marriage. The decree only enables the couple to live apart or separately till such a time both deem fits for divorce or to resolve their differences. This will allow the couple to leave a separate life until such a time when the husband and the wife become reasonable to live together again in peace and tranquility.
3. However, if you are a Pastor or a Bishop there are certain things you need to do before you should embark on the journey to separation. I mean as a serving minister or a Pastor you may need to do the following;
- Talk to your members that yourself and your wife are passing through a difficult moment, and you needed their prayers.
- Tell them that yourself & your wife have agreed to separate for sometimes while we take care of our children together. Plead for their understanding and ask them to pray along with you.
- Explain to them why this decisions you and your wife have arrived at will further cemented your marriage if you were able to wither through the storm together with their prayers.
- Use the same principle to while discussing with your biological children too.
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy has used this effectively and it works. The thinking of his wife before their separation used to be that once she announced that she has divorced the respected Pastor, that will probably be the end of Love World ministry which never happened. As long as Pastor Chris didnt marry another wife he has not committed adultery and he won’t go to hell.
To cut the long story short the Pastor asked me to process the court papers for a separation. The court granted our request, and they were separated for 2years. Unfortunately, the woman fell ill just 9months after their separation. Due to her failing health both families appealed to her husband and thereafter she was brought back to her matrimonial home. The husband and the wife have both been living happily together since then.



Passionate Appeal to our Christian Sisters;
You are supposed to be daughters of God or you are pretending to hate devil yet you still behave like a daughter of Lucifer. You appreciate others and celebrate them, yet you do not honor your husband at home. You show good character outside, yet you are wolves at home please change.
That man you are treating like a thrash, other women are praying to have him as the love of their lives. The truth is that some wives cannot survive 2Months outside their husband house, yet they made themselves Lords in their marital homes.
I couldn’t believe my ears when we played backs series of recorded voice conversations between the Pastor & his wife where the wife will be giving her Pastor husbands matching orders in the house. A situation where the husband asked for sex, she will respond by saying but you called yourself Pastor, is sex food. What nonsense.
No man will go to hell because he responded negatively to your misbehaviors and maltreatment, insults and secret abuse. As long as a man keep himself from marrying another woman, he can send you packing out of his home and God Almighty will forgive him.
A word is enough for the wise

Barister M. E Kehinde