did jesus had anything equivalent to private jets during his days?

i accuse no man,your intuitive mind must tell you d truth, don't be a dogmat, in nigeria everythig a pastor does is right,we say GOD say they should do it that's final justification,

fela was right after all,
"pastor's house na him dey fine pass, my people them dey do bad bad bad things to Jesus christ our lord, Amen , Amen , Amen, by the grace of almighty God, ascramento ladksosuuekumukeenyata  Amen , Amen, Amen,  my people open your eyes very well, popu na enjoinment, Imamu na gbaladun, aa a a a a aaa my people juba bishop, them go juba popu, them go juba imam ah ah ah aaaaa 
20 million Dollars, OMG and my fellow Nigerians keep shouting , governement this , government that,  Damn it, this buisness is booming like crazy man,

20 million dollars, 20 million dollars, 20 million dollars, 20 million dollars.
i fell  for my country and its people 

O boy na you make sense pass for all the posts wey dey here.

Baba talk am well well.

Open your eyes everywhere
Archbiishop (abi na GO) na miliki
Pope (abi na Daddy) na enjoyment
Imam na gbaladun

Archbishop dey enjoy
Pope sef dey enjoy
Imam sef dey enjoy

My brothers - wetin you say.

my people dem go dey follow Bishop
dem go follow Pope
dem go follow Imam

dem go carry all the money
dem go juba Bishop
juba Pope
juba Imam

and dem go dey start to yab themselves

$20million for jet for GO - baba nla nonsense !
$20million for jet for Daddy - overtake don overtake overtake
all these churches don turn to bank - GO na bank manager
na big wahala for man if you no pay your tithes on time
$20million for church jet when church members poor pass church rats - dey wallow in poverty.
Na so african man life dey be? - suffer don dabaru hin sense 

where is the priority my people.

Rev. Creflo Dollar Sells His Rolls Royce

http://www.bet.com/News/NewsArticleCrefloDollarRollsRoyce.htm?mb=1

Rev. Creflo Dollar Sells His Rolls Royce | News | BET.com

Posted Jan. 21, 2008 – The Rev. Creflo Dollar, the TV preacher whose Bling Dynasty is being probed by a ranking US. Senator, says that he has sold his $280,000 Rolls-Royce and donated the money to his children’s ministry.


“If you want good news, I sold the Rolls Royce and donated the money to our children’s ministry,” the Atlanta-area minister told ABC’s Nightline TV news magazine. “But I didn’t sell the Rolls Royce to please everybody … because there’s nothing wrong with having a car that members of church bought for me.”

Dollar, along with several other televangelists who preach the gospel of prosperity, said that he has spent his own personal wealth purchasing 100 cars for elderly and single mothers, and that he has bought houses for people. And, regarding his large estate in Atlanta and his $2.4 million apartment in New York, Dollar says that those purchases have nothing to do with the $69 million his church brought in last year. They were bought with the money he earns from his many private business deals, he said.

As for the private jet, he says he needs it, like a carpenter needs a hammer, as a tool to carry out God’s work. And for anyone who thinks being a Christian means you need to pledge to a life of poverty, they need to go back and read the Bible, he says.

"I say pick the Bible up and read it for yourself," he told Nightline. "And as you begin to read it, you'll go through the entire Bible and find out that Abraham, the Bible says, was rich. Isaac and Jacob was rich. Joseph was rich. Solomon was one of the richest people in the world. These were all servants of God. Well, why in the world would God allow his son to come and not be at least to the level of those servants?"

Not everybody agrees, including the Rev. Dr. Joseph Hough, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York .

"This claim that Creflo Dollar makes that Jesus was rich is so ludicrous as to hardly bear examination," he said. “All of the people who followed Jesus were poor people …. Ninety-five percent of the people who lived in the culture that Jesus was part of were very poor people. It is wrong to make people believe that if they follow a certain formula, that God somehow is going to transform their circumstances."

Pastor leaves $800K richer

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23263651-3102,00.html


PROSPEROUS pastor Benny Hinn flew into Brisbane a multimillionaire. He left, 28 hours and three shows later, an estimated $800,000 richer.

The Queensland capital was a goldmine for the flamboyant televangelist who left with cash, cheques and the bank account and credit card details of more than 50,000 Australians fans.
Some attendees, who travelled from as far away as Hong Kong and Perth, handed over gold earrings and wedding rings instead of cash.

An Australian Taxation Office spokeswoman said Pastor Hinn's Australian haul – part of an estimated $110 million donated to the World Healing Centre Church each year – was seen as a "love offering".

"The tax office is unable to comment on individual tax matters," the spokeswoman said.

"However gifts received by churches aren't usually tax-exempt unless they're given in a personal capacity. It's a very complicated issue."

An Australian Customs Service spokeswoman said Pastor Hinn's visa allowed him to leave the country two hours after his 3pm show on February 16.

He travelled aboard his $36 million Gulfstream jet to Auckland, part of a 27-stop world tour expected to generate more than $10 million.

The 105,000 Australians who attended Pastor Hinn's shows in 1998 were believed to have donated more than $1 million.

Brisbane attendees at his February 15 and 16 shows were urged to give as much as $10,000 each.

Conservative estimates place the Australian donations, minus merchandise sales, at $800,000.

Pastor Hinn says he is accountable to God and authorities which oversee not-for-profit organisations.

But on November 6, the US Senate Committee on Finance announced he would be investigated.

Senator Chuck Grassley said he believed Hinn, and other wealthy pastors, had experienced personal gain through tax-exempt work.

It was believed Pastor Hinn had profited from financial donations.

Affluent pastors use wealth differently: Some give back; others buy yachts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1869498/posts


DALLAS (ABP) -- There's a rare breed of creature often spotted in exotic locations leading a large pack. No, it’s not a yellow-tailed wooly monkey. It’s a wealthy pastor, and its very existence is controversial.

Success in many professions is expected to bring riches. With pastors, however, luxurious lifestyles are traditionally frowned upon. Some people have a hard time listening to sermons against greed and false idols from a pastor wearing a Rolex and a new Armani suit.

Nonetheless, the wealthy pastor is not an endangered species; the growth of megachurches, big book deals and media stardom have increased their number in recent years.

“Church size translates directly into market power,” said a Duke University study on the topic. “To attract entrepreneurial clergy, some very large churches are paying entrepreneurial salaries.”

How those pastors handle their wealth varies widely. Some admit to being millionaires. A few forgo church salaries and tithe 90 percent of their income. Ultimately, though, there are about as many ways to spend pastoral wealth as there are to earn it.

A 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article detailed accounts of the wealthy pastors club. According to the article, Creflo Dollar drives a black Rolls Royce and travels in a $5 million dollar jet; Benny Hinn lives in a $3.5 million home and drives an $80,000 Mercedes-Benz G500; T.D. Jakes has 2 mansions; Robert Tilton’s ministry owns a 50-foot yacht; Randy and Paula White’s ministry owns a jet airplane, a Cadillac Escalade and a Mercedes-Benz sedan.

Salaries for these ministers are typically kept confidential. But in a 1997 CNN interview, Hinn said he earned between $500,000 and $1 million annually.

The Compensation Handbook for Church Staff annually calculates average senior-pastor salaries by including base salary, housing, life and health insurance and educational benefits. While the national average salary of pastors is $77,096, according to the 2006 handbook, a select few pastors are earning much more.

An increase in worship attendance is the biggest factor to heightened pastoral and staff compensation, according to the 2007 handbook. Excluding insurance and educational benefits, senior pastors with a worship attendance of more than 1,000 people made an average of $111,052. That's 73 percent more than the $64,266 paid to pastors with a worship attendance of 300 people or fewer.

The rise of the megachurch apparently has made the wealthy-pastor club less exclusive, according to Becky McMillan and Matthew Price in a 2003 report for Pulpit and Pew, the pastoral-leadership research center at Duke Divinity School.

But an $111,052 annual salary isn’t considered extreme wealth, according to the handbook, How Much Should We Pay the Pastor. So what makes some megachurch pastors super-wealthy?

It’s the extracurriculars. All the highest-paid pastors mentioned in the Post-Dispatch article have nationally televised sermons or profit from successful book sales.

The New York Times reported in 2006 that Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, could earn as much as $13 million on the contract he signed to write his second book, Become a Better You. His first book, Your Best Life Now, remained on the Times bestseller list for two years and sold more than 4 million copies. Seven million Americans view Osteen's weekly sermons on television, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Shortly after the success of Your Best Life Now, Osteen appeased many critics by discontinuing the $200,000 annual salary he received from Lakewood in order to live off the book revenues and worldwide tours run through Joel Osteen Ministries.


Even though Osteen’s messages continually focus on fulfilling potential prosperity, he told the Times that his sermons don’t deal directly with getting rich.

“I don’t believe I ever preached a message on money,” he said. “But I do believe … God can want you to have a better house. God wants you to be able to send your kids to college.”



Alternative salary systems

At the other end of the salary spectrum is Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas. Since its formation, the church has paid all of its staff members the same annual salary, which is currently $26,400. The only difference in pay is compensation for dependents -- $400 a month for a spouse and $275 a month per child for up to four kids.

“Our view is that God doesn’t value the work of the pastor more than he does the secretary because God called us all to use our spiritual gifts,” Jeff Abshire, Antioch’s administrative pastor, said. “Aren’t we all called to fulfill the Great Commission? Aren’t we all called to preach the gospel?”

Abshire said Antioch pays low salaries because it wants to preserve its ministers’ calling from God.

“We believe that we’ll have greater integrity with our people if we’re living off a salary that is similar to what most of the people in our church earn,” Abshire said. “It’s easier to preach about finances when the pastor has as much faith-need for God to provide as the congregation does.”

Abshire acknowledged that many might perceive Antioch’s payment system as unusual. “We’re not saying this is for everybody,” he said. “We felt called to set up salaries this way, but we’re not saying that some other church is doing it the wrong way.”

If the churches took half the money that they was making and gave it back to the community, we'd be alright. If they took half the buildings that they use to "praise God" and gave it to motherfuckers who really need God, we'd be alright. Have you seen some of these god damn churches lately? There's one's that take up the whole block in New York. There's homeless people out here. Why ain't the church lettin' them stay there? Why these niggas got gold ceilings and shit? Why God need gold ceilings to talk to me? Why does God need colored windows to talk to me? Why God can't come where I'm at where he sent me? If God wanted to talk to me in a pretty spot like that, why the hell he send me here then (reference to the ghetto)

tpia:

people are now mediocres because they can't afford to buy a $20 million jet or what?

Is your bank account now the measure of spirituality?

skyone:

What's your understanding of mediocrity in context to this discussion

skyone:

@Davidlan and other mediocres


Try seeing things beyond your nose before exposing your level of ignorance on a forum like this. This man of God serves God with complete humility and sincererity.

Now do you know how it all started in RCCG, dO you know where the ministry is heading to, do know how much that
has been spent on charity and still on going, do you know what impact has this mighty ministry played in the academic
standard in Nigeria and the rest of the world, now what do u really know about RCCG AND PASTOR ADEBOYE i'm sure nothing but u can increase your strength and criticise,  wierd and sad.

Has any of you openly criticise his/her local councillor for embezzling constituency finance not to talk of your state governor, i'm sure you dare not. But u guys can amazingly slander a man of GOD within a blink of an eye without thinking  about it. Please let's think and reason well, churches are not the cause of poverty in Nigeria rather they are doing their best to end poverty, please lets think and look before we leap before endagering ourself with the wrath of ALMIGHTY GOD YAWEH.


PART OF THE PROBLEM OF NIGERIA IS MANY CITIZEN CANNOT THINK THEIR WAY FROM POVERTY. REMEMBER IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF JOHN 14:14 if ye ask anything in my name i will do it. IT MEANS BY FAITH YOU CAN BUY YOUR PASTOR A JET WHEN GOD HAS FINISHED BLESSING YOU.

tpia:


just showing you how shallow you are.

What's your own understanding of mediocre?

Am sure you wouldnt consider me or anyone here mediocre if you felt one of us has a $20 million jet.

So how can citizens think their way from poverty if they're constantly being told its more important to make the clergy richer, than it is for them to develop self sustaining abilities? With all the religiousity in Nigeria, shouldnt church attendees have thought their way out of poverty by now?  Do they lack faith or what are they doing wrong?

tpia:


just showing you how shallow you are.

What's your own understanding of mediocre?

Am sure you wouldnt consider me or anyone here mediocre if you felt one of us has a $20 million jet.

skyone:

Simple question with an abject answer pathetic. Now i'll help you; mediocre (you) =Moderate to inferior in quality therefore a person like you who think a jet is too luxurious for a MAN who oversee over 5 thousand parish of RCCG all around the world is a complete mediocre.

Yeah, he wants a private jet - just like Paul wanted a private boat when he was travelling around abi? Or just like Jesus wanted a private donkey for all his trekking through Israel - these conmen should be exposed for what they are. This is sickening.

Tayo-D:

@Ibime,
The same Jesus that asked for a colt/ass that no one as ever sat on? Please translate that to today and try to imagine its implications.

Tayo-D:

@Davidylan,

I asked you a simple question. Is one soul that gets won to Christ through the use of that $20 million Jet worth it?

Eesyboi:

I agree with you Kunle, But i still see nothing bad in a pastor wanting a Jet to Advertise the word of God, Its just like a poor man asking for money to buy Bible and Bicycle so he can advertise the word of God among his neighborhood. We are taking this a big case because the Church is Popular, there are lots of it happening among small churches,