My take on Pastor Adeboye’s “If you marry a wife through facebook” – Olumide Bada

The internet was awoken yesterday by a statement attributed to Pst Adeboye “If you get your wife through facebook, you’ll loose her on youtube” there were several attacks and criticism concerning the statement even by loyal followers of Pst Adeboye..
I paused deeply too and I realized that Jesus too made many statements during his time, that if he was around and he was posting it on twitter etc he will be severely criticized. Eg statements like “ If your right eye causes you to sin, poke it out and throw it away. It is better to lose one part of your body, than for your whole body to end up in hell. “ Mat 5:29 “ What? Poke out my eye?? Cut off my hand? Because they made me sin?? Whereas we all know there are deeper meanings to this statement. So it takes deeper revelations to interpret most parables spoken by Men of God.

I am not a very good writer and not also very good at decrypting other people’s parables. Eg Pst Adeboye’s wisdom statement here, because obviously his wisdom is higher than mine, and the gap of such wisdom to mine is very large. But let me use the little insight I have.

So I said to myself, there must be deeper meanings to this statement. So I went digging for the video of the sermon, and found it.. And I now quote verbatim what he said, not what the twitter handler wrote.

“Let me tell you clearly “if you get a wife through THE facebook, you will loose her through THE youtube..you can quote me..any marriage that is concocted through the facebook is going to crash through the youtube, no doubt about that. Our forefathers said it before me..they said it in Yoruba, the interpretation is what I’ve already given you. They said “iyawo ti a ba fi ijo fe, iran lo ma wo lo..”..

And he went straight to give an illustration of a man who met his wife in church, one will expect the next illustration to buttress this will be a man that met his wife through facebook . It’s the story of a beautiful girl whose beauty did not match her character and the marriage failed..Meaning he was also taking about knowing someone on face value alone. Which is not enough.


My take, just my take…
He said any marriage “concocted” through the facebook.. Concocted means to fabricate, to prepare, to make. Many of us are familiar with concoction in school, mixing several ingredients together to make a “delicacy” that we can eat.
Marriages/relationships concocted, fabricated, made entirely through social media or decided just by face value are headed to fail.

He never said it was wrong to find a spouse via Facebook. I for one know people that met through facebook, and they are happily married now. Social Media is a good meeting place for old and new friends, however when it comes to marriage.. meeting on social media is one thing. But deepening the relationship on social media, courting on social media, proposing on social media etc is quite wrong. Because the social media never reveals the entirety about someone.. We all put up our best pics (pictures can be pretty deceptive, everyone looks good on instagram) and behave ourselves on social media.. to really get to know whether someone is your ideal marriage partner.. you both need to get out of social media and relate in real life, to ascertain how you both truly behave and react in real life.

When Jesus said “ by their fruits you shall know them.. (Mathew 7:16) That knowing he talks about is a deeper knowing than social media can present to you,. The Greek meaning for “know” means “to be fully acquainted with” and that full acquaintance with someone can never be offered to you via social media.. You don’t know his/her fruits, such marriages are bound to crash because there was never a full acquaintance of each other.

So many things are likely to happen if you keep courting on facebook, and you eventually both get married after that, likely things that happen to hamper the foundation of such relationships are: misinterpretation of chat discussions, obsession over her friends list, temptations to post nasty things on each other’s wall when there are issues, annoyance that he or she has not change his relationship status, using your status updates to score points, fixation over his/her tagged pictures etc

Where does the youtube thing come in? It’s another social media . Youtube is particularly more about videos..”a louder/nosier social platform” In a relationship that there was no deep knowing between individuals. When such marriages break up, it blows up in greater proportions, that those that never even knew about the struggles behind the relationship are now able to “see“ it and the relationship becomes a wrong model for all to view. The breakage is sometimes more noisier than the marriage.

Is your relationships entirely concocted through social media? Social media many a times too will aid its crashing, and publicize its crashing.

Hence the Yoruba proverb “iyawo ti aba fi ijo fe, iran ni yio wo lo” meaning the bride you married from a party she will surely go away through dance. eg She will leave you via the help of same medium the courting/marriage arrangement where made.

Facebook makes it easy to find and connect with people from your past, it can also place a strain on relationships. A survey conducted by a UK divorce website revealed that Facebook is commonly cited as a reason for divorce. Seeing a partner befriending or talking to someone on Facebook with whom she had a previous relationship can cause anxiety and insecurity. People might also turn to Facebook when they are in fights or disagreements with their partners. This can lead to dirty laundry being aired in public through inappropriate comments or status updates posted in anger. Couples that break up can also use Facebook as a platform to get back at their ex-partners, which can jeopardize future relationships. In a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Facebook is cited as the primary source of compromising information that leads to divorce.

If you meet on social media, don’t get the entire process done there. Come out of social media much regularly; come into the real world so that the real and true process of “knowing” can take place. Social media can never help you to be fully acquainted with someone in other to know his/her fruits, and the right fruits determine whether you should go ahead with the marriage

This is purely my take, and not intended to reduce or misinterpret what was said..

Thanks
@olumidebada
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