Article written in response to Chris Okotie's claims on online services

How sad it is today to find electrical gadgets in churches. Jesus Never Used them. His disciples who later became apostles did not use them either. So why do we use them? Why do we use microphones? Why not shout on top of our voices to preach? Is using musical instruments Biblical?

Why should a Christian own a TV or a church propagate the gospel through one? Why do true believing Christian use the internet? Jesus, neither the apostles used them.

Why do pastors wear clerical collars when it wasn't written the apostles did? Why do Christian men and women wear trousers when Jesus nor his disciples wore one? Christians should have maintained the fashion that was in vogue in Biblical times.

These questions and thoughts were what you would find in the heart of a typical religious fanatic. But they were my thoughts after I had read what Pastor Chris Okotie said about online church services.

In his 'The COVID-19 Mystery' sermon, Okotie denounced the cyber and internet church services as untrue and unbiblical.

In his own word, he said, "...What we call the online church is absolutely untrue, because for you to be in church, you have to be ecclesia, which is translated from the Greek word, ec, which is out, and the word caleo, called out.
"...So, this thing, this phenomenon that we are talking about, the Internet and cyber churches, is totally unscriptural."

Okotie, like many pastors who usually embed their opinions with the scriptures, unsurprisingly never backed up his claim that virtual worship is unbiblical with any definitive Bible verse. Maybe he forgot to. But my gut tells me he has none.

Going by the pastor's words, then my aforementioned thoughts and questions about microphones, TV, the internet and fashion are not out of place. If virtual worships are unscriptural, is the use of phones, cars and technological items scriptural? Is Okotie's hairdressing scriptural?

However, In Okotie's defence, the Bible in Hebrews 10:25 actually encourages the physical meeting together of believers:
"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching" (KJV).

Reading through the line of that verse diligently, two deductions could be made: one, some of the believers to whom the writer was writing were in the habit of not meeting up with other believers; two, the writer did not use a 'compulsory tone'. He was only advising them of the importance of meeting up with others as a way of brewing up encouragement among believers.

If we insist physical meetup is a must, then how do we explain Jesus' response to the question of the Samaritan woman he met at the well of Jacob? In John 4:20 (KJV) the woman asked Jesus:

"Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

Jesus responded: "...Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father."

Jesus went ahead in verses 23 & 24, "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
"God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

Jesus did not at any place command his disciples to compulsorily gather to worship him every day. He never stated that because the spirit of God in the heart of a faithful Christian, not a religious one, is enough of a fellowship with him. This is reiterated in Isaiah 66:1-2 (KJV): "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house [Cathedrals] that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
"For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word."

God wants to fellowship with us individually. Going to church doesn't make a Christian, what does is our faithfulness. What can we say of christians in countries where churches are not allowed? Is Pastor Okotie implying their individual worship is unbiblical? There have been testimonies of converts in countries where Christianity is frowned at, who were saved after a radio or internet TV programs; is Okotie saying their conversion is unbiblical?

God is a Spirit, and they that want to worship him must do so in spirit and in truth. If he wanted our physical meetings, he'd have specifically told the disciples to do so after him. We are, however, enjoined to do so by the writer of Hebrews 10 to help stir up our faith.

In addition, the verse preceding verse 25 of Hebrews 10, the writer says, "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:"

Instead of confusing Christians based on their individual opinions or hearsay about a subject matter, pastors should rather provoke their Christians unto love and good works.

Instead of criminalizing fashions, cosmetic use, modern-day technological gadgets, pastors should provoke the body of Chris to faithfully and truly serve God. The same people who authoritatively said TV was sinful years back are now using it to 'propagate' the gospel.

Instead of fighting government policies on COVID-19 (whether you believe the existence of the disease or not), this set of condemning pastors should...

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Why is he putting on suits then when the apostles didn't put on suits, hypocrite!

lol

So you think say of microphone dey that time, the apostles no go use am. Which kind yeye write up be this

Most of the world technologies are evil. They are leading people to hell.
GOD will not give his children evil to use.
Technology can be built the good/right ways that are pleasing to GOD ALMIGHTY. The current technologies are built the wrong and inferior ways.

How sure are you the current online/internet world won't lead majority to hell? It can be built the right way that is pleasing to GOD (if HE wants us to).

OpenYourEyes1:
Most of the world technologies are evil. They are leading people to hell.
GOD will not give his children evil to use.
Technology can be built the good/right ways that are pleasing to GOD ALMIGHTY. The current technologies are built the wrong and inferior ways.

How sure are you the current online/internet world won't lead majority to hell? It can be built the right way that is pleasing to GOD (if HE wants us to).

Technology like anything else in the world depends on how you use it.

A knife can be used to cut and prepare food, but can equally be used as a weapon.

There is nothing inherently evil about technology.

Damn! This place used to atleast try. This is just amazingly stupid. I really hate churches that use microphones to disturb the neighbours even with 5 congregants available. That is just inconsiderate. Especially during gibberish speaking sessions. However i understand the use of the microphone in a church setting. Especially in a larger one. It is humanly impossible to speak for all to hear in, for example, oyedepo's church.

The argument by the pastor is below fetus thinking its amazing.

OpenYourEyes1:
Most of the world technologies are evil. They are leading people to hell.
GOD will not give his children evil to use.
Technology can be built the good/right ways that are pleasing to GOD ALMIGHTY. The current technologies are built the wrong and inferior ways.

How sure are you the current online/internet world won't lead majority to hell? It can be built the right way that is pleasing to GOD (if HE wants us to).

Are you being sarcastic or you're just trolling?

Remimadrid1:
So you think say of microphone dey that time, the apostles no go use am. Which kind yeye write up be this

Let me guess, Jesus Christ would have also been dressed in suit if it existed back then too?

Kobojunkie:
Let me guess, Jesus Christ would have also been dressed in suit if it existed back then too?

No, he go dress in Rags.

Remimadrid1:
No, he go dress in Rags.

Let me remind you that Jesus Christ and His disciples were poor men, with Jesus Christ at one time not even having a roof over his head, meaning He was homeless. And His disciples followed Him in and into all that too.

Remimadrid1:
No, he go dress in Rags.

You dey mind the court jester

Kobojunkie:
Let me remind you that Jesus Christ and His disciples were poor men, with Jesus Christ at one time not even having a roof over his head, meaning He was homeless. And His disciples followed Him in and into all that too.

"⁵“That perfume was worth a year’s wages.
It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.”
⁶Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief,
and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself"
- John 12:5-6

"Since Judas kept the money bag (i.e. Judas was their treasurer),
some thought that Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the feast,
or to give something to the poor."
- John 13:29

So, Kobojunkie claims, Jesus Christ and His disciples were poor men, yet Jesus Christ and His disciples, had a treasurer/money bag man

Remimadrid1:
No, he go dress in Rags.

In case you try to buy into the lie that Jesus Christ was not a poor man as claimed by many so-called Christians who sold the world their prosperity gospel so they could take from Jesus flock to build their private kingdoms, I suggest you read this CNN piece done on the very issue.

---

Passions over 'prosperity gospel': Was Jesus wealthy?
By John Blake, CNN
December 25, 2009 4:12 a.m. EST

(CNN) -- Each Christmas, Christians tell stories about the poor baby Jesus born in a lowly manger because there was no room in the inn.

But the Rev. C. Thomas Anderson, senior pastor of the Living Word Bible Church in Mesa, Arizona, preaches a version of the Christmas story that says baby Jesus wasn't so poor after all.

Anderson says Jesus couldn't have been poor because he received lucrative gifts -- gold, frankincense and myrrh -- at birth. Jesus had to be wealthy because the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for his expensive undergarments. Even Jesus' parents, Mary and Joseph, lived and traveled in style, he says.

"Mary and Joseph took a Cadillac to get to Bethlehem because the finest transportation of their day was a donkey," says Anderson. "Poor people ate their donkey. Only the wealthy used it as transportation."

Many Christians see Jesus as the poor, itinerant preacher who had "no place to lay his head." But as Christians gather around the globe this year to celebrate the birth of Jesus, another group of Christians are insisting that Jesus' beginnings weren't so humble.

They say that Jesus was never poor -- and neither should his followers be. Their claim is embedded in the doctrine known as the prosperity gospel, which holds that God rewards the faithful with financial prosperity and spiritual gifts.

A clash of gospels?

The prosperity gospel has attracted plenty of critics. But popular televangelists such as the late Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin and, today, Creflo Dollar have built megachurches and a global audience by equating piety with prosperity.

The prosperity gospel, however, clashes with the traditional depictions of Jesus as poor. That's because the traditional image of Jesus as destitute is wrong, says the Rev. Tom Brown, senior pastor of the Word of Life Church in El Paso, Texas.

The proof, he says, is scattered throughout the New Testament. One example: The 12th chapter of the Gospel of John says that Jesus had a treasurer, or a "keeper of the money bag."

"The last time I checked, poor people don't have treasurers to take care their money," says Brown, author of "Devil, Demons and Spiritual Warfare."

A debate over the economic status of Jesus may seem nonsensical to some. Does it really matter whether Jesus was rich or poor?

It matters to people like Luke Timothy Johnson, a prominent New Testament scholar and author. He says that a rich Jesus is a distortion of history and a threat to one of Christianity's core teachings: God's identification with the poor.

"If Jesus reveals God, there is something powerful about God appearing and working among the poor," says Johnson, a New Testament professor at Emory University's Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia.

"Jesus' lifestyle is not of one in a gated community or a corporate office," says Johnson, a former Benedictine monk. "You don't have to go through a security gate to get to Jesus. People touch him. He reached out and touched children. His accessibility is one of the most powerful messages of Christianity. In Jesus, God is with us, and the majority of us are poor."

'The poor won't follow the poor'

Some prosperity preachers extract a different message from the same biblical texts. Brown, the El Paso minister, says he doesn't say that Jesus was rich because he wants to give people an excuse to live self-indulgent lives. He wants people to understand that Jesus used his material and spiritual riches to help people -- and so should they.

Brown says Jesus' own words prove that he wasn't poor.

"Jesus said you will always have the poor, but you will not always have me," Brown says. "Jesus did not affirm himself as being part of the poor class...

"I believe he was the richest man on the face of the earth because he had God as his source," Brown says.

Jesus' wealth is evident even in the Gospel accounts of his execution, some pastors say.

The New Testament reports that Roman soldiers gambled for Jesus' clothing while he hung on the cross. They wouldn't gamble for Jesus' clothing unless it was expensive, Anderson says.

"I don't know anybody -- even Pamela Anderson -- that would have people gambling for his underwear," Anderson says. "That was some fine stuff he wore."

Anderson says Jesus never would have had disciples or a large following if he was poor. He would not have been able to command their respect.

"The poor will follow the rich, the rich will follow the rich, but the rich will never follow the poor," Anderson says.

Twisting scripture for personal gain?

Johnson, the Emory University New Testament professor, calls Anderson's argument "completely illogical."
"So Martin Luther King must have been a millionaire," he says. "Crowds followed Siddhartha Buddha and he was poor. And mobs followed Mahatma Gandhi, and Gandhi wore a diaper, for God's sake."

The argument that Jesus was wealthy because the soldiers gambled for his clothes at his crucifixion doesn't makes historical sense, either, says Johnson, author of "Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity."

"Crucifixion was the sort of execution carried out for slaves and for rebels," Johnson says. "It wasn't an execution for wealthy people."

A Baylor University religion professor who specializes in the study of the poor in the Greco-Roman world also says there is "no way" that Jesus could be considered wealthy.

Bruce W. Longenecker says life in Jesus' world was brutal. About 90 percent of people lived in poverty. A famine or a bad crop could ruin a family. There was no middle class.

"In the ancient world, you were relatively poor or filthy rich, there's very little in-between," says Longenecker, author of "Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception."

The New Testament is full of parables where Jesus actually condemns the rich and praises the poor, Longenecker says. In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus actually curses the rich, he says.

"The only way you can make Jesus into a rich man is by advocating torturous interpretations and by being wholly naive historically," Longenecker says.

Anderson, the Arizona pastor, doesn't buy that argument. He says the church has actually been damaged by teaching that Jesus was poor. God wants his followers to be rich, not for selfish gain, but to help others in need and spread the gospel.

When he first preached that Jesus wasn't poor to his church, Anderson says he "ruffled some feathers."

Now, he says, his church has 9,000 members and a global ministry.

"That's so pathetic, to say that Jesus was struggling alone in the dust and dirt," Anderson says. "That just makes no sense whatsoever. He was constantly in a state of wealth."

Kobojunkie:
Let me remind you that Jesus Christ and His disciples were poor men, with Jesus Christ at one time not even having a roof over his head, meaning He was homeless. And His disciples followed Him in and into all that too.

Show me where in the Bible it is mentioned that Jesus was poor.

Jesus never used modern gadgets but did what those gadgets where suppose to do with the best available ones. He used ships, wore expensive clothes, rode classy chariots, received the expensive ointment.

Kobojunkie:
Let me remind you that Jesus Christ and His disciples were poor men, with Jesus Christ at one time not even having a roof over his head, meaning He was homeless. And His disciples followed Him in and into all that too.

He wasn't a poor man. He wore expensive clothes, rode the best chariots, had dedicated ships, had a treasurer(not to keep an empty treasury) and more. That scriptural interpretation about son of man having no roof isn't sensible.

Sibrah:
He wasn't a poor man. He wore expensive clothes, rode the best chariots, had dedicated ships, had a treasurer(not to keep an empty treasury) and more. That scriptural interpretation about son of man having no roof isn't sensible.

WOW

Remimadrid1:

Show me where in the Bible it is mentioned that Jesus was poor.

you only have to open the book to read for yourself and know His truth separate from the lies you have allowed your pastors to drench your minds with.

SammyBiyi:
Article written in response to Chris Okotie's claims on online services




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Then during the Jesus time there was no electricity, no tarred road, the bible was written in a scroll,no suit and no shoes but sandals! then I ask you now where is your senses? some Christian don't think with their brain again but their anus is doing the thinking.

Sammybiyi, Alright I Got It Now. D Way U Presented It Made Me Thought U Were D One Dat Made D Statement. Did D Apostle Use D Phone He Is Using Now? Did Dey Use D T.V He Is Watching? Which Normal Or Sensible Humanbeing Preaching To A Crowd Would Not Prefer Using Mic? Even Jesus Himself Would Av Used It If Mics Where Available Then.

jcross19:
Then during the Jesus time there was no electricity, no tarred road, the bible was written in a scroll,no suit and no shoes but sandals! then I ask you now where is your senses? some Christian don't think with their brain again but their anus is doing the thinking.

Read the article tp better understand the reason for the title.

Truvel:
SammyBiyi, U Are Very Funny. Did D Apostle Use D Phone U Used To Post Dis Ridiculous Topic? Did Dey Use D T.V U Are Watching? Which Normal Or Sensible Humanbeing Preaching To A Crowd Would Not Prefer Using Mic? Even Jesus Himself Would Av Used It If Mics Where Available Then.

Did you thoroughly read the article or just the headline? Because that your question was answered in a subtle way

Kobojunkie:
Read the article tp better understand the reason for the title.

It's quite sad that people don't read. It's evident in the response of people. You wonder why Nigeria is stagnant.