₦airaland Forum

Goshen360: You sure you want "DISCUSSION" with me on tithing? Na koboko wey Lord Jesus used remain take wip those people remain I go take wip you. I don't mine discussion with you though BUT IF YOU DON'T MIND IT SLOWLY BECAUSE I'M VERY BUSY NOW BUT WILL ALWAYS COME A RESPOND DAILY....However, I will request it ON A SEPARATE\NEW THREAD that cite your I.D and mine. Oya, let's go there if you don chop the word belle-full...

Mark Miwerds: Will do!

Tgirl4real: Hello Sir,

I am actually referring to what we discussed on fone.

OLAADEGBU: It is more like Obama choosing CNN editors as moderators on his presidential debate, and we all know how it ended up.

Gombs: I want goshen.... Or I'd wait for him sha


And so far na tithes, twil end up as a debate.

I'm sorry but I didn't read your above...tis not how I visioned the discussion to be.

Maybe I'd pass

Gombs: And if I'd take on this debate I'd want some rules enforced

1. Short and precise questions
2. No recycling of questions
[s] 3. No interference from other posters except from the post of each of the debaters and the question must be intelligent. [/s]
4. No form of insults
5. No personal attack
6. Quoting a debater from archives of his past posts are very allowed
7. The audience members shall not ask follow-up
questions asked by the audience or the answers of the
candidates during the debate."
8. HBG would moderate
9. I wanna debate with Goshen
10. I'd not hesitate to pull out when audience use insults or get personal, or when the opposing debater gets insulting.
11. Scriptural blunders will be a nice way to invalidate a debater
12. Each debater is allowed to choose an active ally only used when invoked. I choose Bidam
13. Other rules would follow in due course

...and I can't debate on wednesday... Lunch hour service and mid week services.

Cheers

Ignore No 3... I amended it in No 7

frosbel: I opt out of this debate because it will only raise my blood pressure when the scripture twisting experts start their chaotic analysis of the Truth.

What some of these people need is not a debate but a good telling off and strong rebuke.

Gombs:

Tis just like APC choosing Punch Newspaper editors as moderators on a presidential candidate's debate.

Tgirl4real: Hello Sir,

I am actually referring to what we discussed on fone.

Joagbaje: I've been quoting this scripture for years on this forum . Stressing how a bible discussion ought to be for Christians . I only get persecuted for it .

I just hope you're sincere in this matter. I wonder what new thing Ola will say that he hadn't said already.

DrummaBoy: I am inviting Mark Miwerds and OLAADEGBU to this thread https://www.nairaland.com/1540233/inviting-mark-miwerds-olaadegbu-theological#19947030

Pastor Kun: Seems Olaadegbu would not be taking up this challenge, truth is that most tithe merchants know that the monetary tithe argument is extremely very weak and cannot be justified with scriptures without twisting same. Now in a moderated debated Olaadegbu would not be able to get away with scriptural gymnastics neither would he be able to obfuscate issues as he normally does hence his reluctance to accept to debate the issue under moderation.

Tgirl4real: This tithing issue will never end till Jesus comes. Lol

@ Drummerboy,

I didn't get the link.

Mark Miwerds: interested.

For close to three days now since the offer for a discuss on tithing has been given, we are yet to find one person who is willing to discuss with Mark Miwerds and Candour on this subject of tithing.

So we are opening up the request and asking any tither to come and discuss with Mark/Candour on this subject of tithing with the intention of shedding light on the matter and not to win an argument.

The person who expresses willingness to enter into the discuss shall discuss with Mark/Candour on what the rules of the thread will be.

You will both agree on who your moderator will be.

You will agree on the mode of presentation of the presentation.

And we trust that God will be glorified at the end.

We hereby invite any willing tither to a discussion with Mark/Candour on tithing.

The thread is presently at https://www.nairaland.com/1540233/inviting-mark-miwerds-olaadegbu-theological/1#19976811

I came across a scripture in the New Testament that I believe indicts me and probably everyone of us that comes to this forum to debate theological issues:

24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will - 2 Timothy 2

The moment theological discusses transcend teaching in patience and meekness, it becomes a tool satan can use to divide the body of Christ. We should all avoid this.

I need not go into an exposition of what these verses mean; they are quite self explanatory.

My position on tithing is clear as noon day on this forum; but the back and forth, bickering and fighting between pro and anti tithers is not helping genuine seekers of the truth of the subject of tithing today. So for this reason, I propose a theological discuss between two prominent individuals in the two halves that these debates have shurred up: Mark Miwerds and OLAADEGBU.

Please note that this shall be a discuss and not a debate per se.

It is all my initiative to give flesh to the tithing palaver, if I may use that word.

I would suggest the following and propose it to the two candidates on the Tithes and Offering thread currently running 107 pages and still counting but which unfortunately has degenerated into some what of a fist fight. lol!!:

1. Let the two candidates express their desire to take up the challenge for a discuss and we will carry on. If it happens one of the candidate refuses the challenges, I propose that another person could take his place or other could nominate one person. I think the idea should be that the discuss should be btw two people only (like the Deep Sigh vs. Mr Anony discuss on Trinity). Others may add their views but the two primary discussant will not respond to them directly; except on some other matters not pertaining to the point of discussion at the moment.

2. When the two discussants have been chosen, the two will agree on the rules and regulation that will govern the discuss. E.g no insults, no jibes, methods of response; lenght of response; etc. They would also agree on who their moderator will be. For now, I appoint myself interim moderator but will step down when they both make their choices.

3. I will suggest that the discussant agree on some 10 points each that both will present as their formidable reason for supporting or not supporting tithing, each. These points will be discussed back and forth; just like the Deep/Anony thread: https://www.nairaland.com/1341464/anony-deep-sight-verse-verse

4. They two will agree on other matters with the interim moderator and others chipping suggestions, queries and contributions to make the discuss successful.

5. My prayer is that by the time the two theologians have succeded in teaching these doctrines, we will all have something to learn and hopefully tithes debates will no longer be dirty on nairaland.

I invite other contributions.

Gombs: So God now sent you and Candour and Goshen etc to liberate his flock from 'thieving pastors'?

But you never go and stop d mouths of atheists or gays or such, why only tithing?

coolmoon500: As we get ready to start the new year, please let us not rob God of Tithe. God is not stupid for giving us that rule. He is a Faithful God.
Pay your Tithe and test if your Heavens would not be open.

there are many defaulters on this principle, its hard, but again takes discipline and focus.

This is God we are talking about here, not man. He is not a Liar, The one who watches over Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers. Try it, remain faithful and see for yourself.

[size=16pt]MENTAL ATTITUDE SIN[/size]

Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man – Matthew 15: 17-19

In Matthew 5 Jesus Christ, in His characteristic revolutionary manner, redefined the purpose and intent of the laws God gave through Moses by stating “You have heard that it was said of them of old…, but I say unto you…”: he showed that it was not just enough to murder and break the law, the mere fact that a man is angry or unforgiving already attracts the penalty of murder. He also showed that we need not commit adultery before the act is done; lust has broken that law already. Jesus was saying in effect that there was another kind of sin, a heart sin, a sin we could say is greater than other sins, a sin that is many times not overtly obvious but hidden in the heart but is equally as ignominious to God as the very obvious sins and might be even more heinous than they. These sins we may term: Mental Attitude Sins 1.

Mental attitude sins are sins that originate from the heart and can lead to very obvious “physical” sins. The challenge with mental attitude sins is that sometimes these sins do not leave the heart; they originate from there and remain there and can be there for years; dormant and waiting. The individual who is guilty of them may not even know he is in such a mental state of mind. Mental attitudes sins are pride, lust, anger, malice, jealousy, rudeness, bitterness, hatred, envy, uncleanness, revenge, unforgiveness and a host of others such sins. They are what one may term first grade sins because, like Christ showed us in Matthew 5, they form the root from where arise more heinous sins. Jesus Christ taught about mental attitude sins (although he did not call them that) to point us to two things: that the dispensation of grace would demand more from us in terms of righteousness and holy living than the time of Moses; and that true holy living is beyond keeping the letters of a set of laws. It is important that we remind ourselves these lessons again.

In first century Palestine when Jesus walked the face of the earth, the Jewish religion, Judaism, was experiencing some renaissance. Having been delivered from the Babylonian captivity and having the likes of Ezra and Nehemiah teach them the laws of Moses all over again, there was a new found hunger to serve God. If not for the sake of serving Him, but to at least prevent another captivity. What they did not realize was that the religion that Ezra passed to them had again deteriorated, leaving behind a lifeless form of Judaism. It was this religion Jesus met during his earthly sojourn in the flesh and it was this religion that crucified him. Jesus Christ was a contemporary minister. He did not make vague references about the issues he was teaching on, except when he gave parables in fulfillment of scripture. Jesus’ teachings came in stark contrast to those of the religious teachers of those days, so that while ordinary people loathed listening to these men, whose self righteousness shone as the noon day, they listened to Christ gladly (Mark 12:37). And our Lord did not disappoint them. Jesus did not bind heavy demands of the law on the people; rather he showed the true intent of the law. Jesus Christ was real and very compassionate to people who had sinned (John 8:10-11) but condemned the people who seem not to have sinned because of their outward religiosity but were guilty of a greater sins in the heart: mental attitude sins. This was the matter that was being thrashed out in the text that introduces this essay. The religious teachers of His days were accusing his disciples of transgressing some traditions. But Jesus responded by saying that if anyone was breaking God’s laws it was the religious leaders who had “transformed” God’s laws and its original intent to doctrines of men, that give rise to laws and traditions of the elders. Then Jesus said that it was not what went into a man that defiles him, but what comes from his heart. Defiling in this context will certainly mean sin. Jesus would have us believe that the root course of all sins is from the mental state of a man’s mind; if the man’s mind is oriented towards the laws of God and their true intent, he would obey God’s laws naturally. But if they are not, he will disobey God’s laws. Jesus, like he did in most of His ministry on earth, was redefining the actual purpose of the laws of God. We would see this play out clearly in the trial of Christ that led to his crucifixion. The religious leaders who were bound in a mental state of hatred and malice conjured all sorts of lies to see Jesus crucified, but they did not have any qualms with keeping the demands of the laws even at that period of time.

So it is not a legalistic adherence to a list of codes written in a book that makes a man holy, rather it is a conscious attention to the state of a man’s heart that makes him holy. For example, the man who has learnt the art of shielding his mind from lustful advances and guides his eyes, is more likely to win over sexual sins than another who has a head adherence to the law: “thou shall not commit adultery”. The day he takes leave of his senses because of the enormity of the temptation at the moment is the day he will commit adultery because he simply will just forget the law and do the act.

It also leads us to the spirit of the New Testament: which is that God has taken His laws which hitherto he had written on tablets of stone and has put them on our hear (Hebrew 8:10). If those laws were written externally, we will need to continually resort to external forces to keep them. If they are written on our hearts and entrenched there, we would simply breadth out what is already inside: holiness (remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 15). Some are of the opinion that the grace that came with the New Testament came to help us keep God’s laws of the Old Testament. This is far from the truth of scripture (2 Corinthians 3:3,6; Hebrew 8:13). The nature of the New Testament laws is that these laws of God are more in number; richer and more demanding than the laws of the Old Testament. These laws were structured to tame the flesh (Colossians 2:23b) and they are meant to be progressively applied to the New Testament believer. While the Old Testament placed its the demands of the ten commandments on the Jews all at once, the laws in the New Testament come one after the other, by the witness of the Spirit in our hearts. And as the Christian learns to obey them, he grows progressively in grace and holiness.

One primary difference between the Old and the New Covenant is grace. In the New Testament there is grace to keep God’s demands in our hearts. We will find them as we resort to God in prayer and the study of His word. But one other means of grace must not be forgotten and that is preaching. It is important that God’s people, who are being discipled in the way of righteousness, place themselves under the ministry of a godly, sanctified, grace-filled minister of the New Testament, who will feed them with the word of God; with which they can go out to live righteous lives (John 21:15). Many Christians fail in their Christian walk because they either do not have godly role models to pattern their lives after; or the messages they hear every Sunday lack the grace ingredient to live holy during the week (Hebrew 13:9); or the ministers themselves have traded the oil of holiness at the lap of Delilah and are passing to the congregation a defiled spirit that leads the people to act likewise. God intends to give his people grace to live the Christian life – for there is yet a temptation that will arise that God has not made adequate means of escape from.

One other reason why we need to remind ourselves of the concept of mental attitude sin is so that Christians may learn to shed off the toga of self righteousness that perfection of works seem to impart on us. When we realize that God does not measure sin the way we do, and also discover that mental attitude sins are as grave or if not more serious than some overtly obvious sins, then we will learn to be humble and talk more in terms of the righteousness that proceeds from grace than the one that comes from works. God hate sin. God will judge every sin. And for those in Christ, God has judged their sins in Him. We need to be continually humbled by the fact that the most upright Christian is as much a sinner as the carnal one, because there is no one without sin (1 John 1:8 ), both of them are equally guilty before God (Romans 3:19). But because they are Christians, scripture refers to them as “saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2); this title does not originate from the Pope but from the righteousness of Christ Jesus imputed on us, as we identify with his death and resurrection in faith (1 Corinthians 1:30). When we do this we see that we are all debtors to God’s mercy and grace – regardless of our state of maturity. This does not remove the fact that if Christians are found in overt sins, they must be cautioned and sometimes disciplined, but only with the hope of restoring the erring brother and it must be done in love (Galatians 6:1).

When Jesus said we should not judge our brother, I believe he meant it in the sense of labeling some other Christians as sinners while we are the righteous. The truth of the matter is that some of us come from well shielded and protective backgrounds and would not have been exposed to the temptation that some other believers are. Even if we come from the same background, we are all at different levels of grace, faith and exposure, and God’s expectations of every one of us differ. We cannot judge another Christian because we do not see the whole picture. And while we judge and label them as something, the believer, who is a Priest before God, may have entered the holy of holies by the blood of the Lamb, found forgiveness and cleansing for his sins, and proceeded out to be a new person in the Lord. All this while, we join the devil in the ministry of accusation and condemnation. If there is one lesson this author has learnt it is never to judge Christians on some mere acts of sin – regardless of how grievous. I will take up issues with any man on matters that border on doctrine and scriptural interpretations; but I thread very carefully in the matter of practice and overt sin. And I think it is a good practice for every one of us because we may be the one in need of restoration from some sin tomorrow.

The wonder of the New Testament is the blessing of the cross of Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus lived and died that we might enjoy the fullness of being sons of God. By Him we have a righteousness that is sure. By him we have access to the presence of the Father. By Him the written code, the laws of Moses, are abrogated and we are free to follow the leading of God’s Holy Spirit. By Him we have a Sure Hope, heaven, a place of rest, comfort and everlasting enjoyment of God. By Him we have peace in this world despite every tribulation. And by Him we can overcome the deepest mental sin state in our heart that we alone know; and sometimes we do not even know, but God knows. Jesus came that he may deliver men from their sins: including the worst of them all, mental attitude sins (Matthew 1:21).

1. The Concept of Mental Attitude Sins is taught by many ministers including the Late R. B. Thieme (Jnr). You will find them in his books.

2. I would be very glad if anyone, by reading this essay, came to the consciousness of his own sinfulness and a need of Savior. I would enjoin you to call upon the name of Jesus Christ, in your own words, as you truly feel in your mind, in the privacy of your heart; and you will be saved. You can send me a PM (private message) and I will rejoice with you and find some ways to encourage you along in this new found faith in Christ.

DrummaBoy: Hurray!!! You finally end your e-malice with me. You have never truly learnt the art like your friend Alwaytstrue does so perfectly. Tell her that e-malice is a sin and can make you loose your salvation according to your bible.

Alwaystrue: @Drummaboy, no malice, OK? Wonder why you want to discuss with someone who you have told to 'leave certain discussions for men'.
I stay away from having to call people names or label people. It is funny to say some biblical discussions are best suited for a certain gender (whatever that means) and to think this is a faceless forum. That is why Christ tore whatever dividing wall (for both male and female are one in Christ) and this give avenues for people (irrespective of race, gender) to discuss issues respectfully, something that is an area you need serious improvement on. No wonder you have been called to order more than once. Candid advice, learn how to talk to people and to talk about people. No hard feelings.

DrummaBoy: I had told her a long time ago that theological debates is warfare suited mostly for men. She accused me of chauvinism but see what it had turned to now. No hard feelings, really. Cheers.

frosbel:

Naming Names

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. (Eph. 5:11)

These specific false teachers were exposed by name in the New Testament:

Phygellus and Hermogenes (2 Tim. 1:15)
Hymenaeus and Philetus (2 Tim. 2:17)
Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. 3:8 )
Demas (2 Tim. 4:10)
Alexander the Coppersmith (2 Tim. 4:14)
Diotrephes (3 Jn. 9)
Balaam (Rev. 2:14)
Jezebel (Rev. 2:20)

False teaching is public. If we don’t name the names of false teachers in our midst, how will others take heed? Our silence is complicity, and it speaks volumes of our character. Though silence about false teaching might be seen as love, it is not love. Love warns of danger. False teaching is the most dangerous thing on the planet. By it, Eve was deceived. And by it, the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one today (I Jn. 5:19).

http://israeliteindeed./

Bidam: I don't think alwaystrue has malice with you,maybe she is trying to avoid heated arguments with you that can easily lead to strife and contentions.She still loves you as a brother as much as i do.

Bidam: Maybe i will stop if folks like you stop pasting lies and deceit to discredit genuine ministries and genuine believers concerning GIVINGS.

Image123: hahahahaha, no comments. i have more important things to attend to.

OLAADEGBU: When I asked for the phrase "Born again" I did not intend that you should go on a rabbit trail listing all the "nomenclature associated with the new birth" I wonder how many of you passed your JAMB exams if you passed at all.

Bidam: @alwaystrue, you raised some interesting scriptures which we all need to go back, study and learn. This posture where we have two groups in the church world :Calvinists and Arminians is the major problem of christendom today. Here is an excerpt i got about these doctrines in Hagins book.

In the 16th century, John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius attended the same institute of learning, but each came out with a different idea. One result is what we call "old school Calvinism," which embraced predestination, or "what is to be will be."