₦airaland Forum

Agidigbo or Ogidigbo?

Ukelele?

aletheia:
I think in the heat of argument we may have missed the point of the interaction between Abraham and Melchizedek which was a foreshadow of Christ . . .

The testimony of all scripture is Jesus Christ.

I very much agree that the testimony of all scripture is Jesus Christ. I also agree that Melchizedek was a foreshadow of Christ.  

Also, indeed Abram acknowledged the priesthood and authority of Melchizedek though it is not indicated that he thought that he was giving "tithes" to God. Moreover, even though Melchizedek foreshadowed Christ, Christ Himself never asked anyone to give Him "tithes"; instead He said as long as you [give] do it for the least of these (i.e. the poor, the hospitalised, the prisoner) you [gave] did it for Him.

toba:
Theres difference between purposing to follow Gods direction and purposing to be directed by intuition. What i vote for is Gods direction and not as an individual thinks in his/hr heart which may be in contrast to what God requires and acceptable unto God

The biblical direction is to give as a person purposes in his heart. This injunction is to the Christian. If one is a Christian the Holy Spirit dwells in him and will therefore help him in purposing rightly --- if the person allows Him. It does not even necessarily have to be by prayer; a renewed conscience, renewed mind, renewed heart, renewed spirit should be enough.

OK, here are all the verses from Genesis 14 referring to the items/goods/possessions/ concerned.

11And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way.

12And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

16And he [i.e. Abram] brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.

[20b] And he [i.e. Abram] gave him [i.e. Melchizedek] tithes of all.

21And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.

22And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,

23That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:

24Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.

1. The first thing you note is that Genesis does not even refer to any of them as "spoils of war"; (I can deal with Hebrews 7 later if I could be bothered)

2. The four kings captured the goods of Sodom and of Gomorrah; they also captured Lot; not only that, they also captured Lot's goods.

3. Abram brought back all the goods; he also brought back his brother Lot and Lot's goods.

Let us stop here for a minute: note again that Genesis did not use the technical expression "spoils of war". On the face of it, even though Lot and his goods were captured, Genesis does not explicitly describe either Lot or his goods to be the property of the four kings; Genesis does not consider the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah as goods of the four kings --- even when the kings had captured them. Genesis continues to refer to them as the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah; or as Lot and his goods.

Secondly, when Abram had recaptured the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as Lot and his goods, Genesis does not explicitly refer to any of them as belonging to Abram. You see, it is very simple: the author of Genesis had a simplistic approach to the whole thing; the goods concerned were goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's goods that had been captured and re-captured. Yes, in a loose sense we tend to refer to these good as spoils of war; however, neither we nor the author of Hebrews, for example, are using "spoils" or "spoils of war" in a technical or legal sense. We and the author of Hebrews use "spoils" or "spoils of war" in a general every day sense as goods captured in war.

Thus it is a waste of time to go on at length about Grotius who was formulating his principles concerning the law of nations almost 2000 4000 years after the Genesis story ---- even if Grotius himself was looking for ways to support his arguments ----- some of them a bit tenuous. But I digress; normally, I get paid to advise on applying or to teach people Grotius, the Laws of Nations among others.  

Back to Abram and what he did with what he captured. What Genesis said is that Abram gave Melchizedek "tithes" of all. Question: what is "all"? Does it include a tithe of Lot's goods; "tithes" of the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah; and if you want to use "spoils of war" in the technical sense, does it include "tithes" of human beings captured/recaptured?

Finally, notice that Abram himself considered the goods to be goods belonging to the king of Sodom.

The long and short of it is that Abram gave "tithes"to Melchizedek from loot.  You will not find a passage in the Bible where Abram gave "tithes" from his own personal property. End of.

Edited for spelling etc

Some interesting absurdities which are logical conclusions from some of the arguments on this thread.

1. The author of Genesis made a mistake in referring to part of Abram's "spoils of war" as Lot's possessions/goods.

2. In fact after Abram defeated the four Kings, the author of Genesis should not have referred to Lot as Lot at all; he should have referred to Lot as Abram's slave since Lot himself was part of Abram's "spoils of war"!

3. The author of Genesis made a mistake in referring to what Abram brought back from war as "the goods", "all the goods", "everything" and showed his ignorance by not referring to them with the technical expression "spoils of war".

4. Grotius is far more informed about Abram's war than the author of Genesis.


etc etc in absurdum!

@viaro

I will address you directly this once; I probably shan't do so again.

Personally, I do not see the point of devoting energy to every tangent, especially irrelevant tangents. Also, I am far more interested in substance than "technicalities" as will be used in secondary school debates. An example was your question about whether Lot had "spoils of war".

Finally, the Genesis 14 under discussion does not talk about spoils of war any way; rather it talks about "all the goods", "the goods", "possessions", "everything" and such like ---- not using "spoils of war". This is partly why a grown up discussion looking at substance is much preferable to "technicalities". In Genesis 14, the Bible did not use technicalities!

As I said before, I do not intend to address you directly again after this.

InesQor

What happened to Lot's possessions/goods? Who and who shared those?

It is really becoming a fruitless discussion. Grotius is irrelevant as I've said before ----- and I can dissect the Grotius thoroughly, but just not on this irrelevance. Grotius' De Jure etc is a 17th century work, when was Genesis written? Anyway, if I continue along this line of thought we will yet get into further digression, so I'm just going to zip that.

On Laws of Conquests etc ---- again, Laws of Conquests at what time, during which age? What law of conquest prevailed when Abram fought the four kings. Does it include the ability to take slaves?

On "spoils of war" versus "individual possessions" - the distinction is insignificant in the context of Genesis 14. Let us focus first on Lot's possessions (or "goods); they were Lot's possessions/goods before the war; they were part of Abram's spoils of war; yet the BIBLE IN GENESIS 14 referred to them, even after they were part of Abram's spoils of war, as Lot's possessions/goods. What then is the point of references to Grotius or to Laws of Conquests?

Actually, looking at the text in Genesis 14 we can see the answers to some of the issues here without difficulty.

One such issue: whether Abram or king of Sodom was the "owner" of certain "spoils of war"?

As I said yesterday, the passage does not make this technical distinction. Yes Abram had control of the goods having won them [back] in war, yet Abram HIMSELF regarded them and certainly described them as belonging to the king of Sodom --- "I will not take anything that is YOURS", "yours" meaning "king of Sodom's".

If the last paragraph is not enough, check this two verses out: verse 12

They also took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

So those were Lot's goods before the war. But theeeeeeeeeeeen the Bible still described them as Lot's goods after the wars and after Abram had recovered them as "spoils of war"; verse 16

So he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people.

Grotius certainly does not help on that point and cannot be placed above the Bible's own description, if what we are trying to understand and interprete is the Bible. In any event, Grotius' piece on this point needs to be understood against the background of its origin and the much earlier work that preceded De Jure etc etc but I don't have time to go into that here --- I don't see its usefulness anyway.

If one turns his mind away from a modern/Western mindset, the Abram-Sodom situation is a common situation in ancient societies and certainly existed in old Yoruba societies. For example, there were some Yoruba communities who were very warlike and saw wars as ways of surviving and being supplied with provisions; what they won in war was "spoil of war" but nonetheless they would return those to friendly nations/kings if it was established that those spoils originally belonged to those nations/kings.

Actually, this reminds me of a song (I can only remember bits unfortunately) from an old Yoruba play in the days of qualitative Nigerian/Yoruba theatre:

It was a song by a community's warrior clan imploring the permission of their king to wage war on some neighbours so they could seize some loot:

Ogun ya wa o, a fe lo jagun;   (It's time for war; we want to wage war)

Bi a ko ba jagun rara             (If we do not wage war)

A ko ni ri ounje        ( We will not have food)      {{{This bit I'm not sure I've got 100% accurate as this is where my memory of the song goes hazy; someone like Joagbaje may recognise the song, perhaps!}}}

This issue of who owns "the spoils of war" is a technicality that the Bible does not make. In my view, it does not particularly help in understanding the purport of that Scripture to quote Grotius (by the way I speak as someone who first came across Grotius over 25 years ago as a first year law student in 1984, so arguments based on his work are neither new nor particularly impressive to me).

It is quite patently clear that Abram regarded part of the "spoils of war" as belonging to the king of Sodom. There is also the point I made that Abram did not see himself as giving a tenth to God in any shape or form through Melchizedek. I repeat that it is only later theologians (including the author of Hebrews) and us latter day readers of the Bible who see in Melchizedek a typology of Christ.

A few short points from skim reading the posts so far:

1. Modern considerations clearly require that a distinction should be made between the words "tithe" and "tenth" though historically they meant the same thing grammatically. It is doubtful that they are now still grammatically the same; certainly, in any event, usage alone makes clear that the word "tithe" is no longer used to connote simply a "tenth" (or a tenth simpliciter). For example, the word "tithe" is (a) now mainly used with religious connotations; you are not going to hear someone say "I sold a tithe of my shares in Guinness plc"; (b) the word "tithe" is now mostly used in connection with an obligation, a religious obligation to pay ---- save that what the obligation requires one to pay is a tenth or 10% --- and in extremely legalistic circles, it is often unclear as to 10% or a tenth of what exactly e.g. gross or net etc.

2. While one can say that technically/"legally" Abram himself owned the "spoils of war" by reason of conquest, it is clear that morally at least some of the "spoils of war" belonged to the king of Sodom; they certainly belonged to him before he lost them in war e.g. verses 11&12

And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way.

12And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

It is understandable that despite his conquest and taking these as spoils of war, Abram still regarded them as belonging to the king of Sodom; hence Abram only wanted provision for his soldiers - otherwise he returned the "spoils of war" that belonged (or originally belonged) to the king of Sodom. Yes, we may say that strictly what Abram returned to the king of Sodom was not 90% of the total spoils of war --- because goods originally belonging to other people other than Sodom were also involved --- the critical thing here is that Abram did not retain what belonged or was perceived as belonging to the king of Sodom -- other than provision for his soldiers.

3. When Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of spoils of war, there was no indication whatsoever that Abram thought he was giving a tenth to God. There is no indication whatsoever that Abram himself perceived Melchizedek as representing God in any way, shape or form. Theologians and us latter day readers of the Bible are the ones who see in Melchizedek a typology of Christ.

PS Notice that I deliberately used and emphasised the word tenth in point no 3 -------- because that is all that was meant by "tithe" as used in Genesis 14. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the later Mosaic connotation of "tithe" let alone the modern/contemporary fraud.

enitan2002:
for those that have brains have already deduced what you mean.

baba ooo,
you're too gbasky. guys on satellite have a very wonderful and powerful lnb, ranging from single, dual, quad, octo and also a wonderful 'unwarped dish' as the receptor. olason, badaru, bodejohn, olofofo, ifende and some other guys who prefer to  be anonymous have all been wonderful.

if not for those 'nonetities' who keep washing my enitanet down the pit after successful tracking, they would have been passing coaxial wires to me whenver am on the roof doing installations.

Very very funny enitan; tell the 'nonentities' to be careful oh! The quicker you get an enitanlet out here and installing dishes the better!

^^^ When the apostle Paul was asking for a collection for poor saints, why didn't he ask the Corinthians to make sure that their giving was a tithe (or a tenth) of their income? Why did he say each one of them should decide in his heart what to give? Why didn't he say the minimum was a tithe (or a tenth)?

OLAADEGBU:
The British Govt unlike you and your folks recognises tithes and adds a good sum to the church's coffers on behalf of those who pay tithes and offerings.

This is an untruth (and I am choosing to be kind with my words)! The reference is to a scheme called Gift Aid which applies to all charitable giving ------ even to Moslems. So we can say the British goernment recognises zakat.

The kind of untruth above pervades and runs through the doctrine of all these tithe-mongers as exemplified by various false use of scripture on this very thread!

Joagbaje:
Enigma,
must you fight dirty? leave joagbaje out, leave Oyaks ,   opaks, Wofer, Wafer an all name callings. deal with me as a person, deal with topic and not personalities. It is childish of you and unintellectual. Do you have other motives than the discussions?

Joagbaje

I don't fight dirty at all; I fight WoF doctrine, hard, very hard, very very hard indeed!

WoF doctrine is poison BUT it is very sweet poison that makes it very attractive. It employs the same ploy that satan adopted in the very beginning with Adam and eve. "Eat this, it is good for you; it is the best fruit in the garden; if you eat it your eyes will be open; you will be as God".

It is the same with WoF doctrine: see WoF says if you are born again, you become superhuman, you become equal with Christ (i.e. equal with God); you become god. You see that WoF doctrine (i.e. your CEC doctrine) is basically the same lie that satan told eve --- cloaked in a modern dress. It cloaks it in terms of achieving your heart's desires or even greed.

It says: become born again; all your problems in life will go away; as the king's child health and prosperity are yours; "money cometh" to you; the wealth of the wicked is laid up for you"; you can "believe God for anything you want"; you can "speak whatever you want into existence"; you will not have any health problems; on top of this you are holy; you can keep on sinning till kingdom come (literally) and you will be in that kingdom; further on top of that you become god as you are god.

Of course people will be attracted to that kind of thing because it all seems so sweet ----------- sweet it may be, it is poison nonetheless!

You defend Oyaks; let me not even call him a heretic for once. Assuming for a minute (without ever conceding) that he is a genuine "pastor" and Bible teacher, you will defend a spiritual pigmy like that and repeatedly denigrate the apostles? And denigrate Peter? And denigrate James? And proclaim that the gospel writer Matthew did not know what he was writing when he wrote "kingdom of heaven"? These are the people who wrote the Bible that you quote copiously; anyway you only quote the Bible when it can be used to support your fleecing of the flock and your puffing up - especially when you are able to misinterpret it. When you are shown incontrovertibly that you are misusing the scriptures, you now turn around and attack the people who wrote the very scriptures; you say Peter, James and all the apostles (maybe except Paul) had a "poor revelation"; you say Matthew did not know the meaning of the word in the original language which he consciously wrote down as heaven. Do you then believe in the Bible at all ----- or it is just a device to use to support fleecing the flock? Is the Bible inspired? Is the Bible as it was written in the original languages (including Matthew) authoritative or not?

In all honesty, until recently I had thought that the reason you display the attitude you have constantly displayed here is attributable to your honest belief in your doctrine because you are thoroughly brainwashed. I still believe that you are brainwashed of course; however, I am beginning to take very seriously the viewpoint that part of why you defend false doctrine so vigorously is because, as a pasiitor, to whom lower mugs pay tithes and offerings etc you are benefiting enormously from false doctrine.  Similarly, part of your reasons for defending Oyaks is because you are a beneficiary of his set up.

Thanks for prayers and good wishes brethren (that includes Jesoul  ); may joy and happiness be with us all always. 

I hope I will be coherent in addressing one or two points.

Biox:
back to my last post
@enigma

like i said if liad/HARGARD are born again and still admited they did all you said they did.it still doesnt mean that they have stoped beeing born again.

Please note: at no time did I state whether, in my view, Liardon, Haggard or TBN's Paul Crouch are born again - because I don't know; however, I was even willing to accept (even if only for argument sake) that they are born again.

The point you are missing is this and I want you to answer it specifically if you will: are Haggard, Liardon or Paul Crouch greater than Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist?

now dont get me wrong,when a christain does something wrong that doesnt make him a sinner,sin is a nature so is righteousness a nature.and this nature is in his spirit.when a man gets bornagain that act takes place in his sipirit.his body remains the same,the same with his thaughts,he is likely to still do somethings he was use to doing,but that still doesnt change the fact that he  has a new nature.all he needs at such level is mind renewal which i done throuh the word.

I think that you have not expressed this well; but I don't want to stress this point here as the issue is being discussed on another thread; I also think part of your mistake here is a misunderstanding and over stretching of "nature" i.e. one has sin "nature" and the other righteousness "nature".

maybe laid?hargard did such wrong first we dont know what happened between them and GOD after then,if they are forgiven by God then who are we to jurge them.also if truly they are born again,and did what they like i said all they need is renewing of thier mind,but that act doesnt stop them from being born again.

OK let us say, for argument sake, that Liardon, Haggard and Paul Crouch received forgiveness: did David receive forgiveness after the Bathsheba affair or not?

Now are the OT folks learning from them?you ask.remebeer this OT folks are not going to practice what they see us do in heaven.

Where did you learn this? What will you be doing in heaven? What will the OT folk be doing in heaven? What will be different between the two?

these OT folks did not have the life that we have now in the sense the life that came trou jesus.jesus brought a differnt life.

There is no question, as the Bible says, that the Christian era ushered in a better covenant; BUT you will have to explain this new "life" that you are going about so we can understand more clearly what you are saying!

now whats happenin gis that they are learning from the kind of life that jesus brought that  they didnt have or expirience.right now as bornagain christain we have the ability to receive the holy spirit.we have the ability to speak in tongues,we have also i different relatioship with God,there so much they are learning an seeing that they didnt see in their time.

1. "Speaking in tongues" is actually nothing compared to what these OT folk that you downgrade so much achieved through the power of God in and with them; how many "born again" have parted a river (the red sea), seen God in a burning bush, prayed for the sun to stay up, ascended into heaven in a chariot of fire etc etc etc etc etc. So don't get puffed up with "speaking in tongues" which even, in most of today's practice, is deceit or self deceit anyway!

2. I have shown a post (a page or two back) how several OT people had the Holy Spirit; let us keep to just one; look at Psalm 51 that I posted a few posts above and answer this: did David have the Holy Spirit or not?

\also please dont  use the mistake of this folks to messure their spiritual life,
the says as new born babes desire the sincer milk of the word theat you may grow thereby.also it says that strong meet belong to them that are of full age.
at every level in life there is a place a man function in,but there is also always a better place for the same man.

So while you and CEC members are of full age and eating strong meat, people like Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist were new born babes desiring sincere milk? Why don't you think about it again?

Thanks bros; just lock up ur daughters :d

New hobbyist expert installer, Enigmalet arrived yesterday; he will be ready to start installing in about ten years.

JeSoul:
A lovely day it is, and I hope a lovelier day is yours thank you sir Nuclear. And yes oh, believe it. I think we will all be amazed at how much of an impact even the smallest of words or points we make, have on the silent audience - those who just read and never post. Please carry on!

A lovely day it was (and lovely days will always be with us); I wasn't able to join issues in the latest debates as I have my hands full with Enigmalet who arrived yesterday. I will try and address some of the issues addressed to me at some point.

A few pointers to help some of the discussion of this topic.

A natural inclination as human beings is to be selfish i.e. to sin; thus human beings are generally sinners. To enter into God's kingdom we need to be "righteous"; however, Jesus in whom we believe as Christians made it clear that we can not meet the standard of righteousness required on our own. This is the point of saying 'unless your righteousness exceeds that of the pharisees, you cannot see the kingdom of God' since none of us can outdo the pharisees in apparent righteousness. Critically, in any event, the Bible says all our righteousness is as filthy rags before God.

The only hope, the only standard of righteousness acceptable is that of God Himself. That standard was given to us free through Jesus Christ. That is the only way that our righteousness can exceed that of the pharisees; that is the only way that our righteousness will not be as filthy rags.

Now when we become Christians we become vicariously righteous and saved from the sin that would have seen us falling short of God's kingdom. That is "sin" in one sense; in that sense we have been freed from sin and we become saints. In that sense we are no longer sinners.

However, apart from that we still have every day shortcomings; in fact I dare to say that most of us have committed one sin or other through our actions/posts on this forum today alone!!! Are we now going to miss out on the kingdom of God because of each and every single shortcoming? The answer to that is no --- and the Bible does instruct us to ask for forgiveness and if we ask with genuine remorse we shall receive forgiveness. Now in this sense of sin, inasmuch as we commit every day sins we are still sinners and can be called sinners.

So, in summary what we need is balance; this is why some people will say Christians are sinners saved by grace (though the WoFers criticise this).

Anyway this is the balance that is taught by Scripture. You will find scriptures saying "you are no longer sinners"; you will also find scripture saying "you sinners" or "if we say we have no sin" there is no truth in us".

One more important point: as Christians the Bible wants us to have the mentality that we are no longer slaves of sin; that we have the power, for the most part, not to sin. Again the passages teaching this are often overstretched by those saying "we are not sinners". It is true the passages want you to say "we are not sinners" but the real meaning is "we are no longer people who should be slaves of sin; we have been given the power to avoid sinning; let us try and use that power by living according to the Spirit"

See for example Romans 6

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

(NIV)

Here is that verse 11 in NKJV

Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Another way in which this instruction is expressed is that one should "crucify his flesh" and therefore to live by the Spirit. In other words try and repress your instinct to sin (flesh) and try to live by the power not to sin (the Spirit); the truth though is that we all quite often fall short.

[quote author=petres_007 link=topic=442161.msg6004616#msg6004616 date=1273078876]I wish I had time to respond to this [/quote]It's not worth it.

Joagbaje:
Many of the things David said here were not applicable to his generation, It was his prayer, But it was not answered because God couldnt  take that away.He said some things based on his own level of assumed understanding. But he also uttered prophetic words that are beyond his dispensation.
You raised this issue of David in and earlier post but ,i didnt have time  to respond to it then. But here is it :

2 Samuel 12:13
    And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.

The matter didnt end Here.God forgave David but the sin was still before him.God had pronounced judgement. in verse 10 and 11.

2 Samuel 12:10-11
    Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. [11] Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

Even though he forgave David in verse 15, The judgement of verse 10 still came to pass. He only spared David life but his judgement remained, because the sin remained before God and it came to pass .

2 Samuel 16:20-23
    Then said Absalom to Ahithophel, Give counsel among you what we shall do. [21] And Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Go in unto thy father's concubines, which he hath left to keep the house; and all Israel shall hear that thou art abhorred of thy father: then shall the hands of all that are with thee be strong. [22] So they spread Absalom a tent upon the top of the house; and[b] Absalom went in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel, [/b] . . .

You are in denial; you just do not want to accept that the Bible can so clearly contradict your Rhapsody of erRors and your WoF theology! I pray that some day you will be detoxed from the RoR poison.

See, your own post contradicts you. Nathan told David that the child would die and that he would suffer other consequences BUT that the Lord had put away David's sin ---- even you quoted that passage. Lawrence Agada of your church who stole millions for Oyakhilome your pastor is forgiven I'm sure you would say since he is "born again" but did he not suffer consequences of his theft e.g. losing his job?

I will ask you this. If sin could be taken away by the blood of bulls., Then of what need is redemption . What need  was the blood of Christ.?

This is sheer nonsense! You are the one arguing that "atonement" of OT saints was done through the blood of animals and that they were justified by works. Our explanation of Christian doctrine to you is that there is only ONE atonement for everyone, whether Old Testament or New Testament saint -- that atonement for everyone is the one wrought through the blood of Jesus Christ. That atonement is the remission of the sin of everyone whether Old Testament or New Testament saint. That atonement is the propitiation, the forgiveness and the salvation of everyone whether Old Testament or New Testament saint.

I see you dodged the questions I posed on Psalm 51

1Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

2Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

David was told that the Lord had put his sin away and following above did David receive remission or not. Think carefully because when you say that David did not receive forgiveness, then you are telling us that he has gone to eternal damnation!

10[b]Create in me a clean heart[/b], O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

11Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

Did David have the Holy Spirit or not?

12Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

13Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

14Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

Did David receive the restoration of the joy of salvation or not and was God no longer the God of his salvation. Again think carefully because you might just be condemning David to eternal damnation.

Joagbaje:
Rather he is one of the best bible teachers the world has ever known. You are very wrong. Its only ingnorant babies here on nairaland that have such opinion.Theology is not spirituality.

I have told you before but maybe I should make clear again: all Oyakhilome does is recycle old heresies by Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland and parrot those to uninformed people like you as some "new revelation". I will be in Naija in the near future and lay my hands on a couple of Oyakhilome's books and come back here to compare them to Hagin and Copeland materials. I have already seen lots of evidence from his preaching and from your Rhapsody of erRoRs of such parroting so what I'm talking about is concrete evidence of plagiarism. Even such topics "authority of the believer", "who we are in christ" are well known Hagin-Copeland saws.

Enigma , I really dont know if youre born again ,but just incase you are, Have you ever done something wrong?. Yes! i believe. So Just get ready for hell Man!!

Your type of WoF "born again" does not interest me in the least as I am a Christian ---- if only you know what that means

Forgiveness is supposed to be part of elementary teachings in Christ. It is religious people that find it hard to accept forgiveness from God, and also find it hard to forgivve themselves and others.

Of course you fail to notice that I only made a small contribution to the topic --- so you don't really know my view on the correct Christian (not WoF) teaching. All I have said so far is that a Christian's duty is to avoid sinning but not be afraid of eternal damnation because of the odd sin.

I was not even going to comment on the thread at all until I saw another of your usual poison on it and its potential effect on innocent people who may be misled. No knowledgeable Christian and certainly no "pastor" worth the name will say as you did ignorantly that

Sin does not have effect on our our spirit.

That statement is simply idiotic as well as clearly unbiblical.

Gunnaz007:
@Enigma, mind your tongue and be very mindful of it, for by your words you shall be condemned and by your words you shall be saved!!!

Oyakhilome is a heretic, in fact he is Nigeria's heretic-in-chief! I only pity the ignorant mugs he is leading away from the teachings of Christ and into satanic doctrines and who he is fleecing through "tithes" and offerings at the same time!

oludashmi:

Keep on sinning and growing in the spirit, You hear?
What if the Christian sinner does not take realise the sin committed or he just overlooked it ? What if he did not ask for forgiveness and death captures him, is he not going to be regarded as a sinner at judgement? A Christian sinner remains with his spots if he does not go back to GOD

Oludashmi

Pasiitor Joagbaje is a well known follower of heretics, especially Oyakhilome, with poor basic comprehension skills and serious ignorance of Christian biblical teaching. So don't be surprised if he throws in a most foolish line like "sin does not affect your spirit".

Please take any thing he says on Christian doctrine with a large bucketful of salt. He is only good at parotting heresies from Oyakhilome's Rhapsody of erRoRs and other similar nonsensical works. In fact he ranks the Rhapsody of erRoRs above the Bible!


EDITED However, leaving Joagbaje aside a Christian's duty is to live by the Spirit and avoid sinning; but a Christian does not need to be afraid of eternal damnation because of the occasional sin - especially inadvertent sin.

Romeo4real:
. . .
Why do you have to follow a "Man", and make him your "role model", "mentor", "prophet" and "father"? On what basis? Don't you have your Bible?

I know people who attend this church, twice a week, claiming to be foundational members and workers. Their lives are steeped in adultery, fraud, deception anger, dishonesty and all manner of ungodly things. The amazing thing that it is all done without conscience, remorse or regret.

Show me the church, and I'll tell you about the preacher!

True talk. See Also: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-428114.0.html

Extract:

What kind of Pastor will be collecting millions of Naira regularly from a church member (who is just a company cashier) without wanting to know how the member was getting the money?

What kind of gospel is the likes of Agada and his wife hearing that made them believe that God can ask them to be stealing to support his work?

A church that says (through her attorney) that it is not her business to know how members of her flock is doing their work in their various offices definitely gives herself away as an irresponsible church. A church that does not care about how her members come about large sum of money given as donation (which is far beyond the regular earnings of such members) is fraudulent. Such an organization can easily take blood money as donations even from armed robbers just to promote "God's work". Every God fearing person ought to be weary of such churches. I wonder how members of Christ Embassy will feel now knowing that some of the money used to power their programs, the generating plants and even chairs used in their services are bought from stolen money.

[size=14pt]What kind of spirit is really at work in Christ Embassy?[/size]

@Joagbaje

First, I appreciate your partial magnanimity. However, your last post still saddens me in that it seems that unless you find evidence that Oyakhilome agrees with something, you will not accept what the Bible itself says on that point. I will deal with other points in that your post another day. For now I want you to look at some things in Psalm 51 as, while you didn't make a "special" on it directly, you dodged it hitherto. I will highlight a few parts and the task for you is consider their implications for

(a) whether David, a pre-NT person could receive forgiveness;
(b) whether he could receive remission of sin
(c) whether he had the Holy Spirit
(d) whether he was saved (for now I will not use "born again"

1Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

2Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

3For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

4Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

5Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

6Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

8Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

9Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

10Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

11Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

12Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

13Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

14Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

15O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

16For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

18Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

19Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

Think carefully. Try this, and I implore you in good faith: Do NOT look at any CEC/Oyakhilome (even WoF) material (whether tape, RoR etc) when thinking carefully about this Psalm.

This one is a minor Joagbaje special but at the time I let it go because there were more pressing matters.

This scripture of yoursa was prayer of David when he sinned by taking a man's wife and killing the husband. So did God wipe out his transgression? , He was punished for it. He prayed for the sick child, the child still died. Nathan pronounce judgement on david,It came to pass.

Joagbaje's point on this one was that a person who is not "born again" or an "umbeliever" (sic) cannot obtain forgiveness of sins from God; he was then confronted with the episode of David and Bathsheba. Joagbaje's response above was to say that David did not receive forgiveness of his "transgression" (he might start to distinguish btw 'transgression' and 'sin', we'll see).

Anyway, once again he displays his ignorance; he does not realise that David's remorse and his plea for forgiveness is what left us with the legacy of that great Psalm 51!

More specifically on whether David received forgiveness for the Bathsheba 'affair', here is what scripture says:

2 Sam 12:13

So David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.

(NKJV)

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.

(NIV)

Of course there were repercussions for David's sin and he received punishment (e.g. the child died) ----- BUT the Lord "took away" David's sin.

Now, according to Joagbaje and his Rhapsody of erRoRs, this should not have been possible because David was not "born again"!

Well I guess God got His own doctrine wrong; thus, Let God be a liar and let Joagbaje and Rhapsody of erRoRs be true.

Of course, Christians know better than my last line and will say let God be true and let Rhapsody of erRoRs and its heretical author and supporters be the liars!!!

OK, moving on to another Joagbaje special: here is Joagbaje saying that Old Testament saints were made righteous by works!

You should know That standard of righteousness has changed in NT from OT. Men were made righteous by works back then, but now men are made righteous by faith in Christ by being born again.

This one is so elementary that it shows that people like Joagbaje are not fit (not biblically sound enough) to be pastors in a true Christian setting; I suppose in WoFer circles of the un/misinformed and the deluded, it's not abnormal!

Anyway, I actually dealt with this one yesterday (as has aletheia and others repeatedly)! Once more, anyhow, let us compare some scripture to the doctrine of "pastor" Jogbaje and his Rhapsody of erRoRs!.

Romans 4:2,3 -

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness."

Ephesians 2:8,9 -

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; [it is] the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

If we go by Joagbaje then Old Testament saints should be boasting ---- since they achieved their own salvation by their works and not through faith by grace; thus, in fact they are superior to New testament folk who could not achieve it by works. Of course if we go by Christian doctrine we will remind ourselves that everyone's supposed righteousness are as filthy rags before God. Thus no man, whether OT or NT, can achieve righteousness by works; it is all by grace through faith.

Before going on to other Pasiitor Joagbaje specials, one more point on the kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God issue. It is important to keep the background in mind.

Jesus said only a born again person will see the kingdom of God (John 3); but then Jesus also said people will see Abraham in the kingdom of God (Luke) which Matthew renders as the kingdom of heaven. Thus Christians understand that Jesus said Abraham will be seen in the kingdom of heaven, in the kingdom of God  which are one and the same.

Pasiitor Joagbaje says No No No, Abraham is not and cannot be in the kingdom of heaven --- though he is in the kingdom of God.

Now who do we believe  the author of the gospel of Matthew who clearly regards the kingdom of heaven as meaning kingdom of God OR Joagbaje (and his seniors, heretics like Oyakhilome, Copeland, Hagin etc)? Remember that Matthew is far more versed in the Hebrew traditions, the Hebrew and other original languages (Aramaic and Greek/Koine Greek) than these latter day bible twisters and changers!

In any event, without relying on a linguistic distinction between "heaven" and "God", the message of the relevant passages can be readily discerned. On top of that when we line the most relevant bits side by side, they in and of themselves show up the modern Bible twisters.

Matthew 8:11

And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

Luke 13:28-29

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you [yourselves] thrust out. And they shall come from the east, and [from] the west, and from the north, and [from] the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.

So again who are we to believe? The authors of Matthew, working with original materials like Q OR modern day prideful, conceited  ignoramuses and flesh-motivated dunces?

These modern day ignoramuses had already claimed to have a better "revelation" than the apostle James of course; so not only do they want to rewrite the book of James, they also want to re-write the gospel of Matthew ----- just so that it can all fit with the heretical Rhapsody of Realities aka book of erRoRs!

So wherever and whenever the Bible contradicts the Rhapsody of Realities aka book of erRoRs, the Bible and its authors must be wrong?

Of course for Christians this is a no brainer just as it was obvious to Joshua in saying "choose these days whom you will serve". For "Christ" (or Chris) Embassy members and their fellow WoFers, it is not surprising that they choose the Rhapsody of erRoRs above the Bible!

I plan to do a series comparing some Joagbaje "specials" (aka errors or indeed heresies) on this thread to scripture in order to expose them for the nonsense that they are.

Example one: Joagbaje says that Abraham is not in the kingdom of heaven despite clear and express words in the Bible! To justify this position he says:

There is a difference between "The Kingdom of God "  and  "the Kingdom of Heaven" Even though the 2 are used interchangably.One represents his Political structure,the other represents spiritual and moral structure. The Kingdom of heaven is headed by Christ , and we are in the Kingdom of Christ and Kingdom of heaven now. The patriachs of old are in the kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God has always been .It ran from past to the future. But the Kindom of heaven is a temporal one which will run for a period. The kingdom of heaven is to establish the kingdom of God on the earth in the futrure.Christ is the head and king in the Kingdom of heaven but God the father is king in the kingdom of God which is overall. There are similaritie between the two kingdoms because the kindom of heaven is a part of the kingdom of God. But careful study also show that there are things that are not  applicable in the two kngdoms.

There are several things that give a lie to this nonsense:

1. When Matthew uses "kingdom of heaven" for a story or event or teaching, the other gospels tend to use "kingdom of God" for the same story, event or teaching. We have explained why and pointed out that even wikipedia has a decent explanation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_God

2. Now let us stick to Matthew and his use of kingdom of "heaven"; let us try this passage from Matthew 7

21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

It will be obvious to anyone that the use of kingdom of heaven in that passage is not referring to something "temporal" as Pasiitor Joagbaje claims but really to eternal life or to the kingdom of God. Additionally, what Matthew calls the kingdom of "heaven" in that passage Luke calls the kingdom of God in Luke 13 when first he quotes Jesus in verse 20 asking to what is the kingdom of God to be likened and then ending verse 27 with Jesus saying to prideful people 'depart from me ye workers of iniquity' just as Matthew did when speaking of the kingdom of heaven.

3. In Matthew 13, Jesus is quoted as saying several parables concerning the kingdom of heaven; any sensible, spiritual person not flesh-motivated will see clearly that kingdom of "heaven" is used in all of them in terms of eternal destiny and not a "temporal" thing; in other words, meaning the kingdom of God. It is inexpedient to go through all the parables here but here is one of them.

47Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:

48Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.

49So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,

50And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I will end this post here as it is already getting long. I will deal with other Pasiitor Joagbaje specials later on; in fact I still want to come back more to this kingdom of heaven versus kingdom of God business.

Obviously Joagabaje cannot cope with the fact that the word of God says clearly that Abraham is in the kingdom of heaven and instead of accepting what the Bible says joagbaje resorts to twisting the Bible ---- just so that the Bible should fit with his Rhapsody of erRoRs! instead of tearing the Rhapsody of erRoRs, he resorts to twisting the words of God, words from the very mouth of Jesus Christ Himself!

Lord have mercy!