Pastor Chris Okotie, Pastor T.b. Joshua And The Parable Of The Ten Talents
It is not only disappointing but also frustrating when those who should know better come out to demonstrate crass ignorance. Most pastors and general overseers are not better off than motivational speakers, counselors, and Christian Religious Knowledge/Studies (CRK/CRS) teachers/lecturers. To me, anybody can preach the Word of God but not everybody can demonstrate the powers of the Holy Ghost. The disgraceful storyof the seven sons of Sceva as narrated in the book of Acts of Apostles 19:11-20 will throw more light on this unarguable fact.
Seeing the unnecessary strife and rivalry in the body of Christ, St Paul was worried in the book of 1st Corinthians 3:1-9 thus :
1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly—as infants in Christ.
2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for solid food. In fact, you are still not ready,
3for you are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and dissension among you, are you not worldly? Are you not walking in the way of man?
4For when one of you says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?
5What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, as the Lord has assigned to each his role.
6I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.
7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
8He who plants and he who waters are one in purpose, a andeach will be rewarded according to his own labor.
9For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
In the time of the early Christians ,we saw persecution of the church by the Roman authorities ,the Pharisees ,the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin but today persecution is by Christians against fellow Christians ,no wonder the book of 1 peter 4:17 asks : For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? At times Christians blame Moslems for trying to Islamize the country when in actual sense we Christians are the ones guilty of such exercise. Have you seen an Islamic scholar or cleric demonizing a fellow scholar or cleric while preaching? Now tell me how a so-called general overseer in Christendom will be more interested in demonizing T.B. Joshua instead of focusing on his own ministry and paying more attention to his shattered marital life.
The parable of the ten talents or the minas , as narrated in the gospels according to saints Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:11-27,tells of a master who was leaving his establishment to travel, and, before leaving, entrusted his property to his three servants. According to the abilities of each servant, one servant received five talents, the second had received two, and the third received only one. Upon returning home, after a long absence, the master asked his three servants for an account of the talents he entrusted to them. The first and the second servants explained that they each put their talents to work, and have doubled the value of the property with which they were entrusted; each servant was rewarded:
To the two servants that invested their given talents wisely ,verse 23 of the gospel according to saint Matthew quoted supra clearly states that : His lord said unto them, Well done, good and faithful servants; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
The third servant, however, had merely hidden his talent, burying it in the ground, and was punished by his master. Verses 24-30 of the gospel of Matthew quoted above states that: he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtesttherefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Now let us consider the talents to be natural gifts given to each of us by our creator and the master to be our sovereign lord whereas his long absence is the world he has left in our hands to manage as contained in the book of Genesis 2:5b. Many of us today are worse than the wicked servant who refused to develop his own gift rather he went and hid his gift and was ready to attack the master for giving other servants five and two talents/gifts respectively while giving him only one gift. Today in Christendom we have this type of a servant as general overseers of churches and as members of some churches. Most of them are social media warriors who sit down to gossip about a man of God or any other person who has labored to develop his talent(s) without knowing that even the device and the internet they are using for such gossip were invented by people who developed their own natural talents .
T.B. Joshua realized his gift on time and developed it. He lived inside the premises of his church even when he had the money to live in the choicest part of the world. His life revolved round his ministry. If he was not in the prayer mountain fasting and praying then he would be in his church. One question I always ask hypocrites in Christendom is: do they truly believe in the power of God.Do they believe our God is same yesterday, today, and forever? Do they believe that if the early apostles could perform miracles in the name of Jesus, that the present men of God can do the same thing or even more? Do they believe the biblical event where the shadow of saint peter could bring healing to people and that such miracle can still be performed in our generation?
It is embarrassing to see a so-called Christian leader rejoicing when anybody dies. St Paul clearly states in the book of 1st Corinthians 15:19 that: If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men. How old was Jesus when He was crucified? Was it not 33 years? Let Pastor Chris tell us why Jesus did not stay up to 70 years as God had promised us thorough the book of Psalms 90:10 that the length of our days is seventy years or eighty if we are strong. Let Chris Okotie tell us why great Prophet Isaiah died disgracefully. Extra-biblical account has it that prophet Isaiah probably lived into the reign of King Manasseh. Though the time and manner of his death are not specified in the bible but later Jewish tradition says that prophet Isaiah suffered martyrdom by being sawn in two under the orders of Manasseh possibly at the age of 55 years. Let Pastor Chris tell us why Prophet Elijah (900-849 BCE) was taken at the age of about 51 years. Also our Sanctimonious Pastor Chris can tell us why it is a crime for T.B. Joshua to be taken at 57 years when he had completed his ministry and planted wise men everywhere .It may interest Pastor Chris Okotie to know that the book of Psalms 116:15 clearly states that : Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.
Many hypocrites in Christendom mischievously confess that God is supreme but their actions portray that they believe more in the power of Satan than the power of God. Tell me how a Christian will tell you that a man of God’s prayers work like magic. That statement means that magic is now a criterion on which prayers are measured or compared. When a man of God performs a miracle with the name of Jesus, a hypocrite will say that the man of God uses black magic or that it arranged .I now ask the hypocrite is there no way God can perform such miracle through any of his servants ? Are the hypocrites telling us that God has no power to perform such miracle again hence only black magic can perform such miracle? These hypocrites are idolaters though they may not have visited any shrine but attributing glory that belongs to God to Satan is idolatry.
In the book of Acts of Apostles 12:20-23, Herod Agrippa was struck by an angel of God for taking the glory that belonged to God. Let us see how the bible reports this event:
20 Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. So they came to him in a body; and after winning over Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for reconciliation, because their country depended on the king’s country for food.
21 On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public address to them.
22 The people kept shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a mortal!”
23 And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
I want to appeal to the hypocrites in Christendom that it is not your duty to decide who uses the power of God or Satan to perform miracles provided that the person mentions the name of Jesus. Also nobody has made you a judge over another person as the gospel according to St Matthew 7:1-5 states that:
1 Judge[a] not, that you be not judged.
2For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
3And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
4Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?
5Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Moreso, the book of Philippians 2:9-11 tells us about how the name Jesus has been exalted thus :
9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth
11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
There are angels for the harvest whose work is to fish out those using the power of God and that of Satan. God has not made anybody a judge over another as all of us are still in the school of life.
Instead of demonstrating crass ignorance I will appeal to Pastor Chris Okotie to face his own ministry and develop it as TB Joshua did. That Okotie received one talent and T.B Joshua received and developed his two or five talents is none of Okotie’s business. When I was in the music industry before entering the medical school, I could play all instruments but could not sing properly. I did everything I could to sing well but that eluded me. However, there was this family in my local church then where every member of their family could sing perfectly even without the voice training I had subjected myself to. Would it be fair for me to say they were using black magic? Would I have accused them of being magicians at Endor?
The book of Ephesians 4:11 clearly states that: And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. So if you are called to be a teacher, others called to be prophets are now magicians at Endor? Let it be clear to Chris Okotiethat it is God that calls people into His work hence Chris Okotie has no right to decide who God should call or not and what gift(s) should be given to anybody called . Most pastors preach what they do not understand and that is an embarrassment to the body of Christ.
The same false and arbitrary teachings without verifiable facts that led to the first Jerusalem Council as narrated in the book of Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 are still with us. Since Pastor Chris has assumed the role of a gospel etymologist who tells us that everybody that answers Emmanuel or Joshua is challenging Jesus ,will he also tell us that since catholic means ‘universal’ that the members of the church are for this world and will not make heaven? Will Pastor Okotie tell us that members of Anglican Communion are Citizens of England since the word Anglican originates from the Latin word for England? He may wake up one day to tell us that members of Cherubim and Seraphim church are worshipping angels.
Is it not laughable that the pot could call the kettle black? How could a man who could not manage his marital lifecome out to accuse a man who is a role model to many sane Christians globally and loved by all irrespective of their religions? T.B. Joshua like the biblical Samuel and other great prophets never ran for any political post in his entire life rather he was bold enough to tell political leaders the mind of God. However, our ‘do-gooder’ pastor Chris had repeatedly told us that God said he was going to the president of Nigeria for each presidential election he contested and lost. Such saying is totally against the gospel according to saint Matthew 24: 35. To achieve hisdelusion of grandeur, he ventured into the presidential race even when he was aware that he could not win councillorship position in his political ward.
Pastor Okotie first ran for the office of Nigerian President under the banner of the Justice Party (JP), led by Ralph Obiorah after he was schemed out of the National Democratic Party (NDP) primaries elections; he lost to Olusegun Obasanjo in the May 2003 elections. He ran again in 2007 on the platform of a party he founded, Fresh Democratic Party, FRESH and lost to Umaru Yar'Adua in the May 2007 elections. Then in 2011, he ran and lost to the President Goodluck Jonathan.
My final advice to Pastor Chris Okotie is to develop his one talent of using high-sounding words while preaching to his congregation without paying attention if his members understand what he is saying or not . He may also learn the simple life style of pastor T.B. Joshua as the gift of the Holy Ghost is not an exclusive preserve of the educated or the pastors that wear expensive clothes or shoes. I am currently compiling a book on the life of this great man of God called T.B. Joshua.
Dr Paul John Writes from Port Harcourt [email protected],08083658038