The Rector of the Institute of Professional Studies, Prof. Joshua Alarbi, and the institute have been jointly charged with contempt of court.

The charges are in respect of the willful refusal of the school to restore the BSe Marketing Degree of a former student of the Institute in total disregard of a court order.

IPS cancelled Mr Asore Maxwell Abugre’s BSc Marketing degree, claiming falsely that he falsified the results with which he entered the institute.

Attempts to explain issues to the authorities failed forcing Mr Asore to file a case at the High Court (Human Rights Division) to assert his fundamental human right to education.

The court, presided over by Justice Uuter Paul Dery upheld his argument, noting that the IPS had not been able to prove its case that the complainant falsified his results.

The court, consequently ordered on July 28, that IPS should within 10 days release Mr Asore’s Degree.

Since the ruling, all attempts to get the authorities to comply with the court’s ruling have failed. Letters written by the lawyers of Mr Asore reminding the institute to respect the court’s ruling have been ignored.

IPS, this week wrote to the lawyers arguing that they print certificates yearly and that Mr Asore could only get his certificate next year.

In the wake of the letter, the complainant, through his new lawyers, Tometi Legal Consult filed for contempt at the High Court.

The case will be heard on October 13, this year.

A BSc Marketing Student of the Institute for Professional Studies (IPS), Mr Asore Maxewell Abugre has won a landmark case against the institute.

The Institute wrongfully withdrew Mr Maxwell’s BSc Marketing degree and published his photographs on notice boards, accusing him falsely of falsifying the certificates with which he entered the IPS.

All attempts to get the Institute to revoke their decision failed as the school refused to give the applicant a listening ear, forcing him to jointly sue the IPS, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, the Head of the Technical Examinations Unit and the Attorney-General.

In an affidavit supporting his application, Mr Maxwell through his lawyer, Mr James Agalga, represented by Mr Raphael Alijena, explained that while a student at the Accra Polytechnic, he sat for exam in May/July 2004 as part of his Diploma in Business Studies course.

When the results were released, he failed the Business Communication course and decided to register the private exam in November/December but was given an index number different from the one he used for the May/July exam. He passed the re-sit paper and received the results slip from the Technical Examination Unit which conducted both the first and second exams.

Subsequent to that, the Technical Examination Unit, the applicant argued, issued him with a certificate in which they decided to merge the results of the first and second sittings in one certificate under one index number – the one with which he sat the first time.

The applicant told the Human Rights Court in Accra, presided over Justice Uuter Paul Dery, that he used the two result slips with the respective index numbers to apply for admission into IPS. After completing his studies there, the authorities as part of their verification processes noticed that the applicant’s certificate as issued by the Technical Examination Unit had one index number inconsistent with the result slips which had two different index numbers. On the basis of that, the authorities cancelled his BSc Marketing degree, accusing him of falsifying the results with which he entered the institute.

The IPS authorities, according to the affidavit, did not only refuse the applicant a fair hearing, they also ignored a request by the exams unit that they be furnished with the original results slips of Mr Maxwell Abugre to help them make a determination as to whether the results were falsified.

Mr Abugre therefore argued before the court that his fundamental human right to education was breached by IPS, more so when he was not given a fair hearing before his degree was cancelled.

The court upheld his argument. In its ruling, the court said the IPS had not been able to discharge its burden of adducing evidence to support its assertion that Mr Maxwell Abugre indeed falsified his entry requirements into the institute.

“Further still, and perhaps more importantly, the 1st respondent (IPS) had the applicant’s certificate which confirms that he had the requirement to enter …the institution. So, why did …IPS ignore same and tried to rely on the results slip?”

The court therefore ordered the IPS “to reinstate the applicant’s BSC Marketing Degree.”

The court also awarded GHS10,000 general damages and GHS5,000 costs against IPS.

The applicant is also to pay GHS2,000 cost to the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, the Head of the Technical Examinations Unit, for dragging them into the case when in fact they played no role at all in the cancellation of his degree. “The action against them is misconceived and is hereby dismissed,” the court held.

Many salvation-seekers today are living in just the same delusion that Samaritans and tares have lived in the past. But as said earlier, this delusion of being in God’s salvation is not peculiar to people of today. Since the apostolic days, people have been misled into believing and acting on false gospels. In believing and acting on false gospels, many have come to think that they are Born Again into the salvation of God in Christ Jesus, when in fact they are not.

These people are many and can be found everywhere in the world today. They are found everywhere the gospel of Jesus Christ has been preached. They are those who, on hearing the gospel (maybe an impure version of it), have not been properly taught how to respond to it for their Born Again experience. These are the most pitiful people on earth: who think they are Jews and or wheat, when they are in fact, Samaritans and or tares.

Their situation today is even worse than that of Samaritans or tares of yesteryears, since they now live in a combined delusion as Samaritan-tares. They are Samaritans because they are not begotten out of the loins of God. They are not born from above and of God. They are not born of water and of the Spirit. They claim to have been born of God when in reality they are not.

They are tares because even though they may have access to the written Word of God, they do not know how they can be recreated by this same Word into new creatures. They may use this Word to change their thinking in the many ways they live, and possibly to good effect.

As the good effects of their use of the Word of God may become visible to themselves and many observers, these tares-people delude themselves as being in God’s salvation.

They may be ignorant of their impending disappointment at being refused entry into Abraham’s bosom, and into Heaven, but that is assuredly their fate. Until their eyes and hearts become opened to the Word of God, concerning how they may gain entry into Christ, they remain doomed to disappointment, in-so-far as gaining entry into Abraham’s bosom and into Heaven is their ambition.

There is only one thing that the many Samaritans and Tares of our generation must do to avert the imminent disappointment and doom which await them at the soon-coming judgment of God. They must face the Word of God squarely and boldly. They must believe the Word of God in its purest form.

And what does the Word of God say about how any people can be transformed from being Samaritans and or Tares to be the children of Abraham (of God) and to be wheat? It is important we know this Word of God and obey it in faith.

As mentioned earlier on, under the tutorship of Philip the evangelist, and the ministries of Peter and John, two great apostles of Jesus Christ, the Samaritans of old, found this Word of God, and acted on it, and thereby gained the true salvation of God in Christ Jesus.

Philip, an able minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the City of Samaria, led hordes of Samaritans, to believe, accept, and act appropriately on this gospel. The Samaritan salvation-seekers accepted this gospel in repentance of their sins and baptism into the name of Jesus Christ.

Their repentance from sin, and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, brought these Samaritans (Assyrian-Jews), remission of their sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2: 38-39, and 8: 5-25), and therefore the full package of God’s salvation.

This appropriate response to the gospel, in repentance of sin and in baptism into Christ, brought the Samaritans into the new birth in Christ (and therefore into Abraham), making them obtain what they had been craving for over a period of over 750 years.

For 750 long years, the Samaritan memorized the Torah, hated and denounced sin, fasted and prayed according to set times, showed the human-kind of love to fellowman and to God, and lived in some confidence of being a child of Jacob (and of Abraham), yet only succeeded in deluding himself as being on his way to Abraham’s bosom. That was sad then, and I still feel this sadness in me today.

Let me warn you, my dear reader. If you are living like such a Samaritan, take my coming advice. If you prayed a certain kind of prayer, believing that you have become Born Again by God into His family, take my coming advice seriously. Otherwise, you will be living in the same delusion as Samaritans and Tares did in some time past. And your sure disappointment, at the Gates of Heaven at the end of time, would simply be a matter of time.

Let me warn you my dear reader; many men, who have not been called of God and given His mandate to lead people into His salvation in Christ, are going about everywhere, offering prayers for the Born Again experience. They call this prayer the “Sinners’ Prayer” or the “Prayer for Salvation”.

They claim that when one has said this prayer, repeating it in sincerity, after a so-called man of God, they are instantly Born Again. Such so-called men of God, have only succeeded in making many salvation-seekers live in delusion of their salvation, and assurance of being in Heaven to spend Eternity with God.

Does the Word of God teach salvation-seekers to offer prayers to God to become Born Again, and thereby become eligible to enter His salvation? If the Word of God indeed teaches this, where can we find that word?

If God has never led mankind to offer prayers to Him to enable him grant us His salvation, then we delude ourselves of being in God’s salvation when we act on the word of pious- and or sanctimonious-looking so-called Men of God, to pray so-called “Sinners’ Prayers” and or “Prayers for Salvation.”

My dear reader, are you are living in this delusion of Samaritan Tares? Then begin to seek deliverance from that delusion, by acting appropriately on the Word of God. Act on God’s Word on repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, so you can get the gift of the Holy Spirit to dwell in your heart.

Only this is your only assurance of being in God’s salvation in Christ Jesus. I hope I have warned you enough.

Shalom.
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Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and the author of the book entitled: “BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation”. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

Let us at this point, recap some of the things said so far in this article about the Samaritans. The Samaritans were Assyrians who came to inhabit parts of Israeli lands in the year 721 BC, after their king conquered and carried into captivity, all the Israelites who were occupying these lands. The Assyrian occupation of Israeli lands continued into the days that Jesus Christ walked our earth.

After staying in these lands for many centuries, making every effort to imitate the lifestyle of the true children of Abraham, these Assyrian colonists deluded themselves into believing that they were true children of Abraham. And why would they not delude themselves, after many centuries of living in Israel, to think of themselves as being true children of Abraham?

After all, they had lost all physical, emotional, and cultural links with the lands of their births. The only visible links they had were with Israel. Israel, being in fact, Jacob, the Samaritan saw himself as being related to him alone. No one else was his relative. To claim son-ship to Jacob seemed to be his only option and apparent right.

The way of life and occupations of the Samaritans had come to change over the centuries of their sojourn. Their religion looked more like Judaism than idol worship. Their diet must have changed, to be the Israeli kind, which was cut out for them (Israelites) by their religion. Their manner of dressing must also have changed in conformity with the dictates of their new-found religion.

After living in Samaria for centuries, and undergoing radical transformations in almost every facet of life, the Samaritans had come to lose any trace of belonging to their roots in Assyria. They looked more like Jews than Assyrians.

To tell anybody they were Jews would sound and seem convincing. But that would be a palpable lie to anybody who knew them, and their ancestry, and kept genuine records about them. The Samaritan could not be a child of Abraham because he was never begotten out of the loins of Abraham. No matter how hard he tried to prove he was a child of Abraham, he could never pass a DNA test.

The Samaritan could be the look-alike of the Jew, but that was only how close he could come to the Jew. The ignorance of the Samaritan about this, and his false claims of being a child of Jacob (and of Abraham) could not change anything. A leopard cannot deliver itself of its spots and become a lion. And so can a snake living in water for a long time not be able to change into a fish.

Things do not work that way. The Irishman staying in Zimbabwe for a long time does not evolve to be an African. One day one day, somebody will embarrass and or offend him by telling him in the face the plain truth of him not being an African. This evolution thing does not seem to work, I dare say.

Now, let us focus on wheat and tares. Many people know what wheat is, simply because wheat is a major cereal for bread. So let me not waste time asking what wheat are. But let me ask: what are tares? Tares are the look-alike of wheat. Tares only have one close similarity to wheat which is–appearance. Beyond appearance, the two have nothing else in common.

Very often, wheat and tares grow side by side. When they do, they both take the same soil nutrients and water. Also, they very often appear outwardly to have the same health status, but inwardly, this is never to be so. They may seem to have the same prospects of yielding a good harvest, but alas, this is never to be; for it is impossible for tares to bear grains, as wheat is able.

From the parable of Jesus Christ, we are able to distinguish between wheat and tares, only at harvest-time. Tares will never be able to bear useful or useable grains, no matter how much soil-nutrients and water they have access to, and no matter how long they stay in the fields. Tares by their origins can never bear the grain that wheat by their nature can bear.

Maybe, the Assyrian colonists living in Samaria did not know these simple truths. If they knew them, I am sure they would in wisdom, apply them to their situation, and correct or deliver themselves from their delusions.

Or were they deceived by somebody into their delusion of being Jews, when they never came out of the loins of Abraham? Did somebody, somewhere in far-back home Assyria, encourage them to believe that because they had been marooned on Israeli lands for centuries, they could claim inheritance of them and all the blessings, spiritual and economic, due all true children of Abraham?

They lived in their delusion till the Messiah of God came to earth and accomplished his sacrifice, opening the door for mankind to be begotten spiritually, out of the loins of Abraham. This spiritual rebirth, into the family of Abraham, became possible, not only for the Samaritan dwelling on Israeli lands, but for all mankind. This rebirth is what many people, who subscribe to the Christian faith, believe and call, the Born Again experience.

It was in the year 30 AD, or thereabout, when the Samaritans benefited from the works of Philip the evangelist, Peter and John, apostles of Jesus Christ, when they were guided into the genuine Born Again experience, and thus into the family of Abraham, and of God (Acts 8: 5-25).

Jesus Christ, after opening the door into the salvation of God in his sacrifice, made it possible for all men of non-Abrahamic blood to enter the fold of Israel. The Samaritans had therefore been living in their delusion of being the children of Jacob (and of Abraham), from 721 BC to about 30 AD, a period of over 750 years!

Today, there are many people living in delusion in the like manner that Samaritans did for over seven centuries. There are many salvation-seekers in today’s post-Messianic times, who, live in the kind of delusion as Samaritans did in pre-Messianic times.

The simple reason being that many salvation-seekers today have been misguided by their spiritual leaders on how to be born of God into today’s spiritual family of Abraham (and of Israel). This post-Messianic delusion has existed since 30 AD, for 1800 years; more than twice the period of the Samaritan delusion!

There are many people today who are not in the kingdom of God, and yet delude themselves as being in it. This is because they are not genuinely Born Again. They are not born of water and of the Spirit.

The Word of God demands of all who want to enter God’s salvation, and thereby have the hope of being in Abraham’s bosom, to be born of water and the Spirit (cf. Matthew 28: 18-20, Mark 16: 16, John 3: 3, 5, Acts 2: 38-39, Romans 6: 3-6, First Corinthians 12: 13, Galatians 3: 27, First Peter 3: 20-21, KJV, and many other verses in the Bible). [—the concluding part of this article is in Part Five: soon to be published].

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Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and is the author of the book entitled: “BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation”. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

By the time the Lord Jesus Christ sojourned on our earth, that is, between 4 BC and 30 AD, these colonists no longer saw themselves as being Assyrians. They had by then, been staying in Israel for about seven hundred and fifty (750) years, and had completely lost touch with their roots.

This situation did not come about only with time, but was also speeded-up and aided by the frequent political turmoil in their homelands, which brought about changes in governments, in the part of the east which was known as the Fertile Crescent.

Over the many centuries of their occupation of the nation of Israel, therefore, they came to delude themselves as being the children of Jacob, and by logic, the children of Abraham (John 4: 12, 20), simply because for a long time they dwelt on the lands of Abraham, somehow followed the religion of Abraham’s children, maybe dressed like them, and ate their kind of foods.

It was then difficult for anybody who knew of their Assyrian ancestry or lineage, to convince them that they were not the children of Jacob and of Abraham, as they (Samaritans) thought.

At the time of Jesus Christ, they were so much steeped into their brand of Judaism as to have built for themselves on Mt. Gerizim, a counterpart of the Temple of God in Jerusalem. They also had come to evolve for themselves, a version of the Torah (the five books of Moses), which they called the Samaritan Pentateuch.

With their dedication to their version of the Pentateuch, a worship of God in a highly visible Temple built on top of a mountain, and a way of life very much akin to the children of Jacob (and of Abraham), they lived in a joyful hope of a life in the bosom of Abraham after death.

But to any discerning spiritual person, the hopes of these Assyrians as being qualified for and or eligible to enjoy life in the bosom of Abraham were false, since they could never prove descent from the loins of Abraham.

Abraham’s bosom, a place of rest for the souls of righteous men who exit earth on their way to spend Eternity in Heaven, belonged to only those righteous people born out of the loins of Abraham biologically and or spiritually.

No people, who were simply imitators of the lifestyle of the children of Abraham, no matter for how long, could ever have access to Abraham’s bosom if they did not have in their genes, the DNA of Abraham.

From Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, we are told of a Samaritan who was more righteous than most children of Abraham. This Samaritan showed more commitment to the obedience of (their version of) the Law Moses, than even some priests and Levites of Israel, in his day. And even though he did better than most Israelites in showing love for fellow men, which according to Jesus, summed-up the whole Law of Moses, this could not earn him life in the bosom of Abraham.

Reason for this was simple: he had not the DNA of Abraham in his genes. All through the days of Jesus Christ on earth, the Samaritans remained as strangers to Israel. They were outside the Commonwealth of Israel, no matter whatever beliefs to the contrary they held. To all Jews including the Messiah, the Samaritans were strangers to Israel; this we are told from Luke 17: 11-19 and John 4: 9.

Let us go back briefly to the history of Israel we were following. As mentioned earlier on, God masterminded the return to Israel of all Jews of both the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, when he stirred the heart of king Cyrus to bring this about. Beginning in the year 536 BC, by the authorisation of king Cyrus, many long caravans of returnee-Jews trekked out of the land of their captivity, back home to Israel.

These caravans continued to flow into Israel over a very long period of time, ending in about 445 BC. As mentioned earlier, they were led at various times by such servants of God as Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah. The Bible books Ezra and Nehemiah contain all the details of these return-journeys.

When the returnee-Jews arrived back in their lands, after being in exile for over a period of one hundred and eighty-five (185) years, they were to meet a strange and hostile people on these lands. The governors and their kinsmen, who were put there by successive kings of the empires which carried Israel into captivity, were very hostile to the Israelites.

Of course, having become very comfortable in these lands over centuries, the colonists had come to consider themselves as the landowners, and were therefore not ready for any intruders. Again, from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we get to know who the leaders of these enemy-colonists of Israel were.

They were: Tatnai, Shetharboznai, Tobiah, Sanballat, and others. Also, all the persecutions, impediments to the rebuilding efforts, and challenges which the returnee-owners of the land suffered at the hand of these Assyrian usurpers, are chronicled in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

From the year 445 BC, when the last convoys of exiled returnee-Jews arrived back home, to the year 4 BC, when Jesus Christ the Messiah was born, a fierce hatred and animosity had developed and festered till it became dangerous for Jews to encounter Samaritans. This hostility continued till the time the Messiah started to execute his God-instructed mission to earth.

It had then become so fierce that, Jews and Samaritans could neither walk freely on each others lands, nor offer each other water to drink. It was against this background of the Samaritan-Jew animosity, that Jesus taught the Parable of the Good Samaritan, aimed at provoking his Jewish audience to wake up to the obedience to the love commandments of the Law of Moses.

Since the arrival of these Samaritan colonists, till the days the Son of Man walked the length and breadth of Israel, they occupied the middle portion lands of present day Israel. They were thus strategically positioned, as to be a real thorn in the flesh the children of Abraham.

And this explains why no Israelites would want to travel through Samaria on one’s way from say Jerusalem in the south, to Nazareth in Galilee to the north. It also explains why the north-south route of Israel at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, lay roughly parallel to the north-south flow of the river Jordan, and clear of the lands of Samaritan occupation.

And for any Jew who must of need pass through Samaria on a journey, as Jesus and his disciples often found themselves in (Luke 9: 51-56, John 4: 3-4), that Jew must be adequately prepared and ready to experience hostility, attacks by robbers and bandits, once on Samaritan soil.

Maybe, in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, the traveler who went from Jerusalem toward Jericho in the direction of Samaria, alone, was asking for real trouble to come upon him.

As for the Zebedee Brothers–James and John–who were also known as the Sons of Thunder, and an ever-present pair of disciples in all the travels of Jesus Christ, the lasting solution to Samaritan opposition and hostility lay in their calling upon Heaven to rain down fire and brimstone, in Sodom and Gomorrah style, upon them.

I know many people today, who would have easily subscribed to this suggested line of action of the then soon-to-be-ordained apostles–James and John. [—this article is continued in Part Four: soon to be published].

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Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and is the author of the book entitled: “BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation”. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

Not long after the break-up into the two kingdoms, the people accelerated their drift from the true worship of God into idolatry. This, they had started to do, under king Solomon. They were further led away from the faith of their ancestors, by most of their subsequent kings, into Baal-worship.

The few holy priests and prophets, loyal and dedicated to God, were unable to stem the tide of the spiritual decadence, as their warning messages from God were ignored. They watched, saddened and shocked, at the toll idol worship was taking on the value of life of the people, as both the Northern and Southern kingdoms fell head-over-heels in love with strange gods and Ball-worship.

The reprisals from God for their bad ways and their loss of faith in Him were of course, though long in coming, very severe and unforgettable. The Northern Kingdom was the first to be hit by these reprisals, when in the year 721 BC God gave power to the king of Assyria to carry them and their king into captivity. King Hoshea, the then incumbent king, the nineteenth and last of the Northern Kingdom, was carried together with all the inhabitants (low and high) of the Kingdom, to serve as slaves to the king of Assyria.

The exile of the Northern Kingdom did not bring any lessons worthy of causing their brothers in the Southern Kingdom to mend their ways and, to turn with contrite hearts, to serve the God of their forefathers. They continued to go deep into Baal-worship, displaying the folly characteristic of all idol worshippers.

It was therefore not a surprise when they were also carried into captivity, in the year 587 BC, during the rule of king Zedekiah, the twentieth and last king of Judah. The Babylonian Empire, under king Nebuchadnezzar, which had evolved to take over the Assyrian Empire, carried these unrepentant Israelites of the Southern Kingdom out of the lands of their ancestors, to be its hewers of wood and drawers of water.

For many years afterwards, they were to sit by the banks of the rivers of Babylon in exile, with no altars in a foreign land on which to offer sacrifices to God, bemoaning their condition, and singing songs of lamentation.

The exiles of Judah were luckier than their kinsmen of the Northern Kingdom, since they stayed in a shorter period in servitude. After only some fifty years in captivity, they and their brethren of the Assyrian captivity, who had been living in it for about 135 years, started to enjoy the goodwill of the then king of Persia, Cyrus. Cyrus, who had earlier-on conquered the Babylonians, later on, issued a decree authorising the return of all Jews in his kingdom, back to the lands of their ancestors.

Many of the late arrivals to the Babylonian captivity, who were all of the stock of Judah, had the opportunity of joining the convoys of returnees back home, under such God-ordained Israeli ambassadors as Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, between the years 536-445 BC, that resulted from Cyrus’ decree.

When the Northern Kingdom was carried into captivity, the lands that were managed by the ten tribes of Israel, that constituted the Kingdom, became vacant. It was not long when the king of Assyria saw the economic sense in sending an occupation force to work these fallow lands. After all, whatever economic gains that would accrue to these Assyrians would go to benefit the home-government, if they were later repatriated.

The king of Assyria therefore sent people from the lands of Cathah, Ava, Hamath and Sepharvaim in his kingdom, to go and inhabit these lands. Maybe, this was some decongestion exercise carried out by the king in those cities.

Well, when the colonists arrived, they did not stay for long before they started having problems. God sent lions from out of the bushes to attack and kill them.

The colonists, maybe by intuition or by divination, got to know why this serious and deadly mishap. They knew it was because they did not serve the God of Israel, who is the God of the land that brought them these calamities and disasters, by the invasions of lions into the land.

They therefore sent a request home to their king to send back to them, one of the young priests of Israel carried into the captivity, who would teach them how to serve and worship the God of the land of Israel. They were blessed by their king, who granted their request.

Not long after the request of the colonists, a young priest arrived back in Samaria to teach them the way to worship the God of the land of Israel. He taught them the true worship of YAHWEH, the God of the land they were occupying. They heeded the instructions of the young priest and started to worship the God of Israel.

This brought to the colonists a great relief, as the invasions into the land and killings by lions stopped abruptly. We can learn much about the foregoing, by reading from the book of Second Kings 17: 24-41, KJV.

Now, as is always the case with mankind, religious faiths, beliefs and practices do not easily die off; even when they are wrong and unbeneficial. The colonists had come into the Kingdom of Israel with a horde of idols, which were as diverse in shapes, scary awesomeness, and prescribed manner of worship, as were the variety of towns and cities in Assyria from which they had came.

So, while they obeyed the Israeli priest and worshipped the God of the land under his instructions and leadership, they also worshipped their idols which they had brought with them. Well, somehow, they got to enjoy peace on the land.

This idolatry-tainted Judaism however became the manner of worship and religion of these colonists. For the many centuries they stayed in the land, this pseudo-Judaism became institutionalised as their religion; one which was in effect, an unholy fusion of Judaism and idol worship and practiced by a people who were essentially a hybrid of Jews and Assyrians. This was what prevailed in the nation of Israel for centuries, running into the days of Jesus Christ.

Let me say that it was when the Assyrian colonists came to occupy the lands of the Northern Kingdom that the term ‘Samaritan’ evolved to derogatorily describe these colonists. Hitherto, the term Samaritan did not exist. It was also during their occupation that all the lands of the Northern Kingdom were collectively called Samaria.

Though the name Samaria existed during the pre-captivity regimes of the nation of Israel, it was only used in reference to the capital of the Northern Kingdom, in its being called–the City of Samaria. During the pre-captivity days, all the people (only Jews), who resided in the City of Samaria, and in other cities of the Kingdom were never called Samaritans, but simply, the people of Samaria. [—this article is continued in Part Three: soon to be published].

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Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and is the author of the book entitled: “BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation”. His e-mail address is: [email protected]

Every serious-minded, loyal and dedicated disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is thrilled when he is able to imitate with success, the ways of the Master. Nothing gives so much joy to any dedicated disciple of Jesus Christ, than being able to gain the same results by doing things in the same way the Master would, if he were still physically present with us on earth.

That is what true discipleship is all about; and indeed, this is what the genuine Christian Faith is all about. The true Christian Faith and lifestyle, is a call by God to humans to live like Him, imitating Him and His Christ in every way. This call to imitate Christ is one of the reasons why I write this article.

In my daily studies of the life and works of the Master, one of the most captivating things I find about him is the way he uses parables to uncover and teach spiritual truths to his audience. Throughout the four years Jesus Christ taught the world, when he was physically present on earth to do so, he did so in many instances using parables. Two particular parables of the Master I indeed find captivating are: The Parable of the Good Samaritan, and The Parable of Wheat and Tares.

My dear reader, if you are not familiar with these two parables of Jesus Christ, it might do you some good, to read them from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, before continuing with your reading of this article. Read from Luke 10: 25-37 about the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43 about that on the Wheat and Tares.

The substance of my ensuing treatise–The Parable of the Samaritan Tares–is yet another imitation of the ways of Jesus Christ, by one of his loyal and dedicated disciples (a copy-cat one, if you will), to lay bare spiritual truths, using a parable to do so.

Also, since the Master himself has said of his loyal and dedicated disciples as being able to do greater works than he did, because he would be backing them from his position beside the Throne of the Father, I am led to marry two of his popular parables into one, if by any means that would result in some kind of greater works being done.

My parable about Samaritan Tares seeks to have the effect of killing two Goliaths with one shot of a sling-stone. First, it seeks to reveal some hidden truths about who today’s Samaritans are, where they are found, and what they must do to be accepted into the true Christian Faith–the only true faith and lifestyle that must be accepted by all spiritual Israelites, the God-chosen children of Abraham.

Secondly, my parable of the Samaritan Tares seeks to reveal the true identities of tares (the look-alike of wheat), which we find everywhere in our world today.

Let us start our search for and investigation of Samaritan Tares in the world today, by going backward into history, to the most glamorous time of Israel–the first two terms of The David Dynasty. The David Dynasty of Israel under David and Solomon brought peace, prosperity and unity to all Israelites, from the year 1055 BC when it was established under king David, till 975 BC, the date king Solomon passed away.

The Dynasty, after David and Solomon, however, continued to exist under many inglorious regimes, and a few blessed ones, till the year 587 BC, when its last king, Zedekiah, was taken into captivity by Babylon. Since then, and to date, there has not been any king in Israel.

The wailings and cries to God by ancient-day Israelites for a restoration of the Dynasty, and its glorious beginnings, led to the promises by God to Israel of a Messiah-king of the lineage of David.

It is sad that, since the year 4 BC to 30 AD, when the Messiah-king (Jesus Christ the Lord of Glory) was indeed born, and lived in Israel to establish his everlasting rule in the room of David, many Israelites have missed the great importance of that period, and still live in the expectation of a physical restoration of the David Dynasty, with all its glorious past.

The present state of Israel, in which his promised Messiah-King is still awaited, is a manifestation of the folly of man in living without understanding and trusting God’s Word, but leaning to his (man’s) own understandings.

While king David yet lived, because he was a man whose heart was after God, his kingdom was so blessed by God that all non-Israeli kings came to know about him and the power of his kingdom. He was very much revered by all his peers–friends and foes alike. His fame went so far as to reach the four corners of the world.

In fact, because of his commitment to obey and serve the God of his forefathers, king David was able to attract the blessings of God upon his nation, so much as to make all the people and kings of the world to be either proud or envious of Israel.

After his demise, his son Solomon continued, for a while, to lead Israel into glorious achievements. These achievements caused many kings and queens of the earth to desire his friendship; if in so doing, they might learn the secret behind his rare wisdom, great wealth, kingdom-wide peace, invincibility, and the general prosperity of all the people in his kingdom.

Sadly, in the later years of Solomon’s rule, he was misled into idol worship by many of his numerous heathen-wives. He in turn misled the whole nation of Israel into forsaking the God of their ancestors, into the worship of idols. This brought about a slump to the glory of his kingdom. This slump in glory continued to slide downward for many years, before king Solomon’s death in 975 BC, and even afterwards.

Because of Israel’s folly in forsaking the God of their ancestors, for the filthy idols of heathen-nations, he suffered an irreparable mishap–a breakup into two kingdoms–immediately after the death of king Solomon in 975 BC. After the demise of king Solomon, the nation of Israel split into the Northern Kingdom (also known as the Kingdom of Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (known as the Kingdom of Judah).

The first king of the Northern Kingdom was Jeroboam, the son of one Nebat, an Eprathite of Zereda who until his death was servant to Solomon. Jeroboam after the death of Nebat his father, also became servant to king Solomon, but later had to run away to Egypt for his life. As God would have it, he came out of Egypt to be the first king of the Northern Kingdom (cf. First Kings 11: 26-40). His kingdom was home to ten of the eleven non-priestly tribes of the nation of Israel. The City of Samaria was its capital.

On the other hand, the first king of the Southern Kingdom was Rehoboam, a son of king Solomon. His kingdom was home to only one tribe, Judah, of the eleven non-priestly tribes of Israel. The Southern Kingdom had as its capital, Jerusalem (or Jebus).

At times, the City of David (Bethlehem) also functioned as capital. It seemed Jerusalem was always the politico-spiritual capital, whilst Bethlehem at certain times served as the royal capital of the Kingdom of Judah. [—this article is continued in Part Two: soon to be published].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and is the author of the book entitled: “BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation”. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

God is always happy with any of His children who correct themselves when the reality of their errors hit them. Coming to mind readily are the incidents between Judah and Tarmar (Genesis 38: 1-30); David and Urriah’s wife (Second Kings 11: 2 – 12: 25); and Peter and his denial of his Master on the night of the Lord’s arrest (Luke 22: 54-62). The repentance of Judah, David and Peter from their errors in these incidents, are worthy of emulation.

Even before these great men of God could ever come to sin and repent of their short-comings, Abraham had long ago repented of his slip to obey his wife. When later-on after his slip he heard clearly, the voice of God to offer his son Isaac to Him, he did not confer with Sarah on the issue, for obvious reasons. He at the time had become wiser, having learnt his lesson well.

I am sure Sarah would have kicked against Abraham’s plan to obey God in the sacrificing of Isaac. Sarah would have prevailed upon Abraham to re-consider whether he truly and clearly heard God speak to him to sacrifice Isaac, their only son and one of promise.

Your guess of what commotion would have come to the home of Abraham is as good as mine, if he went conferring with his wife on the issue. Thank God the world was saved from another disaster, in men giving their leadership positions to their wives or women-folk in this instance.

My dear reader, I do sincerely hope you are one of many who know that Jesus Christ will soon re-visit our planet. Because the return of Jesus is imminent, many are running helter-skelter in search of a safe place to be. Of course, though many do not know it, the safest place to be is inside of Jesus’ own Body – the Church.

I am not talking about how to run into some masonry building of Victorian Age architecture, which many people take to be the Church. I am talking about how one is able to be part of Jesus’ Body: becoming bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh (Ephesians 5: 30, KJV); a branch in him, the True Vine (John 15: 5, KJV); and how to wear him like a cassock or space-suit (Galatians 3: 27, KJV). I am talking about how to enter into Jesus’ Body or get to be attached to him in the manner of John 3: 3-5, Acts 2: 38-39, Romans 6: 3-6, First Peter 3: 20-21, First John 5: 11-13, etc.

Sadly, many people do not know how to gain this great blessing of being attached to or gaining entry into the body, soul, and spirit of Jesus Christ. I like to advice you how you could gain this unique blessing.

Look for any grouping of people which calls itself – Church: which do not have women in leadership positions. The genuine Body of Christ, which is the Church, does not have any women-leaders.

If you get to know of any group of believers, who do not have women as its leaders, next check on its doctrine, for the Born Again experience. The genuine members which constitute the Lord’s Church are those who express faith in Matthew 28: 18-20; Mark 16: 15-16; Luke 24: 46-48; John 3: 3, 5; Acts 2: 38-39; Romans 6: 3-6; Galatians 3: 27; First Peter 3: 20-21; etc. for their entry into God’s salvation. Get united to that body and you will be safe in Christ.

Do not join any group that believes in the praying of a so-called “Sinners’ Prayer” or “Prayer for Salvation” as their way to enter Christ’s Body. No prayer can ever make anybody become Born Again.

Never join yourself to any grouping of people calling itself church, where there is a woman as pastor; a so-called deaconess; a prophetess in today’s context of being a revealer of secrets; a female language translator to a man-preacher; etc. That grouping is not the Church or Body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

No matter how solid or rocky a woman leader of such a group might look, her congregation is not a part of the Body of Christ. Come out of it and move-on in your search for the safe ground which is in Christ only. And do please be very serious in this.

I like to conclude this article by leading readers to three verses of scripture: one in the Book of Jeremiah, and the others in the Book of Isaiah. All these scriptures are clear in meaning as they stand and will by all means support the main thrust of my article.

“I have not sent these prophets, yet they run; I have not spoken to them yet they prophesied”, says God the Almighty in Jeremiah 23: 21, KJV. Surely, women who persist in playing lead-roles in the Church of Jesus Christ are seen in this light by God, and it will not be long when all men begin to see such women in this same light.

“As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths”, says the Lord God Almighty in Isaiah 3: 12, KJV. I hope this verse is easily understood by all women who love to be given lead-roles in the Church of Jesus Christ. The obvious fact of this verse is that, when women lead in spiritual issues, people err and their clear paths become obliterated. Only God can help mankind in this.

Finally, in the Book of Isaiah, chapter four, verse one, this is what we read from the King James Version of the Bible. “And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, we shall eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, take away our reproach”. (Isaiah 4: 1, KJV).

Well, I do not know whether this prophecy is yet to be fulfilled or it has come to pass. How I wish that it had already been fulfilled, to spare the women of my generation an impending calamity, confusion and shame. If this prophecy is yet to be fulfilled someday, then that day will be one in which all of women’s campaigns for man-woman equality, would seem foolish, under the microscope of the Almighty God – God who rules in the affairs of men.

Shalom.
Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and is the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].

The Book of Titus, chapter one, verse five to nine, also reveals the qualities of an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ. Here too, the elder is a man, who must be the husband of one wife, among other credentials. So whenever we met any bishop, deacon or elder in the Christianity of the First Century, he was always a man married to one woman.

During the days when the disciples of Jesus Christ – who talked, walked and ate with him – were in-charge of running the Church, all his bishops, deacons and elders, were men married to one wife, who had children begotten out of their loins, and who lived in homes where the presence and influence of God permeated all their endeavours.

Who or what has taken the Church of Jesus Christ from his First Century character and principles, with regards his leadership purity, can only be told by the pagan Roman-Christianity of the Second Century. Today’s ubiquitous celibate-bishop is the creation of pagan Rome’s brand of Christianity.

For a long time, many people have been deceived to accept her brand of celibate-leadership, as being better than the God-ordained one, in which married men, who were able to manage their families and homes well, were sought after and ordained to manage the House of God. Today, it is impossible for a married man, with children, and a home of his own, to be considered eligible to be a bishop, in many so-called churches, which in fact are the dying relics of pagan Roman-Christianity of the Second Century.

We shall soon go back to our studies of Genesis, but let us go a little further in our study of the New Testament position on the leadership status of man over woman. We go to First Corinthians ELEVEN VERSE THREE, SEVEN TO NINE, which I quote here to make reference to these verses easy.

“But I would have you know that, the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man [ FIRST COR, ELEVEN THREE, SEVEN TO NINE.].

From these verses, we see a God-ordained ladder of leadership to be accepted by all. This hierarchy has God at the top; then Christ; then man; and finally, woman. Who can arrange this hierarchy in some wiser order?

And who can doubt the fact that woman was created by God for the man; or who can ever change or re-do what God has established? May, mankind accept forever that, man is forever the spiritual leader of the woman.

My final quotation from the New Testament in this article is from Ephesians 5: 23-24. Let us capture it here: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Ephesians 5: 23-24, KJV).

Again, these verses are so clear in the manner they stand that they do not need any explanation. These verses uphold the leadership status of the man, over the woman forever, in much the same way that Christ is the head over the Church. And this is God’s eternal plan for man to accept and live by.

It is now time for us to go back to the Book of Genesis, as earlier-on promised, to look at some events that occurred there, the effects of which, are still taking a punitive toll on mankind today. It is important we know of these occurrences in Genesis, avoidable errors as they were, which men committed as a result of their women misleading [leading?] them. It is important we know of these events, if by any way they are able to aid us, to re-focus our lives on the God-ordained role of man over the woman, in spiritual matters.

The first of these is that of Adam being led (or misled) by Eve into eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, after the serpent had succeeded in beguiling her to eat it. The consequence of this weakness of Adam, in being led by Eve, is the cause of all the woes of mankind which have plagued him since The Fall in the Garden.

Sin and its horrible and deadly consequences would never have come into man’s life, if Adam had not slipped from his position as leader of the woman to become her servant. Many millennia after this slip of Adam from headship to servitude, mankind is plagued by disease, misery, poverty and suffering, as a result.

Even after the intervention of God, in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, aimed at dealing with the sin problem and the suffering it brought to mankind, many people who are ignorant of the blessings of being in Christ, are still plagued with the consequences of that error by Adam, in exchanging his leadership role for the woman’s God-ordained submission to him.

Did you know that the perennial turmoil between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East has its roots in Genesis? This unending conflict between Israel and Palestinian-Arabs is due to the error of Abraham, in taking instructions from his wife, Sarah.

You see, while Abraham awaited the fulfillment of the promise of God to have a male-child, Sarah, in impatience, was scheming something else. When she could no longer wait, she led Abraham to sleep with her maid, Hagar the Egyptian. Hagar got pregnant by Abraham, because he, like Adam, yielded to obey the wife.

The anger, jealousy, bitterness and hatred, between Sarah and her maid Hagar, even before the latter brought forth Ishmael, led God to pronounce judgment in the matter. God declared that Ishmael was going to be a great and populous nation of wealthy people. But that same wealthy nation would live in hostility with all his brothers (Genesis 16: 10-12, KJV).

Do you see the wealth of the Arab world? And do you see the hostility of two sons of one man (Abraham), Ishmael and Isaac, living in conflict with one another for centuries? And all this, has come about because one man chose to obey his woman, instead of leading her to obey him. [—the concluding part of this article is in Part Nine: soon to be published.

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and is the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

We are now living in the era of Grace. So let us look at the New Testament to find out what the Word of God teaches, concerning the leadership roles of men in the Church. The New Testament is very clear concerning the God-ordained role of men over women in the running of the Church. And so, all professing Christians must subscribe to this fact; of a men-only leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ.

First, let us look at First Corinthians, chapter fourteen, verse thirty-four to thirty-eight. These verses are very clear in what they mean. They are also so strong that nobody can bend them. They clearly establish the leadership role of man over the woman in the running of the Church. For easy reference, let us quote these verses right here:

“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. What? came the word of God from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant” (First Corinthians 14: 34-38, KJV, emphasis mine).

I do not know what Paul would do to the many men of our day, who willfully disobey this instruction of the Lord, if he were here present on earth with us. So-called men of God find nothing wrong with electing, schooling, ordaining, and anointing women, in their own ways and manner, claiming to have made them suitable and empowered for leadership roles in the Church.

Many of such so-called men of God, have the audacity to anoint their own wives, sisters, daughters, nieces and female friends, claiming to have thus made them become eligible to lead in the affairs of the church. These men claim God called them, but cannot wait for the same God to call these female relations of theirs – if He ever will. Because they suffer from impatience and possibly arrogance, they claim to have been authorized by God, whose so-called authorization makes them worthy to call females of their choice into His service.

I wonder of what spiritual use, groupings (churches?) with such leaders who claim to have the mandate of God to call women into leadership roles, are to the Kingdom of God. Such groupings are not part of the Body of Christ – the Church. These are man-made businesses, established as dynasties, whose sole intent is to make money out of their ignorant followers.

My prayer to God for you, my dear reader, is that you will begin to see so-called men of God, who clad themselves with powers they claim to have been given by God to elect, train and ordain their wives as leaders of their churches they founded, as not true disciples of Jesus Christ.

Let us also look at the substance of First Timothy chapter two, verse eleven to fourteen. These verses stand out so clear in meaning that, they hardly need any exposition. Again, let us quote them here for ease of reference:

“Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (First Timothy 2: 11-14, KJV).

From these verses, we have the reason from God’s own mouth, why He does not choose women for His work. One reason is as stated earlier-on in this article: Adam begat Eve out of his bones and flesh, and therefore she must be subject to him forever.

The second reason is traced back to the events that led to the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. Because of the role the woman (Eve) played in the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, God does not permit her to play any leadership roles in His business.

God has given His reasons why woman cannot be entrusted with any leadership roles in His business. I wonder which mortal beings can have the courage and audacity to think otherwise. For God, the issue of woman’s ineligibility to play any leadership roles in His business is forever settled. No person can fight God over this, or be able to reverse His rule.

In First Timothy 3: 2, 12 and Titus 1: 6, the Word of God further establishes His choice of man over woman, in leading His business. Again it will be easy to follow the discourse, if we quote these verses here.

“A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well” (cf. First Timothy 3: 2, 12, KJV).

These verses are clear in what they mean. It is only men with single wives, children and homes, who qualify to be bishops and deacons. No law exists, that states that, women who have single husbands, children and their own houses, can be eligible for the functions of a bishop or deacon.

That would be a ridiculous law. But many so-called men of God have managed to select, teach and ordain women for the functions of bishops and deacons. In their confusion, they call such women, deaconesses – a man-made word (alien to the entire bible-revelation), which is coined to try to fit it into their skewed understanding of the Word of God. How sad that men could behave in such foolhardiness and ignorance.

Let me say that, any person, casually familiar with the prose or the letter of the Holy Bible, will realize in it, the use of certain words in the masculine gender sense only. They are never used in any way close to the feminine gender sense. In fact, they defy any feminine gender connotations. These words are: apostle, bishop, elder, evangelist, deacon, pastor, priest and teacher.

Of course, the masculine-gendered word ‘priest’ might seem to have a feminine counterpart: ‘priestess’. But that is only so outside the context of both the Old and New Testaments and of Israel, (the true jurisdiction of these testaments). That is why this word ‘priestess’ is never used in description of any woman in Judaism and of Israel.

Another male-gendered word, ‘deacon’, rooted in the Bible, has also been wrongly given a feminine gender counterpart in the word ‘deaconess’. Even though the word ‘deaconess’ has never been used by God and the holy men He inspired to write the Bible, it has been forced into Bible interpretation, in reference to today’s women-leaders in church settings, as being counterparts to deacons.

Whoever courageously came up with the word ‘deaconess’, to fit into his views in Bible-interpretation, should have in the same vain, done more work in giving mankind, feminine forms to such typically masculine-gendered words as: apostle, bishop, elder, pastor, and teacher. Maybe, he should have taught us that, ‘apostleess’, “bishopess”, “elderess”, “evangelistess”, “pastoress” and “teacheress”, are the respective feminine-gendered forms of these words. And I wonder how many people would have been thrilled and appreciative of his ingenuity in such a feat. [—this article is continued in Part Eight: soon to be published].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].

The Master took to himself, only men to be trained for the work of evangelizing the world. These were to work in his stead after his ascension to heaven. During the time the Master was training these men for their role in taking the salvation-message to the world, he sent them out on two occasions as part of their training programme.

On both occasions, he sent out only these chosen men in pairs but never blended them with any women. Bible scholars have come to refer to these errands as the Mission of the Twelve (cf. Matthew 10: 1-42, Mark 6: 7-13, Luke 9: 1-6) and the Mission of the Seventy (cf. Luke 10: 1-24).

The fact that the Master chose only men to be his twelve apostles (one man representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel?), and these men-only missions of the Twelve and of the Seventy, must be the starting point where every true disciple of the Master must begin to understand and appreciate the God-ordained leadership role of men, in the business of the Kingdom of God.

But alas, many of today’s so-called disciples of Jesus Christ are hardly impressed by the manner of the Master, and the spiritual significance of choosing only men for his assignments.

Apostle Peter is my most-admired disciple of Jesus Christ. I see him throughout his apostolic work, act as a copy-cat disciple of Jesus Christ, the Master. Just watch him lead the search for a replacement for Judas Iscariot, when the latter’s bishoprick became due for grabs, after his horrible demise.

Apostle Peter in Acts 1: 15-22, spelt out the required credentials of the person who was qualified to take-up the bishoprick of Judas Iscariot. Looking critically at his requirements in verses twenty-one and twenty-two, Mary Magdalene, Joana the wife of Chuza (Herod’s steward), Susanna, Mary the mother of James, and many other women (Luke 8: 2-3 and 24: 10), did not qualify simply because they were women.

These women were ever present in all the travels of the Master, to minister to his needs out of their substance. The Master knew of their presence in the crowds that followed him in all his travels because they were always present to supply his needs. And yet the Master never gave these loyal women to his cause, any roles or assignments in his ministry.

So, who was Peter, an ordinary disciple of the Master to do otherwise? Apostle Peter could therefore never elect and anoint a woman to replace Judas Iscariot; no matter how much qualified she might seem in all other areas, aside from not being a man.

Not long after Peter led the Church in getting a replacement for Judas Iscariot, the Church again had need to look for leaders for a particular assignment. We can read of this assignment and the election of the men for its execution, in Acts 6: 1-7.

From my understanding of many accounts about the apostolic Church, this account in Acts 6: 1-7 is the best situation, that could ever have led to the establishment of a so-called Women’s Ministry and the election of women (as deaconesses?) to prosecute the objectives of that ministry. And yet the wisdom of the apostles of Jesus Christ did not permit the election of women for the assignment.

The apostles had on hand, a problem of dealing with a women’s issue. It concerned the provision of food by the Church to widows. The distribution of food to Grecian widows did not seem fair as Jewish widows in the Church seemed better-favoured over the Grecian ones.

This led to murmurings in the Church. Of course, these murmurings had the potential to kill the love and fellowship of the congregation. The apostles had to deal with this canker which in Israel’s history had always led to the judgments of God upon the people.

One would have thought that since the issues in contention were about the cooking of food in the kitchen and the serving of it at tables to vulnerable women, women-folk, should have been at the forefront to deal with them. After all, these issues obviously were in an area where women’s God-given talents and natural gifts, could deal with them adequately, possibly without any Holy Spirit endowment.

And yet the apostles did not find it prudent to elect, ordain and anoint women for the task. They had to look for as many as seven men for the solution of the problem. These were no ordinary men. For this service to the Body of Christ, these men were to be of good report, full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom, and faith.

At the end of the election and ordination of these seven men, there was peace, love flourished, and the work of God prospered. Jesus Christ and God the Father in Heaven were satisfied with their servants on earth for their actions and gave them their backing and blessing.

You see, the apostles worked with the mind and wisdom of the Master. Also, the Master worked with them in all their endeavours (Mark 16: 20). Working in and through his disciples, the Master would never elect and ordain women for any assignments in his Church. These truths the apostles knew very well from two sources.

The first source was the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in them. The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in them constantly taught them the deep things of God and of His Wisdom. They could never do what was not in the mind of God or what He would not approve of.

Secondly, they learnt of the Master in four years of serious discipleship training, whatever they could do or never be allowed to do. And this training gave them the wisdom of being copy-cat imitators of all the ways of the Master.

When these men were with the Master, while he was on earth with them, did he not set the example for them, that, the greatest in his work must be the one who serves? And so these disciples learnt to serve thousands of men, women, and children, without being assisted in their tasks by women and or children (cf. Matthew 14: 15-21, Matthew 15: 32-38, Mark 6: 35-44, Mark 8: 1-9, Luke 9: 12-17, John 6: 5-13).

Whenever the disciples of Jesus Christ executed their God-ordained work of serving in the Kingdom, they received no assistance from women. Whether the task was to serve five or seven thousand men, in addition to the large numbers of women and children who were ever present, they received no assistance from any women in this service.

And whether the task was the collection of left-over food, to fill seven or twelve baskets, the disciples of Jesus Christ did not get assistance from their women-folk present.

The Master did not endorse women participation in the ministry he established for his genuine and loyal disciples. And therefore, he, never superintended over any assignments of his followers, which had women play roles (no matter how menial) in the ministry he ordained for them (his followers).

My dear Man of God, who are you then, to bring women into the Church of Jesus Christ, as leaders in place of and on behalf of men? Do you have the mandate of God to do so? No you do not. May God, be merciful to us in this error. [—this article is continued in Part Seven].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].

Prophetess Deborah came onto the political scene of Israel unannounced. Unlike her predecessors, Othniel and Ehud, God did not introduce her. Immediately after her, came another deliverer raised by God to deliver His people. He was called Gideon. Gideon was elaborately introduced by God as His messenger (cf. Judges 6: 12 – 8: 32).

Odd enough, Deborah did not enjoy the testimony of God that He raised her as a deliverer to His people. There is no statement in the Bible that clearly reveals Deborah was raised-up and sent by God in the same way that Othniel, Ehud and Gideon were given glorious testimonies about their God-ordained assignments.

Maybe, she just filled a void at her own will: she called herself into action. It is most likely that, this was what she did. Just like Miriam the prophetess, the joy of having the power of the Holy Spirit upon her for singing might have led her to make bold and courageous acts like leading men to war, at a time when men were afraid to. But even then, do we not see how dependant she was on Barak, a man of valour, for her military campaigns? (cf. Judges 4: 6).

Nothing that I know about prophetess Deborah leads me to the conclusion that she was a messenger sent from God to lead His people. Her success in the war-campaigns against Gentile-king Jabin, and his captain Sisera, not withstanding, there is no reference in the Bible that God sent her.

That is not say God was not with her: since the Holy Spirit was with her and inspired her to sing, albeit of herself, and friends. Deborah too, like Miriam could not be a messenger sent by God to lead men.

We could go on to examine Huldah the wife of a man called Shallum (Second Kings 22: 14-20 & Second Chronicles 34: 20-28) and the un-named wife of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 8: 3), who were both mentioned in the Old Testament as being prophetesses. Clearly, none of them was sent by God to deliver His Word to any people. Huldah was neither under the command of God to send a message to king Josiah of Judah, nor was Josiah told by God to send the high priest Hilkiah and scribe Shaphan to her for one.

King Josiah of his own volition sent his messengers to confer with her. Prophetess Huldah therefore, also stands as one of the prophetesses who were never sent by God with His Word to men. As for Isaiah’s wife we do not know for what reason she was mentioned as a prophetess: or was it in relation to her pregnancy, the only issue related to the mention of her name?

From all the foregoing, we can safely say that a prophetess is one who sings under the unction of the Holy Spirit. This understanding of the function of the prophetess should deliver many people from holding the wrong view that, a prophetess is the female counterpart to the male-prophet, and is also inspired like the male-prophet to carry God’s Word to people.

This wrong but popular stance held by many that a prophetess is a God-chosen woman to be His messenger-spokesperson, conveying His instructions in place or alongside of God-ordained men-prophets must, today, be disabused from the minds of Bible-believers.

With the issue of who is a prophetess now settled, let us look at some practices of Judaism to further establish the fact that God purposefully set-up the leadership role of man over the woman. It is common knowledge to Bible students that, Judaism, as set-up and defined by the Law of Moses, showed a men-only leadership.

Many times we read in the Old Testament that Israel appeared before God in fulfillment of the Law. For many, their understanding of these verses of the Bible is that, the entire population of men, women and children appeared in the presence of the Lord. But it is wrong to suppose so, since the whole population of Israel could never assemble in one place. It was simply not possible for such a gathering to be made.

These were men-only congregations and or convocations, which the Law of Moses commanded for the observance by the males of Israel. It was compulsory for all men to stand before God in a holy convocation three times every year. This was a commandment given for the compliance of only men. We find this in Exodus 23: 17, Deuteronomy 16: 16-17, 23: 1-2, Leviticus 4: 13-15, and 23: 2.

The ages of males qualified to stand before God in these gatherings were twenty and above. These males comprised those of the eligible military- and nuptial-age of twenty (Numbers 1: 2-3, 26: 2, 32: 11 and Joshua 5: 4-7), and those who were family-heads, military leaders, spiritual leaders, and royal heads. Just look at the composition in the select group of men who appeared before Joshua and God, before his demise, which we find in Joshua 23: 2 and 24: 1.

Every serious-minded student of the Bible knows of the obvious disposition of the Law toward males, over their females. Even the post-natal purification rites for a woman, under the Law, were different when she brought forth a male-child from when the child was a female.

When a woman brought forth a male-child, she was unclean for only seven days. She could therefore come out to be present at the circumcision, naming and presentation to God rites for her son, which were by the Law to be performed on the eighth day after the birth of every male-child. Thereafter, her purification process lasted for thirty-three days.

On the other hand, a woman who delivered a female-child was by Law considered unclean, for as many as fourteen days. Thereafter, she continued while in seclusion, the process of her purification for a further sixty-six days. In Leviticus 12: 1-6, we find God’s instructions devoted to these issues, for the strict compliance of the children of Israel. Please, read these verses for your edification.

We must keep in remembrance that the Law of Moses continued to be legal tender for the transaction of any business between man and God, onto the advent of the Messiah. In the days of the Law of Moses, God dealt with mankind on the basis of man’s submission and obedience to it. And it was only Israel who was privileged to have the Law. His right-standing before God depended on his obedience to this Law.

This explains the misery of being alienated from God, which Gentiles suffered before being reconciled unto Him by the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. Before that reconciliation of the Gentile-world to God, the Messiah of God said that, not one jot or tittle of the Law of Moses would ever pass away or fail; not until heaven and earth have passed away (cf. Matthew 5:17-18 and Luke 16:17).

Well, heaven and earth have not passed away yet and so the leadership status of the man established by God the Almighty in the Law of Moses, still stands today under the Grace Dispensation of God. We cannot doubt this if we truly are the loyal disciples of Jesus Christ.

But do we see this law of God, in which He established man as the perpetual leader of the woman, being adhered to today? Even among people who claim to be the followers of the Master, Jesus Christ, do they obey the Will of God in this? Personally, I do not see obedience to this Law. And why is this so, one may ask?

The reason is simple – many people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, are indeed not his disciples. True disciples of Jesus Christ are hard to come by in our world today. This is because a true disciple is one who imitates every way of his Master. And no imitator of Jesus Christ will permit or accept women leaders in the Church. [—this article is continued in Part Six].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].

Why would Miriam claim to be a spokesperson of God when she did not seem credible enough to lay claim to it? Of course, we all know that at one point in time, Miriam led the women’s group in Israel’s journey out of Egypt to Canaan, to sing a powerful song of praise to God. This was when the children of Israel crossed the Red sea safely, while the horse-men of Pharaoh drowned by the mighty hand of God (Exodus 15: 20-21).

This was the only occasion that Miriam came into contact with the Spirit of God. The euphoric feeling that she gained in this one-off contact with the Holy Spirit, might have carried her aloft and above all Israelite women for a long time. This spiritually uplifting experience, must have led her to think and believe that she was a messenger of God, who was spiritually at par with her two siblings (Aaron and Moses), and that she was chosen to run errands for Him by speaking forth His word to Israel.

After we heard Miriam sing a song of praise to God when the children of Israel crossed the Red sea, we next hear her criticise Moses for taking an Ethiopian woman to wife. How sad. This prophetess used her tongue to criticise the true man of God, instead of praising Him for mightily using him (her own brother) in the manner He was doing! Of course, her punishment for this sin, in being hit with leprosy, was deserved (Numbers12:1-16).

I am sure that her experiences of later years would have led her to reconsider her stand and, in sober-mind, rid herself of the delusion she had that God spoke through her. She, no-doubt, must have come to repent of her sin of envy and jealousy of her younger sibling (Moses), which must have caused her to speak presumptuously.

The third and last mention of Miriam in the Bible was one which announced her death and burial (cf. Numbers 20: 1). Miriam therefore, went the way of all flesh with only one good service to God to her credit! And yet she was considered a prophetess! This means that it was in her singing of praises to God, under the power of the Holy Spirit, in only one known occasion, that she was labeled: prophetess.

To sing under the power of the Holy Spirit therefore, means to prophesy. And it was not only Miriam who sung to earn the appellation, prophet, or in her case, prophetess.

The first king of Israel, Saul the son of Kish, was also a prophet by appellation because he sung praises to God when the Spirit of God first came upon him. In his case too, it is in this one known occasion that he was called a prophet.

Saul joined a company of prophets who, in function, were singers and instrumentalists under the unction of the Holy Spirit (cf. First Samuel 10: 5-13). Saul became known as a prophet because, on the day that he had the Holy Spirit of God come upon him, he joined this musical band of prophets and became as one with them in what they were doing – singing praises to God.

Note that, after Saul’s prophesying in singing, God never used him in even one instance, to carry His message to Israel his nation. And yet his name has entered the history of God’s dealings with mankind as a prophet, at one time in his life.

From the foregoing, it is obvious that singing under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, can also be termed: prophesying. From the Old Testament days unto the early days of the New Testament church, inspired singing of praises to God, either in clear understandable words or babbling tongues, remained the commonest manifestations of a person’s contact with the Spirit of God.

It was obviously so, for as many as seventy leaders of the house of Israel during the Old Testament days (cf. Numbers 11: 25-27). What could these seventy elders of Israel be doing with their vocal cords on end, prophesying without ceasing? What these elders did was the same thing Saul the son of Kish and a company of known prophets also did with their vocal cords – prophesying without ceasing.

It is not possible that on both occasions, these groups of men were delivering some message from God, without ceasing; could it? What-with all these many people using their vocal cords (and as such, all said in the Bible to be prophesying) at the same time?

What message could they be delivering and never ending or ceasing from that task? If at all they were delivering a special message from God, to who was it directed? The only thing they were doing was singing and making music in praise and worship of God.

May it therefore, be firmly established from the foregoing that, to prophesy also means, to sing under the unction of the Holy Spirit: thereby, not limiting prophesying to the delivering of messages from God.

In Acts 21: 9, we read of Philip the evangelist having in his home, four virgin-daughters who did (or could) prophesy. That is not to tell us that these virgins ever had a mission from God, to send His Word to any people of the world, either in times past or present then.

Of course, the work of sending the gospel message to the world was what their father was doing in all diligence, at the time we were told of their virginity and prophesying prowess (a feat usually exhibited together as a quartet?).

I am sure these virgins, pure and holy as they were, could never think of entering into any competition with their father in evangelizing the world. These virgins were singers who were always under the power of the Holy Spirit whenever they sang.

They, like Miriam, who is revealed to us in God’s Word as a prophetess; the seventy elders of the house of Israel in the Book of Numbers; king-elect Saul and his company of prophets; and the family and friends of Cornelius (Acts 10: 46), all ministered in songs of praises to God under the unction of the Holy Spirit immediately they had their first contact with the Holy Spirit. Women singers, singing under the unction of the Holy Spirit are considered to prophesy, and hence the reason why they are called prophetesses.

What about the mention in the Book of Judges in the Bible about a woman by the name Deborah, who is also referred to as a prophetess, someone might ask? Of course, many Bible readers know about this woman, who is also said to have been a judge of Israel. But many people do not know about her in much detail.

Prophetess Deborah was like prophetess Miriam: a songstress. The whole chapter five of the Book of Judges is devoted to her song of praise to God, of herself, and of people she considered to be of valour. She is the only prophetess I have heard of who praised herself when she sung under the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Judges 5: 7, 12, KJV).

Prophetess Deborah emerged on the national scene of Israel during a time of political and spiritual turmoil. There was at the time, no clear-cut political or spiritual leadership in Israel. At her time, Joshua, the successor of Moses had died and all the elders of Israel who saw the power of God during their wilderness journey had also passed away (Judges 2: 7-10).

At the time of Deborah, Israel was living in one of his habitual periods of disobedience. These bouts of disobedience normally caused him to suffer punishment at the hands of his enemies. But because of the promise of God to bless Abraham and his seed forever, anytime he cried out to God for help, He always sent them men-leaders to deliver them from their enemies.

During the post-Joshua era, the first of these deliverer-leaders was Othniel; a man who was evidently called, anointed and sent by God (Judges 3:9-11, KJV). The next deliverer-leader was also a man raised and sent by God who was named Ehud (Judges 3: 15-30). Next after Ehud, God raised another male-deliverer by the name Shamgar (cf. Judges 3: 31). [—this article is continued in Part Five].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].

Every spiritual work of God, in Israel, was done by only the male-line of Levi. The work of cleaning, arranging items of and for worship, offering of sacrifices on the altar, and any work relating to worship of God, were all done by a men-only Levitical priesthood.

If you are blessed to have the spirit of the Bible carry you along, as you meditatively read it, you will see that the house of Levi, and indeed the house of every man in Israel, did not have women being regarded as descending from those houses. Female children were never recorded at birth to have descended from their fathers.

Females were never counted in any population census. They were never eligible for inheriting their fathers. They did not have any portion in the land distribution of Israel.

Every part of the Law of Moses is clear in forbidding women-leadership in spiritual issues. When a woman brought forth a male-child as the first-fruit of her womb, that child was by the Law, to be given up for the service of God, in the company of the Levites.

By that birth, the male-child was ordained to be the priest of God, according to the Levitical order, forever. Therefore, when such children were weaned, they were handed over to the priests, to be taught, trained and groomed, for their God-ordained roles in the Aaronite priesthood, when they came of age for this service, at thirty.

This was how-come a first-born son of Elkanah by his wife Hannah, who was named Samuel, came to be enlisted into the priesthood of Israel, even though Elkanah was an Ephraimite and not a Levite (First Samuel 1: 1 – 2: 11).

When a female-child was similarly begotten, as the first to open the matrix of her mother, she was also by Law to be dedicated to the service of God. The father (and the mother?) did not own such a child, in the eyes of the Law of Moses, the Law of God. God owned such a child.

But unlike the first-born male-child, she could never join or be part of the Levitical priesthood, which God established for His worship. Therefore, any female-child who opened the matrix of every woman in Israel was to be redeemed. The fathers of such children were under obligation to buy-back or redeem them from God, as it were.

Such female-children were taken to the house of God, after being weaned of their mothers, to be given or handed-over to Him through the Levites. At these presentations, a price was placed on them at the discretion of the priests. This price was immediately paid by the fathers to the Levites and the female-child taken back home by the father, to live in submission and service to him forever.

I am sure, from all the foregoing, the choice of man by God to lead women is obvious. In my study of the Bible, the only service that I have come across to have been rendered by women in the company of men, in the worship of God, is singing of psalms and hymns.

It seems to me that, it was only the sons of Asaph who had in their ministration of worship before the Lord, women as singers. It was a rare concession given to the daughters of the house of Levi. It is only Ezra 2: 65 and Nehemiah 7: 67 which show evidence of women participation in singing, in the worship of God.

God has since the establishment of the state of Israel, used men only as prophets to communicate His Will to them. There is abundant evidence that there were never any female counterparts to men-prophets. Throughout Jewish history, God never called and sent a woman with His message to the nation of Israel or his king or any man for that matter.

How about the mention of the word prophetess in God’s Word, one may ask? The word ‘prophet’ is one of the problematic words in Greek-English Bible translation and therefore does not easily or readily reveal itself to our understanding. This is because the word ‘prophet’ is a transliteration of the Greek word ‘prophetes’, since it seems to defy a proper translation.

This transliteration does not help the non-Greek readers of the Bible much. Many forms and variants of the Greek word ‘prophetes’ exist. They are also transliterated variously as ‘prophet’, ‘prophetess’, ‘prophecy’, ‘prophesy’, etc.

Many of today’s users of the English Bible do not understand these words simply because they do not have their roots in English. They were borrowed whole-scale from Greek into English. This transliteration does the English-speaker very little or no good, at all. What is the good in being told for example that the meaning of the Greek word ‘prophetes’ in English is: prophet?

For me this is not helpful. And I wonder how many people are helped to understand this word by such transliteration. To understand the word ‘prophet’ is for one to either learn some Greek grammar and literature or gain its understanding from the spirit of the Bible.

For many people familiar with the Bible, a prophet to them is one who foretells future events. Even though that is true, it is not always the only function of the prophet. The prophet also at times carries the word of God to His people to deal immediately with current crises or any bad situation. Prophets who function in these two ways either hear with their spiritual ears, the Word of God from Him directly or through His angels, or they receive it through their spiritual eyes in dreams and visions.

Another kind of prophet is one who utters information, not foretelling of future events or bringing immediate solutions to current crises or bad situations. This prophet testifies to an event happening or just happened. An example of this kind of prophet was Simeon (Luke 2: 25-32), who was led into the Temple in Jerusalem to testify of the Baby Jesus as being the Messiah of God. Also, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, the prophetess of Luke 2: 36-38 fame was such a person who spoke not foretelling the future but testifying of a current event and thanking God for it.

There is yet another kind of a prophet that is hardly known by most bible students: the singing prophet. This is a man (and very rarely a woman), who sings under inspiration of the Holy Spirit when He (Holy Spirit) comes upon that person.

A person might function in this manner only once in his (or her) lifetime, and yet gain recognition as being considered a prophet, forever. It is in only this manner of functioning that women have been known to have participated in the work of God, and therefore called: prophetesses.

The most notable of such women was Miriam, the elder sister of both Moses and Aaron. She was the one, when yet in her girlish-years, who stood on the bank of the Nile, and watched the daughter of Pharaoh take the infant-Moses into her custody (Exodus 2: 4).

Later on, in her very advanced years, Miriam was called a prophetess; and yet was never known to have carried a message from God to His people. Of course, Miriam is recorded to have claimed that God spoke by and or through her. But was she right in her claim? There is no evidence to the veracity of her claim.

What need was there for God to have another prophet in a woman such as Miriam, when His super-prophet Moses was in-charge of His business? Maybe, because Miriam was older than both Moses and Aaron, she had come to assume a mother-figure (or was it rather a father-personality?) over these octogenarians, which gave her the courage to lay claim to any capacity to prophesy. [—this article is continued in Part Four].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].

In the search for the position of the Bible, on the leadership status of men, vis-à-vis their female counterparts, it is very revealing when we look critically at the Ten Commandments of God found in Exodus 20: 1-17. All of them are directed at man: for his personal obedience and also aimed at him ensuring compliance by his family members.

However, let us look at only two of these commandments in some detail. These are the fourth and the tenth. What do they say? Let us quote these commandments in their entirety, from the King James Version of the Bible.

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shat thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed I”. (Exodus 20: 8-11, KJV, emphasis mine).

It is very clear to whom this commandment is addressed. It is only to the man and for him to ensure compliance by all in his house. No mention is made of any married woman.

Let us look at the tenth commandment. It is also clearly addressed to the man – the God-ordained head of the home. Let us quote it here:

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s” (Exodus 20: 17, KJV).

Looking closely at this verse, we can see the wisdom and mind of God in crafting it. By His design, this verse can be obeyed by men only. It is only men, within the context of this verse, who possess houses, wives, manservants, maidservants, oxen or asses. The commandments of this verse do not speak to women.

This verse is silent on women. In the way the commandments stand, they seem to give the impression that, all of man’s neighbours are his fellow-men. Women do not seem to even exist in the mind God, so far as the commandments in this verse are concerned.

It seems to me that anytime God wanted a woman, He went looking for her inside of the personality (body and will) of man. The ideal woman is one who abides in the will of her father or husband, at all times. It therefore does not seem that any woman can obey or disobey this tenth of the Ten Commandments of God.

Any person who seeks to compel women to obey this verse, or to be faulted by it, and therefore amends it to read “… thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife (or husband) …” will be seeking an amendment to God’s commandments without His mandate. I have known some teachers (of the Bible?), who find nothing wrong with adding and stressing the words in parenthesis above, during their catechism or Sunday school classes, for the information of their young pupils.

I am scared about this, since God has warned of dire consequences for any people who will add to or subtract from His Word (without His mandate). This warning we find in Revelation 22: 18-19. We must therefore be very careful in this.

On a lighter note, let me draw your attention, my dear reader, to one of God’s favourite words – thou. You may try counting the number of times this word has been used in the King James Version of the Bible, to agree with me that it is one of God’s favourite words; and more so, when He speaks English at His Conservative best.

This word, from even the very few times that God has used it in the Ten Commandments, is strongly suggestive of it being a male-gendered word. It does not seem to have any feminine-gender connotation or trait.

By simply confining ourselves to the use of this word (thou) in the Ten Commandments, we see that, any time God uses this word, He is seen to be addressing a man or men. And so we can safely go beyond the Ten Commandments to understand that both Judaism and Christianity, as instituted by God for His worship, are male-led.

In the Book of Numbers, the chapter thirty, we find a very inspiring revelation about the God-ordained leadership status of man over the woman. My dear reader, please, read this interesting and very revealing chapter, from the King James Version of the Bible, before continuing with the reading of this article.

In this chapter of the Book of Numbers, God has established a statute rendering the man as the perpetual leader of the woman. In whatever relationship that exists between a man and a woman, the man is always the leader. That is how God has ordained things to be, and so they must remain in that manner, forever.

In this chapter, we receive the revelation of God that the father is the leader of the daughter. The husband is also the leader of his woman (wife). The divorced wife is still under obligation to any vow(s) she uttered with the consent of her man (husband) when she was yet married to him! And so is the widowed woman under obligation to make good any vow(s) she made with the knowledge of her man (husband) before his demise.

If you were a woman in Israel, you were to accept and obey this statute to your great gain or ignore it to your doom. And this is what God has taught His people to accept and obey – forever. Whether the man (father or husband) of the woman is alive or dead, the leadership of the man over her remains the Will of God. This reveals God-ordained leadership to be eternal, undying, and therefore spiritual.

If any woman violates this statute of God, she brings upon herself, iniquities, according to the fifteenth verse of the chapter. The man is established by God as the domestic priest of the woman, forever. May, I humbly advice women to read this chapter of Numbers carefully, so they may be blessed by it.

Talking about priests, we see God ordained a men-only priesthood for the spiritual leadership and well-being of the woman. Everywhere in the Bible, this is what God has ordained. In both the Old and New Testaments, God always called men only to be His priests. He uses them to give instruction of His Will and direction in His worship, to people who were considered His own.

The word ‘priestess’ has never been used by God to describe any woman with any role in His service. Priestesses have always been seen in heathen countries in description of their women’s roles as leaders in idol worship.

The Old Testament Aaronite priesthood involved only the sons of Levi. No daughters of the house of Levi ever entered the priesthood of the Old Testament. No woman from the houses of Aaron, Gershom, Kohath and Merari (families that comprised the house of Levi), ever entered the service of God as Levites even though females were, of course, born to men from these houses. [—this article is continued in Part Three].

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Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].

Many adherents to the Christian faith believe that, soon and very soon, this current world order and its system of things will come to an end. In this, they have believed rightly. And indeed, as the end of the world approaches, mankind must begin to act in readiness to stand before the judgment seat of God. No doubt, mankind will bNoNo doubt, mankind will be judged

No doubt, mankind will be judged at an opportune time. God has told us this in His Word–the Bible. Mankind will one day stand before God and His Christ, to give an account of his stewardship of how he took care of or mismanaged God’s Creation.

Since Creation, mankind has been living on earth and ruling (or misruling?), with or without God, for many millennia. It shall soon be time for God to judge man’s ways and stewardship. Since Creation, mankind has been living on earth and ruling (or misruling?), with or without God, for many millennia. It shall soon be time for God to judge man’s ways and stewardship.

Today, by the Grace of God, many people are awaking from mankind’s long and deep spiritual slumber, to re-examine most of the doctrines and practices of the Christian faith. A wind of change is blowing across the world, albeit very slowly, seeking to restore Christianity to its First Century character: in purity of doctrine and practice.

You may call those involved in this work, The Restoration Movement, as some are known to be called. You may even call them whatever name you choose. But the fact is that, God is inspiring men to re-teach today’s so-called Christian doctrines, so as to bring them back to the high level of purity and sanctity we find them to be in the Bible.

It is sad that, many of the teachings of Jesus Christ and of his apostles of the First Century are not being taught to our world today. Whenever they are taught, they do not have the potency, inspiration, flavour and fervency of that past.

One of the many corrections, which must be made to today’s doctrines and practices of Christianity, is the leadership role that women have come to assume in the Church. Do women have any God-ordained part or lot, in the leadership of the Church? Do women have a leading role to play in the fulfillment of the Great Commission of Jesus Christ?

Do women have the mandate of God to be pastors, bishops, prophetesses, etc, with the mission to send his message of salvation to mankind? Has God ordained women to be deaconesses and elders in the Church? Why is it that anywhere we have a group of people calling itself church, there are women involved in carrying out leadership roles for and on behalf of men?

The Word of God has answers to these questions; we must therefore, seek them out of the Bible. It is very important we do this, because, if we do find the correct answers, it will help us in the effort to restore today’s Christianity, to its First Century character. It is only when we have made a complete restoration of today’s Christianity to its First Century character that, mankind can then find the true salvation of God for his weary soul.

We all, men and women alike, must know and accept the fact that, since Creation, God has ruled His people through men only. There is yet to come to our world one woman, who was sent by God, with a message to God’s people. A search through the list of messengers God has sent to inform, warn, correct, admonish and direct mankind, will not reveal the name of even one woman on that list.

Please mark my words very well. I said there is yet to come to our world from God, one woman-messenger, to bring information and direction to God’s people. And I mean God’s people. God has not done so yet; and I know he will never do it. This truth I do know, since God gives to all who are genuinely in Christ Jesus, access to His mind (First Corinthians 2: 16).

That is not to say there are no women-leaders to the people who dwell on the earth. Of course, there have been many, and many others are yet to come. Women-leaders have been found throughout all generations of man’s existence on earth.

They have come as people in academia, industry, commerce, politics, and from many other disciplines of human endeavour. But there is yet to come to earth, one woman-leader sent from God to accomplish a spiritual mission for humanity. This God has not yet done, and will never do.

Let us go to the Book of Genesis to see how God in His wisdom and love for mankind, set-up leadership, to direct the affairs of His Creation. Right at Creation, God established the leadership role of the man over the woman. Remember that, Eve came out of the bones and flesh of Adam.

Before she came, God had given His instructions for mankind’s peaceful and joyful life on earth to Adam. When Eve came as the wife of Adam, it was then the responsibility of the man–Adam, to instruct her in what God had earlier-on told him.

If we read Genesis 2: 16-17 and 3: 2-3 critically from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, we will see the obvious God-given leadership skill and teaching prowess of the man–Adam. In his zeal, commitment and dedication to make Eve obey the instruction of God, Adam went beyond what God had told him about the forbidden fruit.

He told Eve that, not only were they not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but they were also not to even touch the tree at all. It was like the father teaching his child. And indeed, a father-child relationship was what had been established by God Himself, to exist forever between Adam and Eve.

Did God not bring forth Eve out of the body of Adam? Yes indeed he did. (cf. Genesis 2: 21-22 and First Timothy 2: 13-14, KJV). Therefore, Eve was forever expected of God to listen to and obey the one who begat her, all the days of her life on earth.

She was never to drift into the absurdities of women usurping the authority of man over them, as we find in our world today–a situation akin to that where the chicken, or even the egg, is able to find a rare kind of wisdom and audacity to teach the hen that brought it into being.

Moving from the Book of Genesis, let us look at other parts of the Bible for evidence of the God-ordained leadership role of men over women in spiritual matters. Of course, we will return to the Book of Genesis, because it is the book of new beginnings, and therefore clearly lays the foundation of the God-ordained men-only leadership, in spiritual issues.

Many of the problems of our earth, which we have been grappling with, have their roots in men allowing themselves to be led (or misled?), into certain crucial decisions. This weakness of men, in allowing themselves to be misled by women, with disastrous consequences, can be traced to the times of Genesis, and we shall in this article be highlighting some of them, to bring elucidation to the main thesis of this short treatise.

Let us first look at the Ten Commandments of God, and indeed all the commandments of the Law of Moses. Every student of the Torah (the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses), which God gave to the nation of Israel, will see that it was meant for men only.

All its statutes from God were always meant for men’s obedience, for and on behalf of their women (wives) and children. Even in those portions of the Law that touched directly on women, it was their men (husbands) who had the responsibility of ensuring their perfect obedience and or compliance. [—this article is continued in Part Two].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].

In the mind and wisdom of God, there is no ‘reverend’, archbishop, ladder-climbing pastor, deaconess, et cetera, in His work. Anywhere title-bearing people are found in groupings of salvation-seekers which call themselves “church”, then it is either such title bearers do not have God’s mandate to contribute to the spiritual wellbeing of these groupings, or that, these groupings are not of the Body of Christ.

As I mentioned earlier on, there are no title bearers in the True Body of Christ – the Church of Jesus Christ. Paul, an apostle of the Body of Christ, was never referred to as “Apostle Paul”. This was because he functioned as an apostle in the Body of Christ and not as a title-bearer.

He was always referred to as “Paul, an apostle” of Jesus Christ, defining his functional role in the Church (Second Corinthians 1: 1, Galatians 1: 1, Ephesians 1: 1, Colossians 1: 1, First Timothy 1: 1, Second Timothy 1: 1).

If his functional role in the Body of Christ as an apostle was meant to be a title, in which case Paul could be addressed “Apostle Paul”, (which no saint ever did), then he could also be addressed as “Prisoner Paul” as a title of honour to him.

This is because he was not only described as “Paul, an apostle” but also as “Paul, a prisoner” of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:1, Philemon 1).

Or would one do well to give Paul the title “Servant”, and seek to honour him by insisting that all people address him as “Servant Paul” because he was described as “Paul, a servant” of God? (cf. Titus 1: 1).

The word ‘apostle’ is not a title: it is a functional description of a man’s work in the Body of Christ. And that is also the case for such words as ‘prophet’, ‘pastor’, ‘evangelist’ and ‘teacher’. None of these words are titles. They are all descriptive of roles or functions played by people in the Church of Jesus Christ.

One of my dear role models is Philip: not the one with apostolic calling, but the one who first served in the pantry and set tables for widows of the Church at Jerusalem. In his later years, while evangelizing for the Kingdom of God, he was never addressed as “Evangelist Philip”, as one must do today, for anybody claiming to be playing Philip’s kind of role in the Body of Christ.

This loyal and dedicated disciple of Jesus Christ was simply referred to as “Philip, the evangelist” (Acts 21: 8) in definition of his functional role in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So why do we have in “church” today, Apostle Aaron, Evangelist Evans, Prophet Philemon, and all manner of weird titles for people who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ and doing the work of the Kingdom of God?

Why are today’s so-called men of God so much preoccupied with awarding themselves titles, even when these titles belong to God? Are they seeking equality with God? Are they not disciples of Jesus Christ?

If they are indeed genuine disciples, can they not obey the caution of the Master not to take to themselves titles they do not deserve? Does the warning of the Master that anyone, who exalts himself, would be brought low, not scare these so-called men of God?

When the apostles of Jesus Christ, who walked and talked with him for four good years before his death, burial and resurrection, were in charge of the teaching ministry of the Church after his ascension, they had with them, elders, deacons and bishops in all local congregations.

All congregations were autonomous in the cities the Holy Spirit of God led the apostles to establish the Church of Jesus Christ. The congregations were all however, united as one in the doctrines of Jesus Christ, as were taught by the apostles.

Every local congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ had sets of bishops, (not just one bishop, as we are told that, in the one local congregation of Philippi, there were many bishops – Book of Philippians 1: 1), elders, pastors, deacons, etc, involved in the teaching of the flock.

During the days of the apostles, no bishop had a domain or so-called dominion beyond the local congregation in which he functioned. Of course, all bishops, elders, deacons, prophets, teachers, and other Church functionaries, were men filled with the knowledge, wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit of God, and elected for these functions by Jesus Christ himself, could visit and minister the Word of God to other congregations beyond their places of regular worship and or residence.

Today’s so-called bishop who is seen to have a spatial jurisdiction and dominion over a group of “churches” has come as a latter-century personality, who obviously lives beyond the pure Christian traditions of the apostolic era of the First Century. This certainly is a corruption of and deviation from the apostolic faith, teaching, tradition and practice.

The coming of the celibate-bishop into the Church is a further deviation brought by the pagan-Christian faith of Second Century Rome, from the faith of those who physically walked and talked with the Master, Jesus Christ the Lord.

My dear men (of God?), you who want to rub shoulders with God, be careful in your pursuit of titles meant for Him. You cannot call yourselves reverend, The Reverend (SKA?), right reverend, very reverend, most reverend, his grace, my lord or his holiness and get away with it.

Remember God says He is a jealous God who will never share His Glory with any man. So be sure that you will attract to yourselves reprisals from God in due time, if you do not repent of your penchant for titles and drop them forthwith. I believe I have carried God’s warning to you in love.

In recent times, I have grown to fall in love with some words of Sir Winston Churchill: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen”. Well, in this, I have done my bit for humanity and for the Kingdom of God. I pray to God that you, my dear reader, will do your bit. Please do yours, so we can both get to live on “Humility Avenue” in Heaven, to spend Eternity with The Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

My dear “man of God”, I love you; for the love of God in my heart compels me to love you forever without any inhibitions. This is so, since he who is begotten of Love (God) cannot, but be a love-slave to everybody. This is why I speak to you in love, as I have done in this short article.

Shalom.
Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ and is the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DODCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

Those who allow themselves to be called laymen, in the service of God’s kingdom-work, are ignorant of the God-given roles of all Christians as priests in His service. To these simple-minded people, a privileged few are regarded as priests while an underprivileged majority are tagged and called laity or laymen.

My dear reader, do you know that there are no titles in the Christian faith? The Kingdom of God does not confer or award titles to its workers. No genuine workers of God’s Kingdom, who have been revealed to mankind in the Word of God, ever bore titles. I shall soon lead you more into this thought.

Where then do titles such as: associate pastor, resident pastor, senior pastor, general overseer, senior bishop, presiding bishop, archbishop, cardinal, general superintendant, deaconess, reverend, right reverend, very reverend, most reverend, the reverend, his grace, my lord, his holiness, etc, comfortably conferred on and borne by mortal-men, come from?

Since they do not come from God, where do they come from? Does anyone know their origin and originator? Of course, they have come as a means of setting up an elaborate organization, with class groupings of its members, an organization mankind has been deceived to call–Church. Class distinctions of God’s children! How sad.

The originators of these lofty man-made titles have without the mandate of God, intentionally fragmented the Body of Christ claiming to have made it easier and effective to minister or rule. The question is “Does God need the wisdom of men in the running of His Church?”

Absolutely not! And so, by and by, those who confer titles on people and those who receive these titles will be seen to be acting not for God, but against Him; and will be judged as such.

Since those in love with such titles are without the humility and simplicity of Jesus Christ, they could not be sent from God. And if God did not send them, who did? Your guess in this is as good as mine. Could it possibly be that they are in league with the one who seeks to exalt himself above God and His Christ?

Though this is actually so, many of these title-lovers do not know they work for this cunning and ruthless power – Satan. He allows these ignorant so-called men of God to hold on to these titles on his behalf, so as to take them back from these men whenever he wills.

Let us consider the title, reverend. This great and powerful title is used only once in the entire Bible and in honour and recognition of God alone. In the King James Version of the Bible, you can find the word ‘reverend’ only in Psalm 111: 9. Let us quote this verse here to aid the smooth flow of this discourse.

“He sent redemption unto his people: he has commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name.” (Psalm 111: 9, KJV).

My dear “man of God”, do you see the seriousness of your error? You are neither worthy to bring redemption to sinful-mankind nor do you have the capacity to do so. Only God can and has brought redemption through Jesus Christ to mankind.

Dear “man of God”, do you have a covenant which you are able to keep or are keeping with mankind? If you claim you do, are you able to bring limitless blessings to mankind? If yes, then tell the whole world about it so mankind can rush to you for this blessing, and have the world rid of all its horrible suffering and poverty.

Only then would you qualify and deserve to be the co-equal to God and therefore worthy to be called by the title, reverend. Otherwise, be careful in not being accused of blasphemy, judged guilty and sentenced by the Judge of all Flesh.

For delivering to mankind, redemption from the power and dominion of sin, Satan’s power, and the consequences of sin, in and by the work of Jesus Christ, God the Almighty commands all men to revere and reverence His Name.

So-called men of God do not know or understand this? And so they pitch themselves against the Will of God by seeking to usurp His titles? I fear for these so-called men of God in antagonizing themselves against the Might of God, in view of the condemnation of God which awaits them.

Jesus Christ, the Messiah of God, has taught his genuine disciples a great lesson in humility in Matthew 19: 16-17, Mark 10: 17-18 and Luke 18: 18-19. When in these verses a questioner addressed him as “Good Master,” he quickly corrected him of his error. Jesus Christ told his questioner not to call him “Good”, since only God is Good.

Maybe, this questioner should have addressed the Messiah as “reverend Master” instead, so we could get to know if he would have accepted or rejected the appellation of “reverend” as belonging to God his Father alone. Can so-called men of God (disciples of the Master?) not emulate the humility of Jesus Christ in this? How sad.

Let me give you a secret of the Devil. He is preparing to begat and outdoor his counterfeit of God’s Holy and Anointed Messiah, Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World. When he has begotten him, he will be called the anti-Christ. Many people seem to know this open secret. However many are ignorant of the lineage of this soon-to-be-revealed anti-Christ.

Surely, the anti-Christ will descend from the lineage of people who love to take the titles of God. At the time the anti-Christ becomes manifest for the end-time show-down battle between Good and evil, he will be the same as the mortal man who will be holding the highest counterfeited title of God. And then he will crown himself God and demand worship from mankind.

For now, the devil is progressing according to his set-plan: from ‘reverend’ to ‘right reverend’, then to ‘very reverend’, then to ‘most reverend’, then to ‘his holiness’, then to ‘his grace’ and then to what next, I know not. I do not have the mind of the devil. I have God’s, by virtue of my New Birth into Jesus Christ and my faith in First Corinthians 2: 16.

But I do know, from God’s Word, that when the anti-Christ manifests, he will land in a counterfeit church which belongs to one of the numerous and notorious denominational groupings of the world. That counterfeit church will look very much like the genuine Church of God.

Its members will be tares, the devil’s counterfeit wheat. Remember, the look-alikes of wheat are tares. Also remember that wheat and tares are only genuinely distinguishable from one another, at Harvest Time, by which time their destinies would have been sealed, and the destruction of tares in hell-fire, due.

The hierarchical structure of this counterfeit church of the devil is what will give it away as false and of the anti-Christ. By the time peoples’ eyes become opened to the true identity of this anti-Christ in their midst, he would have finished marking almost all of them as his own, ready to carry them into Hell for a life of eternal suffering with him.

Let me give you some revelation about the man-made title, “archbishop”. This title has been in vogue for a long time – over centuries, in fact. It was created and delivered to simple-minded mankind, by the pagan-Christianity of Rome of the immediate post-apostolic era, when her politicians were flirting ingloriously with the Church.

The power brokers of the erstwhile Roman Empire sought to extend their domain and dominion to include the Church of Jesus Christ. When they managed to do these, they then brought into the Church, titles, to show their pomp, power and distinct statuses.

Even though the word “archbishop” seems to have been derived from two bible-words–“archangel” and “bishop”–it does not make it a holy word. The word “archbishop” is alien to the whole bible-revelation and therefore of no relevance to either the Body of Christ or the Work of the Kingdom of God. Not because there is an archangel must we have an archbishop when God’s Word does not give us any revelation on this strange word.

How could we so easily swallow the deception of the devil to tag so-called men of God with this title? I am very sad that so-called men of God are not content with the God-given functional descriptions such as pastor, evangelist, prophet and teacher, established by Him to bring perfection to the knowledge of His Will to His saints. [—the concluding part of this article is in Part Four: soon to be published].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ and is the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

It is very sad to observe that many people who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ hardly live up to his expectation in their imitation of his character. In particular, Jesus Christ has told his disciples not to live like the Pharisees of his day in craving for titles and recognition by men. They were not to work in search of vainglory from and of men. They were to imitate his simplicity, selflessness, shyness for publicity, and humility.

In this regard, here is a caution of Jesus Christ to his loyal disciples: “But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.” (Matthew 23: 8-10, King James Version, KJV).

These clear and simple words of Jesus Christ spoken directly to his disciples still stand good for the obedience of all his loyal and dedicated disciples today. But I wonder how many people who claim to be Christians (disciples of Jesus Christ?) do know of these verses of scripture and obey them.

It is shocking to know that some denominations, which profess to be loyal to the Christian faith, have their leaders addressed “father” or “papa” in obvious disregard to this command of the Master. I am at a loss to know whose disciples the members of such denominations truly are.

Jesus Christ has said that, all the doctrines, commandments and instructions which he has taught mankind are not his own, but God’s. Any deviations from, or violations, of Jesus’ teachings therefore, are a direct affront to God in Heaven, who sent him. All true disciples of Jesus Christ must know and be very careful in this.

The reason why Jesus Christ commands his disciples not to seek to award themselves titles, and or desire the praises of men, is to ensure they never exalt themselves. He warns that any one of his disciples who exalts himself shall be brought down; but he who would humble himself would be exalted (cf. Matthew 23: 11-12).

For me, and I am sure for many loyal and dedicated disciples of Jesus Christ, the scary nature of his warning is enough to make one comply. But alas, many more people who seem to be very educated in the secular sense, and also claim to be dedicated to the cause of the Master, do not seem to be bothered by this warning and, therefore, disregard it with glee. They seek the praise of men and are excited when men heap upon their heads titles, appellations and accolades.

Let me say, the thing the Devil enjoys most is praise, and worship. In envy therefore, when yet in Heaven under the name Lucifer, he could not stand the sight of thousands of angels worshiping God. He coveted the praise and worship God’s angels gave to Him.

As a result, he staged a mutiny in Heaven, with a large following of angels, in attempt to take praise and worship from God to himself. Mortal man must therefore be wary of the praise, titles, appellations and accolades heaped on him by his fellow-men, since love for them could draw him into the same lust Lucifer had.

Immediately after the devil lost the mutiny he staged in Heaven (when he tried to take-over the ruler-ship of God from Him), and was cast upon the earth, he started his second and now seemingly unending-campaign, toward his diabolical plan to usurp the authority of God over His Creation.

He has been strategizing subtly and stealthily, in diverse ways, to lead man away from obeying God’s commandments and, therefore, into his dominion. While doing this, he has his eyes set on the titles which belong to God and His Christ. The ultimate aim of the Devil is to usurp the status and power of God, whereby all Creation will then praise and worship him as God.

One way by which the devil is subtly and stealthily working his way toward achieving his ambitions, is through attack on the genuine structure of the Church of Jesus Christ. By confusing many people about the true structure of the Church (the Body of Christ), he seems to be gradually achieving his ambitions.

Not many people today know the true structure of the Church of Jesus Christ. You cannot fully blame today’s generation for this. The fact is, with time, as the Christian faith of the immediate post-ascension era travelled out of the lands of Palestine and Asia Minor, heading toward the West, it gradually began to lose its structure, character, power, purity in doctrine and practice.

Today’s Christian faith is a sorry-state of what it was when it first came into being in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. The Christian faith today is devoid of much of its glory, power, holiness, pure doctrines, unique influence as the salt and light of the world, and reverential practices which characterized it at its inception.

You may have to read two great books by Richard Rives, entitled, “Too Long in the Sun” and “Time is the Ally of Deceit”, to appreciate this fact.

From the revelation of the Bible, the Body of Christ is synonymous with the Human Body: the Church is a living organism with parts which function like the body-parts of man. It is obvious that all parts of the human body are of equal importance and no part lords (and lauds) itself over the others.

Read the Book of First Corinthians, chapter twelve, from verse one to thirty-one (First Corinthians 12: 1-31) to understand what the Word of God reveals and teaches about how the Body of Christ (the Church) does and must function.

Even though the human brain, together with the central nervous system, coordinates the actions of all the parts of the body, it cannot claim importance or headship over the other parts. In the human body, no part can do without the other and neither can the whole body function properly without any one part. All parts are needed, and perform their individual and unique functions for the common good of the entire body.

The Church – the Body of Christ – must be seen in similar light as the human body. The Church has a very simple structure. Jesus Christ is the Head. All other members are equal parts to this Body and are directly connected to the Head.

All these parts therefore take instructions and directives from the Head directly. They are able to function only in, by and of the Head. Also, all parts of the Body report directly to the Head.

Sadly, many people think of the Church as an organization and not as an organism. They see it as a human institution housed in some Victorian Age masonry building, with people of various statuses occupying special positions. In this organization, wrongly called the Church, every member is made to report to some other(s), higher-up in some hierarchical order.

The notion that the Church is an organization with a powerful hierarchical structure is a teaching of the devil. By this teaching, the devil has succeeded in getting many simple-minded people of the world to live in error of the true structure of the Church.

Over a period close to two millennia, after the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, many people have become comfortable believing that the Church is an organization with a hierarchical order, and never even think of it as an organism.

This false belief about the structure of the Church has become a stronghold in the minds of mankind. It is this stronghold which the devil is capitalizing and gradually building on, in his bid to take-over the world from God’s influence.

It is sad that many people do not know the true structure of the Church of Jesus Christ, as revealed to mankind in the Word of God. For many people, the Church is made up of clergy and laity; whatever the words clergy and laity mean in or to the Church, since they are not part of God’s vocabulary found in the Bible to teach the Church.

Many people professing to be Christians do not even know that these words (clergy, laity or laymen) are strange and alien to the true Christian faith. Many people are satisfied, instead of being angered, when others call them laity or laymen in description of their roles in the Church. [—this article is continued in Part Three: soon to be published].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ and is the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

Many people might be irritated, or even angered, by this headline to my article. Many more may deem it silly to even pose the question – Are “reverend” ministers also disciples of Jesus Christ? It might seem silly to pose this question because to many people, “reverend” ministers are lead-disciples of Jesus Christ.

Let me assure my readers that it is for the love of all the men who are addressed by the title “reverend”, and their many followers, that I ask this question and go on to answer it in the light of the bible-revelation. So, if you are irritated or angered by my title, just stay calm and you will be blessed in reading this article.

Without a shadow of doubt, the greatest man that ever lived on Planet Earth is Jesus Christ. Even though followers of some renowned personalities who once lived on our earth claim that their icons never die, it is only of Jesus Christ that such an assertion is true: since he alone is alive and lives forever.

The main proof to the fact that Jesus Christ is the greatest of all men who ever walked our earth and is alive forevermore, is, he is able to manifest himself today through his genuine disciples. Oh yes, he clearly manifests himself in all his loyal and dedicated disciples, who do the genuine work given to them by him to do, on his behalf, and in his name.

Just before his ascension into Heaven, Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to do two jobs for him, and on his behalf. These jobs, all loyal disciples of the Master must execute throughout all times and seasons of the Grace Dispensation. The proper execution of these jobs by any people is proof of their genuineness, as his disciples.

Any man who does these jobs in loyalty, dedication and dependence upon the words of direction and instruction of Jesus Christ, will have manifested in him, Jesus’ full persona for all to see. In other words, people will see manifested in these loyal disciples, the personality, wisdom, power, success, and glory of Jesus Christ.

The two jobs which Jesus Christ has given to his loyal disciples to do are in a healing and teaching ministry – taking sickness and disease out of the bodies of men, and teaching sinful-mankind the way to be reconciled with God.

When on earth, toward empowering his chosen twelve disciples to do these jobs, Jesus Christ took them through four years of discipleship-training.

He taught and demonstrated to them, how they were to heal the sick of all manner of diseases; give life and strength to impotent-halts, paralytics and cripples; open blind eyes and unplug deaf ears; and also bring the dead back to life.

He taught them how to do these by uttering his Words through faith in his name, without the use of any man-made remedies, and, with their bare, but highly-anointed, hands.

For the task of leading salvation-seekers to be reconciled with God and thereby become eligible to enter the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven, he taught them in very simple and plain words, in the Great Commission statement laid out in Matthew 28: 18-20, Mark 16: 15-16 and Luke 24: 46-48, how they were to do this.

Beside the four-year discipleship-training Jesus Christ gave to his disciples, they also needed to be empowered of the Holy Spirit of God, if they were to be able to execute their God-ordained tasks of soul-winning and of healing mankind of sickness and disease.

These are the same tasks Jesus Christ executed for the Kingdom of God while on earth. He was able to execute them because he was always conscious of the fact that God (his Father) resided in him and so drew on the power of His indwelling presence for the execution of any jobs he was sent to do for Him.

As such, if any disciples of Jesus Christ are to be successful in executing their assignments, for and on his behalf, they must have a consciousness that God indwelt them. They must in this consciousness, depend on and be able to tap His power, in execution of their assignments for the Kingdom of God.

Jesus Christ made it plain to his disciples that he was unable to do anything without depending on God. Similarly, no disciple today can do any assignments for the Master, without depending on his word of instruction, wisdom in his actions, and the presence of God residing in them.

The numerous conversions of sinners, to faith in the name of Jesus Christ and into God’s salvation, during the early days of the Church-age, were the result of the disciples of Jesus Christ, doing exactly what they were told to do by the Master in the Great Commission.

We see genuine and loyal disciples of Jesus Christ achieve fantastic feats in the Great Commission, during the early days of the post-Ascension era, because they were cut out for the task, through a four-year period in discipleship-training by the Master himself, and through the power of the Holy Spirit of God who indwelt their spirits.

Today, from his position on the right hand side of the Throne of God in Heaven, Jesus Christ is impacting and changing lives more than he ever did in the four years he was physically present on Planet Earth with the mandate of God to do so.

This is because he ensures from his position in Heaven, beside the Throne of The Father, that whatever promises he has made to his genuine, loyal and dedicated disciples, become fulfilled in their lives when they accept to act in simple faith in his word.

True disciples of Jesus Christ are those who make every effort to obey, imitate and act like him in every way. Just as Jesus Christ said he imitated whatever he saw the Father doing, for success in his earthly ministry, so must his genuine disciples also imitate his ways for success in all their assignments.

The successes of any disciples in doing any work he elects them to do, depend on three things. The first is that one must have knowledge and wisdom of Jesus’ word and ways. The second is for one to be sensitive of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit of God in one and how to live in dependence on His power within.

The third is for one to have the character trait of the Master. This character trait of the Master is what we see manifest in the rare kind of love, compassion, selflessness, denial of praise of mankind, a life devoid of pride and arrogance, availability, et cetera, he showed the world. The ability of any person to possess and live by all three abilities marks one as a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ.

Any disciples, who do not have these virtues of Jesus’ character, cannot be successful in any assignments given them by the Master. You cannot be a successful disciple of Jesus Christ if, for example, you delight in the praise of men, or are without the compassion of the Master for people, or are not as selfless as he was, or are not gentle, or make it very hard and nearly to being impossible for strangers and the under privileged to get to you.

Also, if for example, one is boisterous, even while preaching on a so-called altar, (running, ranting, raving, shouting, jumping and gyrating as if on a theater stage), one cannot be a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ. I know in many of today’s denominational groupings, a display of such a wild trait in one’s character is accepted as high-level spirituality or charisma.

Sadly, these wild behaviours by so-called anointed men of God, contradict the portrait painted in the Bible of the Master, as being a gentle and calm character, who never shouted in the street. These behaviours make it impossible for any men to be suitable and relevant for any assignments in the Church of Jesus Christ. [—this article is continued in Part Two: soon to be published].

Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ and is the author of the book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

To give a definite answer to the question about what one should do to enter the salvation of God, I say this: repent sincerely of your sins when told about the Gospel of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then, get baptized in His name, by being immersed in natural, living-water, by a genuine servant of God.

That is the way of God and of His son Jesus Christ for one to become Born Again. It was also the way of the apostles. It must therefore be our way today, if we are to be Born Again, or saved, or enter God’s Kingdom.

Who in the Bible accounts said a prayer to be saved? From all the Bible narratives about the salvation of people, which one of them did not hinge on repentance and baptism?

You will not get one single evidence in all your search of the Bible, where prayer, and for that matter a so-called Sinners’ Prayer or Prayer for Salvation, brought any salvation-seeker the Born Again experience. Do not therefore trust in prayer to get Born Again.

In the Great Commission of Luke 24:46-48, Jesus authoritatively teaches that only repentance and remission of sin can bring any salvation-seeker into the Born Again experience.

I like to tell you in all seriousness that, remission of sin is different from forgiveness of sin. Sadly, the understanding of many preachers of the Bible is that remission of sin is the same as forgiveness of sin.

This stance is what takes many preachers of the Bible into the error of asking in prayer, for the forgiveness of their sins, in their bid to qualify to enter the Kingdom of God.

Forgiveness of sin is what you can get from God by repenting of your sin, and confessing it, silently or audibly to Him. Forgiveness of sin is also what a fellow human being can give to you, when you repent of your sin of causing him (or her) some hurt, and ask for it.

Furthermore, forgiveness of sin is what Jesus could give to people who he saw to be sick in consequence of their sins, as He crisscrossed the land of the Jews before going to Calvary.

Forgiveness of sin is what Jesus could ask of the Father to give to those who insulted Him, slapped Him, derided Him, or nailed Him to the cross of crucifixion, even before he died in their hands to bring salvation to mankind.

On the other hand, remission of sin is what Jesus could only make available in His death. He announced at the Last Supper, to His disciples that, He was going to the cross to make available remission of sins for everybody.

Jesus Christ in His sacrifice made remission of sin to be available and beneficial to all righteous mankind, from Creation to End-time. His sacrifice was to bring remission of sin to those who were even dead before His sacrifice; those living at the time of the sacrifice; and all who would come into the world after His sacrifice.

Remission of sin is what God demands of any members of the human race whose desire it is to obtain reconciliation with Him. Jesus Christ came as the Lamb of God, to pay for the sins of mankind, to enable God grant anyone who believes in, and accepts this sacrifice, the chance to obtain remission of sin.

The payment of the ransom by Jesus, to enable God grant mankind deliverance from the power and dominion of sin, are what constitute remission of sin.

John the Baptist went crying in the wilderness of Jordan, teaching Israel about a fast-coming salvation of God that was to be made available to mankind only in remission of sin (Luke 1:77, King James Version, KJV).

That was the good news John the Baptist was sent to proclaim to all Israelites, at a time they were already enjoying the blessings of forgiveness as one of two ways that God dealt with sin in their lives. The other was by atonement of sin.

Remission of sin is obtained from God, not by asking for it verbally, but in the obedience of His instructions on repentance and baptism into the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38, KJV).

If you want to enter the blessing of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, you do not ask for it in prayer, you access it by taping the right keys of God’s information-system. These keys, which one must strike to enter the salvation of God are, ‘repentance’ and ‘baptism’.

Repentance and baptism will usher every repentant sinner into the state of remission of sin. When one enters into this state, one gets the gift of the Holy Spirit of God to indwell one’s heart. This is our assurance of being in God’s salvation from the accounts of Acts 2:37-39, KJV. This assurance is what has been enjoyed by men since the Day of Pentecost.

Remission of sin is payment by Christ of our debt of sin. Remission of sin takes the sin-nature out of our spirit and body. Remission of sin comes to sinners only once in their life-time. It therefore contrasts greatly from forgiveness, which can come as many as ‘seventy times seven’ times, even in one day, quoting the words of the Master. In further contrast, man can render forgiveness of sin to fellow men, whilst remission of sin can only be given by God to sinful-man.

A book written by me that teaches on these issues is on sale in Ghana. It is entitled “BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation”.

In this book, the true doctrine of God’s salvation is taught. The false doctrine of Sinners’ Prayer recitals and the prayers of preachers for sinners to get Born Again are also taught. Please get a copy of it. It will bless you richly. It will put you on the right track into the Kingdom of God.

In my above mentioned book, advice is given to salvation-seekers to read the New Testament as God’s Final Theocratic Constitution. This Constitution contains articles on how humans on our earth can gain membership to the Kingdom of God. Also, one can find in it, clauses and sub-clauses on son-ship and adoption of mankind as children into the kingdom of God.

When one is conversant with this constitution, one will easily see the practice of Sinners’ Prayer recitals in attempt by salvation-seekers to enter the kingdom of God as unconstitutional and therefore powerless in enabling salvation-seekers become Born Again; and therefore denounce the practice.

Study the Bible in the spirit of serious-minded salvation-seekers who Apostle Paul met in Berea, of Acts 17: 10-11 fame, and you will easily see the Sinners’ Prayer recitals as absolutely incapable of making mankind Born Again.

God’s Theocratic Constitution will spell out to all subscribers to it, their privileges, responsibilities, code of conduct, status, and future rewards in Heaven for their service to this constitution when they were on earth. Please study this Constitution to be approved by God. You will be tested by it. You will be blessed by it. You will also be judged by it.

You can never be blessed by any passionate, zealous, or sincere recitals of a so-called “Sinners’ Prayer” or “Prayer for Salvation”, in your quest to become Born Again into the kingdom of God. May you therefore please seek to obtain the Born Again experience through your obedience of God’s Word to you to repent of your sins and to be baptised into Christ.

Shalom, peace from God the Almighty to you.
Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and is the author of book entitled: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners’ Prayer for salvation. His e-mail address is: [email protected].