A SOFT ANSWER

A senior pastor arrived his church, one ordinary-looking morning, only to be confronted by the angry faces and aggressive voices of his junior pastors. Mutiny! They had had enough! How could he take some of the steps he recently took in the church without carrying them along? This was beginning to look like a one-man business and they wouldn’t take it!

The senior pastor fell flat on his face. “I’m very sorry, my brothers. Please forgive me. It was not….”

But the aggrieved pastors could not bear the sight of this much older man on the ground. Without allowing him to continue his pleas, they all fell to the ground, imploring him to get up, that they had forgiven him. Whatever their grievances, they wept, did not justify their father lying prostate before them on the ground….

It was eventually a tearful reunion.

This is a true story.

That ministry is today flourishing.

I know of another pastor too. His ministry was arguably the fastest growing at a time in the country. I was in that ministry.

One day the story came out that he had impregnated his personal secretary. It was one huge scandal : a holiness preaching, fire breathing deliverance minister could do minini wanana with somebody outside his marriage? Thunder fire devil!

The man denied. Robustly. Not only that. He did a public show : at an emergency crusade, he scoffed at the story, called the personal secretary to the podium and to further denigrate the rumor said :”Imagine people saying I slept with this thing “.

Not long after, he was attacked, and shot by armed robbers . His subsequent hospitalization was the beginning of his demystification. His ministry that was hitherto rapidly spreading immediately went into decline. If I name that ministry, many persons would remember it as one rave in the nineties.

I told these two true stories to ground a Biblical moral. Proverbs 15:1 says “A soft answer turneth away wrath “

A soft answer.

This is one thing lacking in the relations of most of our leading clergy today.

I have witnessed a pastor, angered by his congregation, point his hand to heaven and declare that he had locked heaven against their prayers.
Not long after, this same pastor pulled out his Port Harcourt branch from the parent ministry and renamed it. Not long after, when the expected oil money did not come, he returned begging for forgiveness.
Last time I saw him in Ikeja -Lagos, he was looking so weatherbeaten that it was difficult for me to connect him to that powerful god that could lock up heaven.

Now, Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo.

Let us assume that Brother Biodun is a victim of a grand conspiracy to rubbish his call and ministry. Let us assume all these testimonies by victims were procured and all these ladies are in the script to persecute the body of Christ starting with Brother Biodun .

After all, when Saul, later to become Paul, was arrested on his way to Damascus to unleash horror on believers, Jesus said to him: “It is I you are persecuting …”(Acts 9:5)

If this were then a case of persecution, Brother Biodun is not facing the unusual for the Christian faith, from the beginning, is a call to persecution. And the Founder Himself ,Our Lord Jesus Christ, was no stranger to persecution and conspiracies. Indeed an eyewitness, one of His apostles recorded :”When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate, when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly “(1 Peter 2:23).

And we are enjoined to look unto Him as “the Author and Finisher of our faith “

One would thus have expected Brother Biodun to treat the persecution as Christ would have.

With prayerful silence. Whilst awaiting vindication from his Master.

That is if he stood wrongly accused.

But I believe Brother Biodun is largely guilty of what he stands accused. His body language screams his culpability. The threats of “robust response ” that never came and briefing of church lawyers. The release of smears against the Dakolos : lies about their having been fornicating church singers, Busola flying to Chicago with Biodun, their being gifted millions at their wedding, etc — all these bespoke a desperation to bully the truth into silence.

Brother Biodun, I believe, is truly a serial molester. And hierarchy members of his church, starting from his wife, are either accessories or enablers of his misdeeds.

And if he is guilty–as I believe — would a soft answer not have turned away all this wrath?

And who does it benefit that no matter how things ultimately pan out, anytime anybody mentions COZA, now or in the future , the next thing that comes to mind is RAPIST PASTOR?

A soft answer….

A king, in whose hands rested the power of life and death was once rebuked by a lowly prophet. “You are an adulterer!”, the prophet thundered. The king instantly melted in repentance. And memorialised his genuine contrition with a song :Psalm 51.

Is it surprising that God said of this king :”He’s a man after my heart “

A soft answer.

Many pastors have come online and off to psychologically blackmail people criticising Brother Biodun.

Such persons fail to realize that Brother Biodun is actually a scapegoat for the mounting disenchantment of the people with their pastors. People miffed at lucre loving monarchical pastors who have elevated themselves as “lords over God’s heritage “.Brother Biodun presented an opportunity for a transfer and concentration of all the grievances in one person.

Noticeably, some of the placards borne in the protests went beyond the issue of rape. One read : “Your pastor is not God “

If only these pastors could read this handwriting on the wall.

If only they can listen to the “still small voice “.

For the handwriting and the voice give one and the same testimony:

Many pastors today have become BURDENS to the Body of Christ.

Did you hear what I said : pastor reading this post?

You may have become a BURDEN TO THE BODY OF CHRIST!!!

Unfriend me after this line but know this :EXCEPT YOU REPENT, this message will rise and testify against you on Judgement Day.

STOP BEING A BURDEN TO THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Ah don talk my own.

A lutta continua! Victoria a certa!!