Growing in Christian maturity is an important goal for the Christian life. The passage in 1 Timothy 3 is usually emphasised as teaching the qualifications for pastors. However, understanding the context of the letter helps us to understand why Paul gave those qualifications to Timothy, which was that much of the current leadership of the Ephesian church had gone astray and Paul had sent Timothy...
When a child is growing up in this part of the world, one of the first things that the parents teach him or her is to say “Thank you” for every gift or service offered to them. If a family member gives them a shirt as a gift, the parents go on to ask the child, “What are you supposed to say?”. If the child does not know, they will teach him or her by telling them, “Say, thank you”-then, the child...
It doesn’t take more than a couple of scrolls on social media to get a glimpse of THE LIFE—the cool influencers who are always on their way to some outing, travel vlogs and flashy outfits, relationship talk that highlights the freedom to hook up randomly and date casually, even with multiple partners. Then you begin to wonder why your life seems so boring compared to others. You begin to feel the...
Hymns have always been commonplace in Nigerian Christian circles, and they still are. Even with the continuous shift of Christian culture from holiness toward worldliness, there are still some things professing Christians have in common, hymns are one of them. This is largely because a lot of us grew up singing these hymns in Sunday School and church service, so they have been a part of us ever...
The Great “battle” between Christians of opposing views with regard to the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit has raged on since Lord knows when exactly. The gifts in question include miracles, healings, prophecy (bringing new revelations, not proclaiming already revealed ones), speaking in tongues unlearned foreign languages, the interpretation of tongues unlearned foreign languages, and the...
In many Christian churches in Nigeria today, the sad reality is that the gospel–the good news that is central to the Christian faith–is not being preached. From my observation, the biggest reason is the assumption that everyone who comes to church already knows what the gospel is. While it is true that church goers have a general idea of what the gospel is about i.e. believing in Jesus Christ as...
In less than a month, Nigerians will be voting to elect five sets of new representatives that would serve as our leaders for the next four years. As we think about our voting options, it is important to remind the injunction of Paul that we as Christians must try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord (Eph 5:10) in every area of our lives including in how we approach the elections...
Growing up, it appeared to me like there were so many different, can’t-be-merged-together stories about the birth of Jesus. But after I was able to make sense of all the stories reported in Mathew and Luke, it has been my desire to share with anyone as confused as I was growing up. Here is my attempt to help you make sense of all the many stories surrounding the birth of Jesus as revealed in...
It is easy to get into the Christmas spirit, put up our trees and lights, sing our carols, and not meditate or even remember that our celebration is because of the humiliation of the eternal Son of God, co-equal with the Father in essence and substance. This article isn’t meant to dampen your Christmas spirit, no. It is to direct your hearts and minds to spare a moment in your celebration to...
Irreducible what? In Christian apologetics, one of the arguments used as a proof point for the existence of God is what is called irreducible complexity. What this means is that natural selection (or evolution) cannot explain the development and cooperation of certain complex organs or systems of animals and humans, therefore there is no way those systems evolved from a simpler form, they had to...
