African Plume

By Akin Ojumu Why pray if God is sovereign and has already predetermined what is going to happen?  That’s a question my kids posed to me recently. It’s a simple question wrapped in layers of paradox. How do I best convey to a young adult that events in their lives have all been predetermined by God and still impress upon them the need for prayer and supplication? I’m struggling to string together the right words to explain to a Gen Z that there’s nothing in their lives that God has not already foreordained and at the same time make them realize that they still have to bring their requests to God in prayers? As I ponder on the difficult question about God’s sovereign providence and the necessity for prayers, I came across the commentary below. The writer provides a simple, yet unique, insight into what may otherwise seem like a paradox. Succinctly, he explains that just as God has ordained every outcome, He has also ordained the means to achieving those outcomes. God may have predet...

By Akin Ojumu Everything that humans touch, we defile. It’s the reason the whole of creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth since the Great Fall. There’s nothing that escapes the corruptive influence of the Adamic nature. Not even the spiritual gifts. Today, the Church is bedeviled with the very same confusion and ignorance about the spiritual gifts that Paul tried to correct in his letter to the Corinthian Church. What’s supposed to be pure and holy has been defiled by abuse and misuse. A spiritual gift is a graciously given, supernaturally designed ability granted to every believer by which the Holy Spirit ministers to the body of Christ. The Greek word (charisma) emphasizes that this is a gift…freely given. A spiritual gift cannot be earned, pursued, or worked up. It can only be “received” through the grace of God. God gives the gifts according to His will. 1 Corinthians 12:4, 7, 11, 18 “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit...To each is given ...

“What Saint Gbile of Gboko Thinks of the Anointing” By Akin Ojumu Nearly stoned to death in Galatia (Acts 14:19), imprisoned in Philippi (Acts 16:23, 24), kicked out of town in Thessalonica (Acts 17:10), smuggled out of Berea (Acts 17:14), laughed to scorn in Athens (Acts 17:32), and regarded as a fool in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:18, 23), Apostle Paul was not the type to succumb to self-pity or capitulate in the face of adversity. Every time he is beaten him up and chased out of town for preaching the Gospel, he was ready to proceed to the next town to do the exact same thing. In spite of all the agony and anguish he had experienced up to this point, Paul was still committed to taking the Gospel to Rome, the heart of the Roman Empire and the seat of political power and pagan religion of the First Century. Neither imprisonment, ridicule, criticism, persecution, nor death could dampen his zeal for God or curb his enthusiasm for preaching the Word. Consequences be damned, Paul was determi...

By Akin Ojumu  “Buy Truth, Sell It Not,” is currently the name I use my WhatsApp alongside DP “Truth Matters.” And it has been so for a while now, and I don’t intent to change it any time soon. Derived from the Book of Proverbs, “Buy Truth, Sell It Not,” is a Biblical precept I deliberately chose to highlight the importance of contending for the Truth of the Gospel in a world subsumed in an avalanche of false teachings and doctrines of demons.  Proverbs 23:23 “Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.” Proverbs 23:23 (KJV) “Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.” Proverbs 23:23 (BSB) “Invest in truth and never sell it – in wisdom and instruction and understanding.” The reason I adopted Proverbs 23:23 is to communicate to everyone in my circle of influence what I consider to be the highest purpose and ultimate goal in life. It is me making it unequivocally clear my summum bonum. And that singular goal is...

“Blinded by the Love Bombing & Generosity of False Teachers” By Akin Ojumu Apostle Paul was a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. This Father of faith was a deeply emotional and passionate person who felt constant anguish and great sorrow for his followers. Far from being a detached missionary and aloof theologian, his Epistles reveal intense love, frustration, tears, and anxiety for the various congregations he founded. In his Epistles, Paul often utilized intense emotional rhetoric to persuade readers. This is especially true when it came to false doctrines and the ease with which some of the congregations he spent years teaching sound doctrines and nurturing in the faith fell for false teachers and embraced doctrines of demons as true Gospel. For instance, Paul was so exasperated with the Galatians, he blurted out, “O foolish Galatians!” for the way they rolled the red carpet for the Judaizers, i.e., early Jewish-Christian believers who demanded that Gentile converts adhere to...

By Akin Ojumu Would you believe it if I told you that the man who coined some of the most important terminologies in Christendom was an African? That’s right. A dark skinned African played a prominent role in shaping the vocabulary of the Church.  Tertullian (born c. 155/160, Carthage [now in Tunisia] – died after 220, Carthage) was a prolific early Christian theologian, apologist, polemicist, and moralist who, as the first major Christian writer to write in Latin rather than Greek, shaped the vocabulary and thought of Western Christianity.  Background & Conversion Born to pagan parents (his father was a Roman centurion), Tertullian was highly educated in law and rhetoric, likely practicing in Rome before converting to Christianity around 185–190 AD. The “Father of Latin Theology” Known as the “Father of Latin theology,” Tertullian established the theological language of Western Christianity, setting the tone for later Latin Church fathers. Defense of Orthodoxy Much of Ter...