AFRICAN PLUME

Numbers 6:22-26 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons: This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: May the LORD bless you and keep you; May the LORD cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; May the LORD lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace.’” Over the course of my faith journey, I’ve learned that there’s no prayer more effectual than praying back to God the Word of God. You can never pray amiss when you pray God’ s Word back to Him. So, as the curtain of time falls on 2024, this is my prayer for all of you who were part of my journey through the year. May the LORD bless you and keep you. May the LORD cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the LORD lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace. Amen! Happy New Year!!!

By Akin Ojumu Without variation, alteration, modification, diversification, or equivocation, what the Gospel message is really about is pretty constant in Scriptures. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible clearly and unambiguously spells out what constitutes the Good News. Matthew 1:20-21 “But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”” There is only one Gospel message. And it is a message about Jesus saving His people from their sins. It is a story about how God set aside His divine privileges and glory in Heaven, came down to earth, put on flesh, and lived amongst us as a mortal man. This Good News is about the God-Man who endured suffering and died a shameful death on the Cross – a punishment you and I deserve....

By Akin Ojumu Psalm 133 is exceptionally brief. It’s considered one of the shortest chapters in the Bible. Only Psalm 117, Psalm 134, and Psalm 131 are shorter. Psalm 133 “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. ” The message of Psalm 133 is pivotal to the followers of Christ. It is a celebration of brotherly love and unity. This “Song of ascent,” is a short composition sung as families made their way up the steep incline to Jerusalem for one of the numerous mandatory feasts and festivals. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus echoed this cry for brotherly love and unity repeatedly throughout His ministry on earth. Loving one another and being united are evidences to the world that His disciples are t...

By Akin Ojumu Here we go again. Another silly season of spurious predictions is upon us. Once again, the Church suckers are lining up, they are being made ready for the annual slaughter. Even with their notorious track record of being widely off the mark, the fortune tellers continue to capture the imagination of simple-minded Church folks. Having abandoned sound reasoning, gullible people continue to succumb to fascinating fantasies and fantastic fairy tales. Instead of being encumbered with sound mental judgment, the consumers of hocus-pocus conjuring choose to surrender themselves to wishy-washy wishful thinking. O foolish Church goers! Who has bewitched you? Haven’t you had enough? When are you going to wisen up, summon up courage, and tune out the presumptuous soothsayers and their supercilious soothsayings? Do you not realize that it’s in your best interest to pay attention to the admonition of Paul to the Christians at Colossae? Colossians 2:18-19 “Let no one disqualify you, ins...

By Akin Ojumu Family. All made up of people…fallen, broken, sinful people fully imbued with the Adamic nature. Our toxic humanity hangs over the family like ominous dark clouds hiding the blue skies from sight.  Any wonder then that family often turns out to be what it is? Broken, wrathful, vengeful, spiteful, full of all kinds of drama. Bitterness, enmity, envy, strife, jealousy, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, insecurities, unforgiveness, and  unexplained fits of anger  are all in full display. Family is the Petri dish of the human experiment. It is the laboratory of life where all the failings, flaws, and foibles of humanity are tried, tested, and perfected. The family is the first proving ground of the flesh and its lawless deeds. It’s from here we launch out into the world with our baggage of iniquitous behaviors. Yet, God has called all people within the family unto a higher calling. This is especially so for the family made up of professing Christians. It is exp...

By Akin Ojumu By far, the Corinthian Christian assembly is the most dysfunctional Christian congregation we find in the Bible. Compared to any other church at the time, the Christians at Corinth were the most problematic. This was a congregation bedeviled with serious issues and beset with numerous grievous failings.  Unlike Apostle Paul’s other epistles where serious doctrines and deep theologies are the focus, the entire Book of 1 Corinthians – except for a few references here and there to theology and doctrine – was dedicated to correcting the various foibles of a problematic congregation. The Corinthian Christians brought into the church life all the vestiges of their pagan existence. Among the congregation were folks who patronized the temple prostitutes for sex – which was the culture of that ancient city. There were those who, for the fun of it, dragged fellow Christians to courts. Some of the Church members took pride in committing fornication and incest; they boast about s...

By Akin Ojumu Every salvation story is a surreal encounter that needs not be spiced up to make it sound more extraordinary than it is. The act of turning to God from a life of sin is a divine intervention of unimaginable proportion, embellishing it to make it sound more exciting is unnecessary.  Getting rescued from the clutches of iniquities is a miraculous accomplishment and it demands no additional ornamentation to make the recipient of the divine favor glow in the dark. To be regenerated to life from our previous degenerate state of spiritual death is a mighty work orchestrated by the will, mercy, and love of God. There’s no greater wonder than to see a prisoner who had hitherto been held captive by the prince of the power of air set free by the power of God. Our redemption is a supernatural phenomenon that could only have been engineered by the grace of the Omnipotent God. Ephesians 2:1-5 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the cou...

By Akin Ojumu All false religious systems are spun by the Devil. While they are called and known by different names in different settings, and have a variety of rites and rituals, they all derive their origin from the Tower of Babel. Satan always promises heaven but delivers hell. None of the Satan-spun religions offers its adherents eternal damnation. You won’t find any of them selling tickets to hell. No, they don ’ t. Heaven is what they all promise to their practitioners. Assurance of everlasting enjoyment in paradise is their sales pitch. Here’s just a few examples.  Islam   Guarantees a Al Jannah where seventy-two virgins await the faithful.  What the women get in Al Jannah in this religious system, remains unclear to me. Buddhism Assures its practitioners a trip to nirvana, a place where they will be reborn. Nirvana is a transcendental, blissful spiritual state, and attaining it requires following the Eightfold Path. Hinduism In this false belief system, heaven is ...

By Akin Ojumu If you’ve ever wanted to know what I believe about God, the Bible, and my faith in a nutshell, well, you are in luck. Here are just a few of the truths about my beliefs that I hold dear. These are things for which I hold the line and there’s no compromise.  Consensus Consensus does not equal truth! Just because someone has a large church, massive platform, or is very famous/popular, that doesn’t mean they are teaching correctly. Size of audience does not validate message. Positive comments do not substantiate opinion.  Discernment Discernment is not a mystical process where you ask God for discernment and He magically drops ideas into your mind. We receive discernment from studying the Bible and understanding what it says, by the guidance that the Holy Spirit provides. Experience Our experience is not an indicator of truth, and our feelings are not to be trusted. A belief system rooted in experience is a pagan belief. Truth Truth comes from God’s Word: The Holy B...

“Word of Faith Movement Is a Spiritual Mushroom Cloud” By Akin Ojumu “Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. Both in the scale of the devastation they cause, and in their uniquely persistent, spreading, genetically damaging radioactive fallout, they are unlike any other weapons. A single nuclear bomb detonated over a large city could kill millions of people. The use of tens or hundreds of nuclear bombs would disrupt the global climate, causing widespread famine.” While the above statement, which I borrowed from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) website, is true, I think there’s something far more destructive, much more inhumane, and a lot more indiscriminate than nuclear weapons. As far as lethal weapons go, nothing is more devastating than false teaching and false doctrines in my opinion. Whereas the greatest harm that nuclear weapons inflict is limited to the body, which is temporal, false doctrines take ...

“Core Tenets of the New Thought Movement” By Akin Ojumu Truth is bitter. Whether you coat it with sugar or you soak it in honey, it’ll taste like vinegar in the mouth of the hearer all the same. Truth is deafening. No matter how softly it’s spoken, it always sounds like the roar of a supersonic jet engine in the ears of people. Telling folks that the doctrinal beliefs they’ve held all their Christian lives have their origin in the occult is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s a hard thing for people to hear that their theological foundation is rooted in a metaphysical cult. Notwithstanding, the truth must be told. As much as I hate to do so, I have to let my friends know that they live in a toxic bubble of spiritual deception. The Word of Faith movement is a syncretic belief system that borrows its ideology chiefly from New Thought, which is a mental healing movement that originated in the United States in the 19th century. Founded by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, who was a 19th Century America...

“Genealogical Tree of the Word of Faith Movement” By Akin Ojumu Many of you who are going to read this commentary will be quite familiar with the Word of Faith movement. In fact, your religious beliefs have been greatly influenced and shaped by the “Name It, Claim It” doctrinal concept, which is the other name by which the Word of Faith movement is known. Because you’ve been taught that as a man thinks in his heart so is he, you’ve become steeped in the idea of positive thinking and positive confession. Consequently, you subscribe to the idea that you can create your own realities by the words of your mouth. The way to obtain your heart desire, you’ve been made to believe, is to simply “speak them into existence.” Over the course of your faith journey, you’ve held on strongly to these beliefs without wavering. Because of the extremely high regard you have for the people from whom you learned these beliefs, it has never once crossed your mind to probe their source and origin. In fact, y...