GATE OF THE SHEEPFOLD IS AJAR

By Akin Ojumu

Professional certification is a credential awarded by a professional organization or body to recognize an individual’s mastery or competency in a specific field. It signifies that the holder has met certain standards of knowledge, skills, and experience, and often requires ongoing education or recertification to maintain. Essentially, it’s a formal validation of a professional’s qualifications, demonstrating their ability to perform in a particular role (Source: Google AI).

Credentialing and certification are a requirement in nearly all fields of professional endeavor. Before a butcher, bricklayer, or barber opens up shop, they are required to obtain their professional license. You’d never find a mortician, mechanic, or massage therapist who is practicing their profession without certification. At least, that’s the case in civilized societies where there’s rule of law.

Shockingly, however, Christian ministry is one of the few service rendering professions where credentialing and certification are not a mandatory prerequisite for practicing the profession. In Christianity, any Tom, Dick, or Harry can wake up one morning, set up shop, and declare himself an apostle, prophet, or pastor and no one would bother to ask, “What’s your qualification?” or “Where’s is your license”

Now, it’s not as if God has not given us clear guidance and specific instructions on how pastors, preachers, teachers, and leaders in His Church are to be selected and appointed. The requisite qualifications a man must have in order to become a shepherd over God’s flock are explicitly enunciated in the Bible. 

In two of Paul’s epistles, the biblical qualifications of an overseer in the Church are clearly enumerated. 

1 Timothy 3:1–7

“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”

Titus 1:5–9

“This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you – if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

Nevertheless, the vast majority of Christian denominations ignore these biblical injunctions for choosing leaders. While secular professions that cater to the temporal needs are surrounded by guardrails of high professional standards and are protected by strict vocational requirements that keep quacks and charlatans at bay, Christian ministry that tends to the spiritual needs and eternal destiny of souls is unguarded and is left exposed to infiltration by frauds and impostors. The gate of the sheep pen of the Church is unsecured and wide open, and wolves in sheep’s clothing come and go as they please.

Is it any wonder then that the Church is full of Bible-twisting charlatans who propagate all manner of erroneous doctrines that bear no resemblance to historical Biblical Christianity? Since the preaching profession is largely unregulated, is it any surprise that the vast majority of people presiding over the various Christian denominations are vicious wolves and blaspheming narcissistic hustlers? This lack of regulation explains why Bible-thumping egotistical scoundrels who merchandize the Gospel brazenly go about exploiting the children of God unchecked. The open sesame for Church leadership creates the perfect niche market for opportunists who see godliness as a get-rich quick scheme to ply their trade. 

1 Timothy 6:3-5

“If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.”

Because these vainglorious power-hungry tyrants are thieves and robbers who come into the sheepfold with the intention to steal, kill, and destroy, they rule over the sheep of God with absolute ruthlessness unbecoming of God’s undershepherd. Instead of leading the sheep to green pastures to be fed with the Word of God that nourishes the soul, they lead them into a barren wasteland of man-centered, seeker-sensitive, people-pleasing, ear-scratching, ponderous platitudes that poison the soul.

John 10:10

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Writing to Timothy, Apostle Paul reminded his spiritual son to give maximum effort to impart God’s Word completely, accurately, and clearly to those who God placed under his care. He warned him that anything short of an accurate and precise handling of God’s Word would bring shame and reproach to the preacher.

2 Timothy 2:15

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

Beyond the shame and reproach, when preachers fail to apply precision and accuracy to their handling of Scriptures, disastrous consequences often result. Such preachers become irreverent babbler of erroneous doctrines and heresies that lead their hearers into progressively worsening iniquitous living.

2 Timothy 2:16-17

But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene.”

Because the tree of faith cannot grow in the soil of error, and because thirsty souls cannot be quenched by the polluted waters of falsehood, those who feed on false teachings unwittingly poison their own soul with Satan’s toxic waste. Heretic doctrine, like festering gangrene, often metastasizes to consume the whole body in a paroxysm of pain and death. A Christian life tethered onto the soil of untruth will, sooner or later, wither and die.

It’s for this reason that you cannot not afford to entrust your soul to the care of just about anyone who calls himself a man God. The vast majority of these people, including your trusted pastor and revered general overseer, are enemies of God and have no knowledge of God. They are going to be your undoing if you choose to continue to follow after them.