CHARLATANS CAN’T HIDE BEHIND BIBLICAL APOSTLES & PROPHETS (PART III)

“The Real Apostles Pointed Away from Themselves to Christ”

By Akin Ojumu

In this age of social media, livestream ministries, viral clips, podcasts, and alternative news platforms, religious charlatans can accumulate enormous armies of loyal admirers.

And once the personality cult has been established, facts become almost irrelevant.

No accusation is serious enough. No contradiction is glaring enough. No theological absurdity is outrageous enough. No failed supernatural boast is embarrassing enough.

The faithful defenders of Daddy G.O. will remain at their posts. They will explain. They will excuse. They will rationalize. They will reinterpret. And when all else fails, they will reach for the Bible.

This blinding loyalty becomes especially obvious when legitimate questions are raised about the vaunted supernatural powers of a preacher who, after spending decades advertising extraordinary anointing, divine protection, miracle-working power, and supernatural exploits, suddenly finds himself confronted by the same calamities that confront ordinary mortals.

Immediately, the defenders arrive.

“But Elijah ran from Jezebel.”

“Paul was beaten.”

“Peter suffered.”

“The Apostles were persecuted.”

“Even Jesus was crucified.”

The argument is supposed to end there.

Apparently, once Elijah fled from Jezebel, every modern preacher who has spent thirty years advertising his supernatural invincibility is automatically vindicated.

Once Paul was beaten with rods, nobody may question the man who says chairs levitate when he prays.

Once Peter was imprisoned, nobody may ask uncomfortable questions about the preacher who claims that his anointing can be distributed in portions.

And, astonishingly, some will even drag the Lord Jesus Christ Himself into the comparison.

But there is one rather inconvenient problem.

Neither Elijah, nor Peter, nor John, nor Paul, nor the other Apostles wandered through Israel advertising themselves as custodians of supernatural power.

They did not build ministry brands around: “The anointing upon my life.” They did not summon people to the altar because there had been an “increase” in their personal anointing and everybody needed to come forward and “collect their portion.”

They did not behave like regional distributors of divine voltage. They did not market themselves as supernatural warehouses. They did not boast that their prayers caused chairs—with human beings still sitting on them—to float through the air.

In all the years I have spent studying the Bible, I have yet to encounter the passage where Elijah traveled from town to town and village to village bragging:

“Do you people know what I carry?”

You will search the New Testament in vain for Peter, John, Paul, or any of the other Apostles announcing how much “anointing” they possessed.

You will not find Paul holding an anointing-distribution conference. You will not find Peter announcing that there had been an “increase” upon his life and believers needed to collect their allocation. You will not find John advertising himself as a custodian of supernatural power.

You simply will not find it.

Why?

Because these men—the genuine servants of God—understood something that appears to have become strangely difficult for many modern celebrity preachers to grasp:

Power belongs to God.

Whatever supernatural power God manifested through the prophets and Apostles was never their personal possession. 

It was not spiritual property registered in their names. It was not divine electricity stored inside their bodies. It was not a supernatural bank account from which they could make withdrawals whenever they pleased.

God acted according to His own sovereign will, His own purposes, and His own prerogative.

The Apostles never imagined themselves to belong to some superior spiritual caste. They did not parade themselves before the Church as spiritual supermen. They did not build ministries around advertisements of what they “carried.”

When the people of Lystra attempted to treat Paul and Barnabas like gods after the healing of a crippled man, Paul and Barnabas did not seize the marketing opportunity.

They did not say: “Finally, people are beginning to recognize our dimension.”

They did not open registration for an impartation service.

They did not announce: “There is an increase upon us. Come and collect your portion.”

They tore their clothes. And they cried out:

Acts 14:15

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you…”

That is apostolic Christianity.

Not, “Do you know what I carry?” Not, “There is an increase in the anointing upon my life.” Not, “Come and collect your portion.” Not, “When I pray, chairs fly.”

But: 

“We also are men, of like nature with you.”

That one sentence demolishes a great deal of modern religious celebrity culture.

Peter displayed the same instinct.

After the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate, a crowd gathered around Peter and John in astonishment.

Peter immediately redirected their attention.

Acts 3:12

“Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?”

Notice what Peter did.

He rejected both explanations. Not by our own power. Not because of our own piety. Peter refused to allow the miracle to become an advertisement for Peter. 

He understood the distinction. God has the power. Peter does not. That distinction is absolutely fundamental.

No human being is the proprietor of God’s power. No preacher owns the anointing. No apostle, prophet, bishop, General Overseer, Daddy G.O., Archbishop, Apostle-General, Revivalist, or self-proclaimed “Man of God” possesses a private reservoir of divine power that he may dispense whenever and however he chooses.

The Holy Spirit is God. 

He is not spiritual electricity stored inside the body of a preacher. He is not a substance. He is not a commodity. He is not a transferable religious voltage. And the power of God is not the private property of a spiritually privileged few.

Yet this elementary biblical truth has become almost revolutionary in certain corners of modern Christianity. Large numbers of Christians have been conditioned to think of certain preachers as members of a supernatural aristocracy.

These men are imagined to “carry” something ordinary Christians do not possess. They belong to another spiritual class. They operate in another “dimension.” They have another “frequency.” They have another “mantle.” They have another “level.”

And so, their followers begin to read the Bible through the lens of celebrity Christianity.

They read about Peter and imagine their Daddy G.O. They read Paul and see their apostle. They read Elijah and envision their prophet. They read about biblical miracles and immediately begin searching for the modern celebrity equivalent.

The personality cult has become the interpretive lens. And once that happens, the plain teaching of Scripture becomes almost invisible. A veil of religious conditioning covers the mind.

So, when a preacher announces, “I carry power,” they applaud. When he boasts about his “anointing,” they marvel. When he narrates spectacular supernatural exploits, they shout in amazement and wonder. When he presents himself as a dispenser of divine power, they queue up to receive their portion. When he claims that the anointing upon his life has increased, they rush forward to collect the latest upgrade.

And yet, the very Apostles they claim to imitate would have recoiled from such adulation.

When people stared at Peter, Peter redirected them to Christ. When people tried to worship Paul and Barnabas, they tore their clothes. When John the Baptist attracted enormous crowds, his response was: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

That is the apostolic and prophetic instinct.

Away from me. Look to Christ.

The message of the Apostles was never: Look at the power we carry.

Their message was: Look to Christ.

They did not make themselves the spectacle.

Christ was the message. Christ was the center. Christ was the glory. Christ was the power. Christ was the Name they proclaimed.

That is the difference between apostolic Christianity and the modern cult of the “Man of God.”

The genuine Apostle points away from himself. The celebrity preacher continually points people back to himself.

The Apostle says: “Why do you stare at us?”

The celebrity preacher says: “Do you know what I carry?”

The Apostle says: “We also are men, of like nature with you.”

The celebrity preacher carefully cultivates the impression that he belongs to another species of Christian altogether.

The Apostle decreases so that Christ may be exalted. The celebrity preacher enlarges himself until Christ becomes little more than the theological background music for the ministry brand.

And therein lies the problem.