TRICKS OF GOSPEL PEDDLERS

The church is becoming a gospel market. People enter churches either to buy anointed products from a preacher or to help a preacher to sell his (her) anointed products.  

There are two categories of members in churches that peddle the gospel for profit. There are those who purchase the preacher's anointed products and those who assist the preacher to sell his (her) anointed products. The latter are the church workers. Anointed products sold in church include food items like 'Sobolo' (Bissap); cosmetic products like 'abeyifuor nku' (cream that scares off witches and wizards), back-to-sender and favour oil; clothing items like handkerchief, prayer shawl and prayer mantle among others. Some preachers even sell their old suits which they claim carry extreme unction for teaching, healing and deliverance, not forgetting their sermon tapes and sermon videos. 

In a growing number of today's churches, either you are in to buy or to sell anointed products. This situation amounts to what has been termed as Gospel Peddling. The Bible cautions against peddling the word of God. "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God." (2 Corinthians 2:17 NIV)

Skills in Gospel Peddling

1. Dogmatic teaching 

You do not need to study the entire Bible to understand the entire message of the Bible to be able to preach the entire truth of the Bible. You only have to study portions of the Bible that affirm behaviour and attitudes for which buyers are willing to pay to listen. This leads to the establishment of a firm, unbendable rule of understanding, interpreting, teaching and defending the word. 

2. Indoctrination

Indoctrinate them. Make them accept only the meaning that you assign a scriptural text. Discourage them from being exposed to other messages so as to shut their minds within the enclosure of your interpretation. Except you do this, you will not be able to sustain your authority over them. 

3. Tailor the word to meet human needs

You do not need to study a whole passage to keep the meaning of a text in context. You only have to tailor the text to make it mean something other than what it actually means in order that it will meet specific human needs. There are preachers who go into the Bible to squeeze Scriptures out of context to provide support for what they already think or believe is true. They do this because they place the meaning of Scripture in the context of specific human needs.

4. Make them feel that they are forever indebted to you. 

Make them understand that loyalty to you means loyalty to the Lord. Except you place yourself on the same level with the Lord, the people might feel they are free to decide for themselves. Obeying you means obeying the Lord. Your voice is the voice of the Lord, hence their indebtedness to you. 

5. Deceive and manipulate

Pastor Mensa Otabil shared a story of how an old preacher told him that people love to be deceived, and so, he ought to learn how to deceive people. This is happening in a growing number of churches today. Preachers are becoming increasingly skilful in deceiving and manipulating people to give. When you mistakenly sit under some cartel of preachers, you might give all your life savings in hope of 'miracle money'. They peddle 'miracle money' at wholesale price. This group of preachers hire pretentious believers to give exaggeratedly positive testimonies in church. They know that their people are gullible, and will easily fall for the game. 

I do not intend to exhaust the skills being used for peddling the word of God. You already know a lot about them. 

The days of following a pastor sheepishly are over. Do not be a gullible Christian. Arm yourself with the knowledge of God in all its depth of insight and spiritual understanding. This way, when a pretentious preacher comes your way to peddle the word of God, you will be able to discover his (her) trick. All preachers are not pretentious. Likewise, all that glitters is not gold. Only stay vigilant!

#Verity Haven