Let me share with you, my ‘friends’, four kinds of Jesus adventurers.
In history, according to the Bible, there are four kinds of people who met with Jesus and their adventure with him manifests in four groups.
1. THE JIHADISTS:
These are the ones who have met a religious Jesus.
Their Jesus is understood through their doctrines and they do not convert to Jesus directly but through their denominations. You have to be initiated into their institution for them to accept you.
These people will disown, castigate you in their circles and warn all people against you. They won’t address what you teach or believe but they will always emphasise the fact that you left them, and no longer believe and act like them.
These are people whose relationship (biological or sociological) is dependent on the same religion and once religion changes, every tie goes with it.
They will hate, fight and hunt you down. They can even poison you to death after all you are as good as dead. These don’t marry for love before they check with religion. These associate based on religion, they can work with you, share a bus with you and a hospital queue but in their hearts you are wrong and unless you convert to their sect and dress or act like them, you are lost, dead and an enemy to God.
REACTION: Some will kill you because you don’t believe or actually teach differently while others will discriminate you and verbally curse or mourn you.
SCRIPTURE: For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the Church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. (Galatians 1:13)
2. THE PROFITEER:
This group is not interested in who Jesus is but rather in what Jesus does and can do. They met a Jesus who looks like a father-Christmas with a gift in relation to their particular needs.
Their relationship with Jesus is a bottom-up relationship. First, they have a problem and then Jesus is consulted as a solution. Jesus is a solution to every physical problem and he is wonderful as long as he is solving these problems.
To them, physical problems are given spiritual solutions and the reverse is entertained. They only go to the hospital when their Jesus fail but not going to Jesus when the hospital fail. Every problem is either a spirit or a demon. Their language is CONFESS WHAT YOU WANT TO FEEL, BE AND HAVE.
REACTION: These are highly emotional people, they think with their hearts and feel with their heads.
They are mobile believers who move from one church to another depending on the need that is solved by each. These are ones I call: THE WHAT IS TRENDING BELIEVERS.
These are the masses you see with a new prophet in town, these are the masses that follow and stay with an individual who keeps doing what their former establishments find unorthodox. These are magic disciples and absolutely miracle oriented.
To them, miracles are not signs and symbols to a reality but an end in themselves. These defend their leader more than they can defend Jesus. They are willing to follow a man they haven’t understood fully wherever he goes.
SCRIPTURE: The a scribe came and said to him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go {Mathew 8:19} Jesus answered them, truly truly I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate to your full of the loaves {John 6:26}
3. THE PRETEXTS:
These are an interesting lot. These are both followers and leaders who will preach Jesus and teach the Bible as it actually is, but with ulterior motives. They not only tell you what you want to hear but will even tell you the truth if that serves their motives.
Some of these preachers will have had a misunderstanding with another truthful preacher, and, intending to hurt your relationship with that preacher, will tell you the truth you didn’t know about that preacher or they will preach and teach you in a competitive manner that beats the other preacher in your personal evaluation of both.
These are not false teachers and neither do they teach lies, but theologically right teachers. However, they are envious and with strife against other men of God.
These are followers of the same Jesus who don’t like each other and are never comfortable in the presence of each OTHER. This feeling can materialise in true believers hurting each other physically, imprisoning and blackmail etc.
REACTION: You will hear them say, what he is saying is the truth, but I don’t like the way he says it. He acts like he knows everything, yet in what he says this…and this…is not mentioned then he/she goes ahead to supply details the other believer or preacher didn’t mention.
SCRIPTURE: Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that am put here for the defence of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of partisanship, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment {Philippians 1:15-17}
4. THE CHARLATANS:
Now these are zealous believers and leaders who speak with the confidence of the skilled and trained but without any of the above.
Charlatans are readers without guidance who collect a forest of information and share a wilderness of meaning. They are prone not to ignorance but are children of half-information. They are dangerous, very unteachable since they are convinced by the uncoordinated information they have.
They are very authoritative in speech and very pitying to those they assume don’t know what they know. They hustle and struggle a lot in life to ensure all the information they have gathered about Jesus is practised.
REACTION: Having an opinion on matters they have never trained in and refusing to register their opinion as an opinion but as a ‘statistical fact’. They quote the Bible left-right-centre, and other sources to substantiate their wrongness.
SCRIPTURE: For I testify about them that they have a Zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge {Romans 10:2}
These are the four adventurers of Jesus I know. I call them ‘ADVENTURERS’ because they are not just pilgrims but travellers who travel in regions (Christianity) they know little or nothing altogether about.
Lord have mercy on me, for I am one of the above and just walking away from that identity.
God bless you, I invoke Truth, Reason and Faith (2Timothy 2:7)
Preist-Isaiah White
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 