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| Pastor Tunde Bakare of Latter Rain Assembly,Lagos,Nigeria |
As a child of God,redeemed by the blood of Christ,sanctified and separated to bring forth the glory of God by his conducts and lifestyle.I do not think anything should be too much for such a believer to give to God.The truth is, if we can sacrifice the best of all that we have;the best of our time,substances,gifts etc,God is bound by his word to bless us beyond imagination.But Pastor Tunde Bakare is totally opposed to this
doctrine of first fruits even though it is clearly stated in the scriptures in Proverbs 3.9 -10 'Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.But In Pastor Bakare's view,it is one of the various strategies employed by some so-called men of God to amass wealth through the exploitation of their members. He stated that most church members have been brainwashed by pastors to the extent that they could go hungry to satisfy them.He criticized other pastors, especially those in the big churches, for making first fruit offering compulsory in their churches. First fruit offering, according to him, is the offering of whatever a church member makes in the first month of every year.This, Pastor Bakare said, “is exploitation and an evil perpetrated by predators who are supposed to be taking care of the flock.”“We (the church) have gone totally bad that pastors now exploit their members in the name of first fruit offering. Is that the scripture or manoeuvre?” he asked.The pastor added that other men of God, who do not fully understand the first fruit as explained in the Bible, have since joined the pastors, who have made it compulsory in their churches.“They have made it so compulsory that they now make people pay their first salaries in the year to the church. What will they eat afterwards?” he asked, describing it as sheer exploitation.
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