From Jesus and the Apostles to Tithes, Prosperity Preaching and the Trillion-Dollar Church Economy
AN OBLONG MEDIA GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE DEEP DIVE
This investigation is not intended to destroy your faith.
It is intended to make you think.
To question.
To reflect.
And perhaps to separate faith in God from unquestioning obedience to religious institutions created and administered by human beings.
Because there is a question that Christians, particularly African Christians, should be courageous enough to ask:
How did a religion founded around a wandering preacher who owned virtually nothing become associated, in some places, with pastors who own mansions, luxury cars, private aircraft and enormous business empires, financed substantially by people considerably poorer than themselves?
Since when did the Alpha and Omega, the supreme architect of the universe, the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent Lord God almighty of creation and the Christian trinity start needing our money?
That question deserves investigation.
LET US BEGIN WITH JESUS
The central human figure of Christianity is Jesus Christ.
Look carefully at the Jesus presented in the New Testament.
He was not portrayed as accumulating wealth.
He did not construct a palace.
He did not demand payment before healing the sick.
He did not establish an admission fee before preaching.
He did not sell miracles.
He did not demand a financial “seed” before feeding the hungry.
Indeed, one of Christianity’s most famous stories tells precisely the opposite story.
Thousands came to hear him.
They became hungry.
And Jesus fed them.
Whatever one’s interpretation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, its moral imagery is extraordinary:
The congregation did not feed Jesus. Jesus fed the congregation.
Think about that.
THE APOSTLES WERE NOT SELLING SALVATION EITHER
The same principle runs through the earliest Christian movement.
Peter and John encounter a disabled beggar at the Temple gate.
Peter tells him:
“Silver and gold have I none…”
And then heals him.
Whether one approaches that passage historically, spiritually or symbolically, the message is difficult to miss.
The earliest Christian evangelists were not portrayed as businessmen selling access to supernatural power.
Indeed, the Book of Acts contains the extraordinary story of Simon Magus attempting to purchase spiritual power from the apostles.
Peter’s reaction was furious.
The idea that spiritual authority could be purchased was treated as corruption.
So how did Christianity travel from “silver and gold have I none” to a religious culture in which desperate people are sometimes encouraged to surrender their last card money in expectation of supernatural financial returns?
That is the question.
BUT WHAT ABOUT TITHING?
Here we must be intellectually honest.
Tithing was not invented by modern pastors.
It appears in the Old Testament.
Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils of battle to Melchizedek.
Jacob voluntarily promised a tenth to God.
Later, under Mosaic law, Israel developed a formal system of tithes associated particularly with the Levites, religious observance, communal feasting and provision for vulnerable members of society.
And there was an important reason for supporting the Levites.
Unlike the other Israelite tribes, the Levites did not receive the same territorial inheritance. Their religious responsibilities therefore required a system through which the community supported them.
But notice something often missing from modern prosperity preaching.
The biblical tithe was embedded within the economic, agricultural, social and religious system of ancient Israel.
It was not simply the equivalent of a modern Christian transferring ten per cent of his monthly salary into a pastor’s bank account.
And portions of the biblical system were explicitly concerned with feeding people, including Levites, foreigners, orphans and widows.
That distinction matters enormously.
DID JESUS SPEAK ABOUT TITHING?
Yes.
And intellectual honesty requires us to acknowledge it.
In Matthew 23:23, Jesus criticised the Pharisees for meticulously tithing herbs while neglecting what he called the “weightier matters of the law”:
justice, mercy and faithfulness.
He did not condemn their tithing in that passage.
But neither did he establish there a universal ten per cent salary levy for the future Christian Church.
His emphasis was unmistakable:
religious accounting without justice and mercy had missed the point.
That is a profoundly important distinction.
JESUS AND THE MONEY CHANGERS
We should also be precise about another famous event.
Jesus did indeed drive merchants and money changers from the Temple.
His anger was directed at what was happening within the sacred Temple environment and at the corruption or desecration represented by turning God’s house into what the Gospel describes as a marketplace or “den of robbers.”
Yet the symbolism remains powerful.
Christians should therefore be perfectly entitled to ask:
What would Jesus make of the modern commercialisation of Christianity?
What would he make of miracle merchandise?
What would he make of believers being pressured to “sow a seed” before receiving a blessing?
What would he make of churches where financial status appears to determine proximity to religious leadership?
What would he make of congregations containing desperately poor people financing lifestyles they could never dream of enjoying themselves?
These are legitimate Christian questions.
THE NEW TESTAMENT MODEL LOOKS VERY DIFFERENT
After Jesus, something remarkable happens.
Christian giving certainly continues.
But the emphasis repeatedly becomes voluntary generosity.
Paul writes that each person should give what he has decided in his heart to give:
“not reluctantly or under compulsion.”
That phrase deserves to be written across the entrance of every church on Earth:
NOT UNDER COMPULSION.
The earliest Christian community described in Acts goes even further.
Those who possessed resources voluntarily shared them so that people in need could be assisted.
Whatever one thinks about the practicality of that arrangement today, its direction is revealing:
wealth moved towards need.
The purpose was not to make religious leaders spectacularly wealthy.
It was to ensure that vulnerable members of the community were cared for.
SO WHEN DID CHRISTIANITY BECOME BIG BUSINESS?
Christianity eventually ceased being a tiny persecuted movement.
It became institutionalised.
Churches acquired buildings.
Clergy required support.
Monasteries emerged.
Schools were established.
Hospitals were built.
Missionaries travelled across continents.
Enormous charitable institutions developed.
And we should acknowledge something important:
Christian institutions have done extraordinary good throughout history.
Churches established hospitals.
They built schools.
They fed the hungry.
They cared for abandoned children.
They provided sanctuary.
They established universities.
They fought slavery in some historical contexts, even while other Christians shamefully defended it.
To pretend that every church is a money making enterprise would therefore be dishonest.
Many priests, pastors, reverends, nuns, missionaries and ordinary Christians continue quietly serving humanity without becoming wealthy.
They deserve respect.
But something else also emerged.
The commercial church.
And eventually, in some societies, the prosperity gospel.
GOD AS AN INVESTMENT SCHEME
The proposition can become astonishingly transactional.
Give God money and God will give you more money.
Sow a seed and expect a harvest.
Increase your offering and increase your blessing.
Give sacrificially and expect supernatural financial breakthrough.
At this point theology begins to resemble an investment prospectus.
Except God does not receive the bank transfer.
A human institution does.
And sometimes a human being controls that institution.
That is where scrutiny becomes necessary.
AFRICA SHOULD ASK PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT QUESTIONS
Consider the contradiction.
Some of the world’s poorest communities contain some of its most enthusiastic religious populations.
A struggling widow gives from the little she possesses.
An unemployed graduate gives.
A market woman gives.
A civil servant whose salary cannot survive inflation gives.
A family unable to pay school fees gives.
And sometimes the person telling them that their breakthrough depends upon giving arrives in a luxury vehicle.
Something about that picture deserves examination.
Not because Christianity is false.
Not because God does not exist.
But because human beings are capable of exploiting virtually anything, including faith.
IMAGINE ANOTHER KIND OF TITHE
Now conduct a thought experiment.
Nigeria has more than 200 million people.
Imagine if millions of Nigerians voluntarily committed even a portion of their disposable income, not necessarily to religious institutions, but to professionally managed, independently audited community development funds.
Imagine the money financing:
free primary healthcare;
health insurance for poor families;
scholarships;
vocational training;
food programmes;
maternal healthcare;
microcredit;
rehabilitation centres;
orphanages;
elderly care;
low cost and free schools;
emergency medical treatment;
and small business capital.
Imagine every contributor being able to see audited accounts showing exactly where the money went.
Imagine churches themselves adopting such transparency.
Imagine a congregation proudly announcing:
“This year our members contributed ₦2 billion. ₦700 million funded healthcare. ₦500 million educated children. ₦300 million fed vulnerable families. ₦200 million created businesses and jobs. ₦200 million maintained the church. ₦100 million supported clergy.”
Would that not resemble the Christianity of Acts more closely than another private jet?
ISLAM PROVIDES AN INTERESTING COMPARISON
Here again, accuracy matters.
Islam does not have Christian tithing.
But Islam certainly contains obligatory giving.
Zakat is one of the Five Pillars of Islam and generally requires qualifying Muslims to give a defined proportion of qualifying accumulated wealth to specified categories of beneficiaries.
One of its central purposes is assistance to the poor and needy.
There is also sadaqah, voluntary charitable giving.
So the comparison is not that Muslims are never religiously required to give money.
They are.
The more interesting distinction is where the religious obligation is conceptually directed.
Zakat is fundamentally connected to redistribution, purification of wealth and assistance to recognised categories of beneficiaries.
That comparison should challenge Christians rather than threaten them.
THEN THERE IS THE QUESTION WE RARELY DISCUSS
Most human beings do not initially choose their religion.
They inherit it.
A child born into a devout Catholic family will probably become Catholic.
A child born into a Muslim family in Kano, Mecca or Islamabad will probably become Muslim.
A child born into a Hindu family in India will probably encounter Hinduism as his first understanding of the divine.
A child born into a Buddhist household elsewhere will inherit another framework.
This does not prove that all religions are true.
Nor does it prove that any religion is false.
It demonstrates something much simpler:
geography, family and culture profoundly influence religious identity.
Imagine yourself born into another household.
Your father takes you to the mosque from infancy.
You attend madrasa.
You learn the Qur’an.
You pray five times daily.
You fast during Ramadan.
By twenty five, Islam may feel as self evidently true to you as Christianity currently feels to someone raised from infancy inside Christianity.
Reverse the circumstances and precisely the same psychological process can occur.
That should produce humility.
FAITH SHOULD NOT REQUIRE THE SUSPENSION OF THOUGHT
Perhaps one of religion’s greatest dangers begins when questioning becomes forbidden.
If something is true, questions should not destroy it.
Questions should strengthen our understanding of it.
Jesus himself constantly asked questions.
Christianity produced some of history’s greatest philosophers, theologians and thinkers.
Augustine questioned.
Thomas Aquinas reasoned.
Martin Luther challenged ecclesiastical authority.
Religious civilisation itself developed through argument, interpretation and reform.
Why then should an ordinary believer be frightened to ask:
Where is my money going?
Who controls it?
Are the accounts audited?
How much does the religious leader earn?
How much goes to the poor?
Why does the church own schools its poorest members cannot afford?
Why should God’s blessing require a financial transaction?
Where exactly did Jesus teach this?
Those are not satanic questions.
They are questions of accountability.
PERHAPS THE REAL TITHE IS HUMANITY
There is a passage attributed to Jesus that may provide the most powerful answer of all.
In Matthew 25, Jesus speaks about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and visiting the imprisoned.
And then comes the extraordinary principle:
Whatever you did for the least among you, you did for me.
Think deeply about that.
Perhaps giving to God was never supposed to mean enriching God.
An omnipotent God obviously does not need your naira, dollars or pounds.
Perhaps “giving to God” finds its greatest meaning in what we do for one another.
Feed somebody.
Educate somebody.
Treat somebody.
Employ somebody.
Rescue somebody.
Give somebody dignity.
Help a family escape poverty.
Build a hospital.
Fund a scholarship.
Pay for a child’s surgery.
Give an elderly person healthcare.
Help a young entrepreneur establish a business.
And perhaps, in doing those things, you have placed your offering closer to the altar than you ever imagined.
THIS IS NOT AN ATTACK ON CHRISTIANITY
It is a defence of the moral questions at Christianity’s heart.
Nor is it an attack on pastors.
Religious leaders must live.
Churches require electricity.
Buildings require maintenance.
Missionaries require transportation.
Priests and pastors need food, accommodation and healthcare like everyone else.
There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with believers voluntarily financing their religious communities.
The question is different:
When does contribution become coercion?
When does faith become commerce?
When does pastoral leadership become personal enrichment?
When does a church cease serving its congregation and begin extracting from it?
And most importantly:
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?
Would the carpenter from Nazareth walk into a desperately poor African community and tell the widow selling tomatoes beside the road that unless she surrendered ten per cent of her income, God would withhold His blessings?
Or would he sit beside her?
Heal her child?
Feed her family?
Defend her dignity?
And tell those who possessed much to remember those who possessed little?
Every Christian must answer that question personally.
We at Oblong Media Global Intelligence cannot answer it for you.
We can only ask you to do something increasingly rare in an age of religious certainty:
Think.
Read your Bible.
Study history.
Interrogate doctrine.
Question us too.
Question your pastor.
Question your priest.
Question your imam.
Question every human institution claiming authority to speak for God.
And after questioning everything, make your own informed decision about your relationship with your Creator.
Because perhaps genuine faith should not be frightened of questions.
Perhaps genuine faith begins when inherited belief encounters an adult mind capable of examining it.
And perhaps the question was never:
“How much money have you given to God?”
Perhaps it was always:
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR YOUR FELLOW HUMAN BEING?”
Duruebube Chimazuru “Oblong” Nnadi-Oforgu
For
OBLONG MEDIA GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
Not to destroy faith. To provoke thought.
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