During the first five centuries of the Church, she was plagued with heresies that were often violent, causing bitter divisions in the Church of God. Theologians defended their tuft with their whole being while castigating and demonizing others. The protestant reformation reopened these bitter rivalries, the effect of which the Church of God continues to suffer even today.

Thus, the recent critique and counter critique of Pastors that the Church in Nigeria has witnessed recently is not new, no matter how fresh it looks. 

Dr, Abel Damina, following his own conversion retraced his steps and began to preach the Gospel of Jesus, leaving behind the gospel of prosperity and other teachings that he referred to as false Gospel. His critiques have been intense and sustained, and his opponents, notably from the Pentecostals have not taken it lightly. They too have come out swing enormous bats intending to beat all dissenting voices into oblivion.

But they have not succeeded. In fact, it would appear that Dr. Damina is gaining some converts. This shows that there is something good in his critique. As the saying goes “If you are doing what is good, you will not stand alone for long, soon, other good people will identify with you.” 

Bearing in mind the above, many innocent Christians are confused, they wonder: “What is the truth?” “Who is right among these pastors and teachers?” “Whom do we follow? The answer is simple “Follow Jesus, He alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

And If you follow Jesus, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. If you follow Jesus, you will not miss the mark, you will find true life and ultimately, eternal life. The fact is that today, many Christians are not following Jesus, but their Pastors and GOs., they do not believe in God, they believe in their Daddies and Pastors.

Hence when these men of God fail them, they cannot but remain with them because they will be shown to be in the dark and no one wants to be in the dark.

Christians who are serious with their faith must befriend the Word of God, the Bible. Unfortunately, there are many versions of the Bible, and some are far off the track that they cause more confusion than inspire faith. Why is this so? Let it be known that the Bible was not printed in bulk at the beginning.

Original copies were often handwritten and then copied many times by scribes. Experts have opined that in the process of copying out the various book, words, lines, punctuation marks and sometimes whole sentence were often omitted, with some words copied wrongly. Translation that came out of these copies are bound to be different. 

Many Christians do not know this. That is the reason we encourage Catholics to use Catholic editions of the Bible, specially the Vulgate, Jerusalem Bible, and New King James Version. Once we have the right version, we steal the services of experts who will help us to enter into the world of the writers, understanding the choice of words and the cultural environment that may have influenced the sacred writers. This is important because revelation is a mediated experience, it does not work in a vacuum, otherwise we would not be able to understand what God is revealing to us. 

This approach will lead us to a better understanding of the words of scripture and then no one will confuse us or teach us wrong doctrines. If they do, we will be able to discern the truth f the false and reject the falsehood being propagated in the course of many preaching. Knowledge is power and every Christians must grow in their knowledge of God and this is possible only through the reading of scripture, through constant meditation and through exploration of the life of the saints who have a lot to teach us.

Consequently, Churches must ensure that their pastors are well trained in exegesis, that is the science of explaining the Bible, so that they can always apply correct interpretation. A good knowledge of the language of the Bible is very useful in this regard. Churches must also ensure that preachers have a good knowledge of the Fathers of the Church.

These theologians who lived so close during the early centuries of the Church have left us immense materials about their knowledge of the word of God and the controversies that helped shaped their interpretations. 

It is good to be a praying Church, but a praying Church can still be deceived and manipulated. Many times, a praying people do nothing other than just wait for God to do all things for them. This is not good enough. It is thus imperative that we must become a learning Church. A learning Church will always be inspired and protected by the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of truth. This is how to remain a true Church, faithful to the Gospel and traditions handed down to us.