The Origin of wealth and Poverty.
Long before the bible and any other religious book were written, our hominin ancestors lived, survived, relatively thrived without anyone being rich or poor. In fact, wealth and poverty were inexistent in their consciousness and experience.
As hunter- gatherers, they were always on the move, descending the trees to fill their bellies and ascending back for safety.
Long story short, the last ice age which ended about 15000 years ago, gave rise to a more favorable weather and climatic conditions that was conducive for them to stay in a place. This means they could think more. They discovered or invented agriculture, started building houses and the rest is history.
With all these came the idea of owning land or farm. This is the origin of wealth and Poverty. Jean Jacques Rousseau puts it this way: " the first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "this is mine"- that's where it all started to go wrong". (Pg 102, Human Kind by Rutger Bregman)
With private ownership came wealth, Poverty, inequality and other attendant issues.
Our hominin ancestors were neither rich nor poor, they simply lived. The next set of people to live without wealth and poverty woild be our ancestors in the faith.
Acts 4:32, 34-35:" The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed PRIVATE ownership of any possessions, as everything they owned was held in common. None of their members was ever in want as all those who owned land or house would sell them ....it was then distributed to any who might be in need."
It was not by prayers, fasting, anointing service and crusades that the apostles solved the economic needs of the first church, it was by mercy, charity, unity, selflessness and hard work.
Like our hominin ancestors, our Christian ancestors lived without the consciousness of wealth and Poverty, or better put, they killed the consciousness of wealth and Poverty. Like our hominin hunter-gatherer ancestors, our Christian ancestors were hunter-gatherers too. They were on the move, hunting for souls and gathering believers from one territory to the other. The thought of building houses as placesnof worship would take place hundreds of years later.
And once it came, it brought with it wealth and poverty, inequality and gap in the body of Christ. Ironically, a more civilized and advanced human society created wealth and poverty simultaneously. The regrettable thing is that people learnt to define themselves and be defined by them. Worse still, the good things of life became affordable only to some, unlike before when everyone had access to everything.
Fr Kevin Ugwu says: " The solution to poverty is not wealth, it is contentment". This is exactly what 1Tim 6:6-10 has said. At such, one cannot but wonder why some Christian ministers would leave CONTENTMENT and be preaching WEALTH, it's absurd. Both the rich and poor need it.
Three points:
1. Wealth and poverty are not spiritual matters, they are the necessary outcomes of human civilization and advancement. There are countries that have eliminated poverty. Countries where the poorest citizens enjoy all the things we consider luxury here, and their government is responsible. In other words, their government officials allowed God to use them.
2. You don't solve the problem of poverty by charity. Charity is absolutely necessary as intervention against hunger, sickness etc. Where people are hungry, a worshipping community must do what the first church did. No catholic or Christian who belong to any church should beg for food, clothes and basic medication. Yet, they must be told that charity doesn't cure poverty.
3. Prayer, anointing services, deliverance and the likes do not solve the problem of poverty. We are not more anointed than the apostles, and we've seen how they tackled this issue.
The only persons getting rich by prayers, anointing services and other spiritual things you do for financial breakthrough are the ministers selling those products to you.
Don't come here telling me to balance this statement, I'll not balance it because the bible didn't balance it. If you like interpret it to mean that fada oluoma says "God cannot make anyone wealthy by miracle" that's your business.
In fact, I'm in my house like this, if you don't like this message, come and beat me.😎😎
