1 The Revelation

On a television series, sometimes ago, a pastor lamented, vehemently, that Christians know the names of every Hollywood major actor without knowing the names of the 12 disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ; that gave him a great concern.

You might have also observed that Christian youths know the names of all the European clubs in England, Italy, Spain, Greece, France, Scotland, Ukraine, Russia and others, with names of players at the respective clubs, together with, the jersey number and sign on fees; these youths might not be able to name the books of the Bible and their respective authors. Who is to be blamed, the members or the Christian leaders?

As a circumspect observer of events of the Christian community; I could, simply, assert that the dearth and deficiency in the interest of people in Christian knowledge has been caused by the Christian leaders.

Jesus, while he was on earth, said that "even the children of this world are wiser than the children of the kingdom", so pathetic! How can we verify this claim of Jesus in this present time? Let us be empirical...

Point one, the world leaders are faced with the problem of the infamous groups, Islamic state organization, Al Qeeda and Boko Haram; and are unable to get them defeated because of the motivation given to the militants by their sponsors.

The key word is "motivation". Motivation in form of monetary gains; to sign on for Islamic state organisation, militants are paid $500 each per month with free feeding and accommodation.

How many times has any Christian leader gather young, vibrant believers for crusade and programs, paying them? You can hardly find any. All they say is that "it is the Work of the Lord"

Yet these leaders gather millions of dollars in the account from the proceeds of the ministry, so called "work of God". Four Nigerian pastors were among the top ten (10) richest pastors in the world in 2014, with a Nigerian pastor at the number 1 position.

Imagine if Christian youths were paid to sing, usher, clean up the church or do other church activity, don't you think there will be much interest in the Works of God.

God Almighty is kind enough to bless and even promised more blessings for people obeying, serving and keeping his commandments. My references include; Deuteronomy 28: 1-14, Isaiah 1: 19, Jeremiah 29:11, Isaiah 48:18; so why do most pastors find it difficult to encourage members of the congregation, working in the church monetarily?

You hear of a music producer, even before making any form of proceed on a musician, giving the musician a lot of money, buy cars and house for the artiste, just because the producer sees potentials in the artiste. The question is why are the pastors not doing that to young talented choristers?

There are young talents in the church gifted with singing; why are they only limited to the church services? Why can't they go on tours? Not much surprised, though, artistes like Robert Kelly, Whitney Houston, Flavour Nabania, Cynthia Morgan, Don Jazzy, to mention a few, left the church and its Christian songs to pursue a career secularly.

Christian songs, if there are, do not have to be "Praise the Lord"; check the Psalms of David, there are lot of themes Christian musicians can sing about that could catch people's attention. Promises of God, Love, temptation, motivation, financial hardship, breakthrough, disappointments and so on, in actual fact, there is virtually nothing the secular music has to offer that is not contain in the Bible, even more.

Rick Warren, in his book, 'The Purpose driven Life', said there is nothing like Christian music; Music, according to him, is Music, only the lyrics differ.

Why don't we have Christian music messages being presented in Rhythm and Blues(R&B), hip hop, rap or reggae? I discovered that I became very good in writing love poems, even when I had no lover, because I listened a lot to Celine Dion. Don't we think that Bible warnings, God promises and principles can be learnt from music?

I think we should step up the career and scope of music presentation in the Christian community instead of singing and recycling old praises; they are boring.

You hear artiste like Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and Chris Brown talk about their prowess, successes and wealth; why can't a Christian come up talking about himself defeating the flesh and sin, talk of God's promises and the faith he has in God.

Issues and challenges of life should be welcome in Christian songs such as it is in secular music. For example, songs of Robert Kelly have themes like apology to his wife, confronting hardship, disappointments, and demands of women.

Celine Dion sang about her love for her man, while Michael Jackson sang about his choice of women, a cheating wife and his musical talents; I could go on and on. If I may ask, which of these themes cannot be found in the Bible? Or which of the topics are not applicable to Christian lives?

Which of the lyrics in all the major world hits cannot be found or derived from the Bible? Virtually none! But the believers do not read their Bibles.

Some pastors are busy telling stories of their private lives, while they were supposed to be teaching the Word of God; I think they should know nobody is interested in that. There are stories in the Bible and more brilliant ideas in the Bible than their experiences in foreign countries, eating delicacies or buying expensive cars and acquiring superfluous material possessions.

In furtherance to motivating Christian knowledge, radio or television programs or Christian reality series where people win prizes for answering questions from the Bible or probably Christian debates on some views within Christendom should be encouraged.

There are obviously several views in Christianity that could stir plurality of ideas. Topics concerning Christian women's dressing, use of cosmetics and accessories, 'Women as Bishops', Christians in politics and sports, youth relationships and so on.

These are opinions the Christian associations can debate among themselves on the media and prizes can be given to groups with more Bible based and convincing points.

What of Bible memory verses, quotes and spelling bees in the Bible? Of course there are names and words that are not common that Christians could find difficult to spell. Names like Nebuchadnezzar, Melchizedeck, Benzaleel, Aholiah; meaning of words and names could also be part of the assessments.

In fact, a lot more interesting things that the Christian family can ask believers and it will be fun.

Furthermore, making Christians understand the practicality and applicability is another way to make the biblical knowledge fascinating.

Take a look at a prophecy by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 14: 21... "For thus saith the Lord God; how much more when I send four sore judgements upon Je-ru'-sa-lem, the sword, and the famine and the noisome beast and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?" Doesn't this sound practical and fulfilled? This is not for Jerusalem alone but the whole world at large.

The prophecy mentioned the sword; therefore, if I have to apply that to our present or contemporary day world, because nobody fights war with swords again, so we talk of guns, missile, bombs and jet fighters in today's warfare. Are these weapons not causing problems in our lives presently?

There are several terrorist and rebel groups killing people with these weapons destabilizing government of Lands in Colombia,(Farc rebel), Syria(Al Nusra front, Al Qeeda), Iraq ( ISIL) Somalia (Al Shaabab) Ukraine (pro-Russian rebels), Nigeria (Boko Haram), Afganistan(Taliban), India& Pakistan( Alqeeda), Mali (Magreeb) and Mexico(Drug cartels). Doesn't that tell us the word of God is not antiquity?

The second judgement on the row is "famine". Famine means food shortage or malnutrition. The world today has been battling famine/malnutrition for years. One billion people are malnourished in the world today with five million children, under the age of five, dying every year; due to malnutrition according to the World Health Organization, WHO, in 2011. Malnutrition has also been the cause of many diseases affecting the world today.

The third judgement is the "noisome beast". The beast, in the old time was meant to destroy their farm products and animals, which are the major sources of their economy. In recent time we have "noisome beasts" in form of Islamic state of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and their affiliates, mentioned earlier, killing people, thereby interfering with economic relation between countries, preventing investors from investing in countries where the terrorist groups are.

This, invariably, result in economic shockwaves and financial hardship.

The last/forth judgement mentioned was "pestilence". Pestilence in form of diseases or epidemic like Ebola, Denger Fever, Zika virus infection, cholera, malaria, bird flu and foot and mouth disease are diseases threatening the health of humans and livestock.

Now, if you know these, don't you think the Bible could be seen as an up- to- date book and a book that has practicality in the present day? The Bible should not even be limited to the church, in lieu of its relevance, but should be read in United Nation General Assemblies. But how do you achieve these if you don't know what the Bible contains?

A lot of ideas and answers to present day questions are documented in the Holy Book, and if the principles given by the Scriptures are properly and wittily presented, people will find the Bible interesting as a book to be reckoned with rather than a religious book for Christians only.

Muslims, Buddhists or Hindu will not say it is not their business because they are not Christians. We can, all, see that factors affecting our finances, health, security, economy and livelihood are mentioned in the Bible; in fact, everyone should see the Bible as a manual and before you know it, souls are won to the kingdom of God.

Moreover, the Bible knowledge is applicable in the field of agriculture; for example, shifting cultivation, bush fallowing and crop rotation were mentioned in the Old Testament as 'not planting the same crop always (crop rotation)' and 'leaving the land without cultivation in the seventh year'.

This idea is just to tell you that the land should rest (bush fallowing) so that it can recuperate its fertility lost.

In medicine, Onan the son of Judah, first born of Jacob, used a form of pregnancy prevention method, called "coitus interuptus" to avoid pregnancy. In evolution, God instructed the Israelites not to eat the hen and its eggs; this is, basically, a prevention of extinction of species.

If you eat the hen, you should spare the eggs so that another hen can brood them and hatch them and if you eat the eggs you should spare the hen, which will, invariably, lay another set of eggs. In these processes life is maintained and extinction or extermination is prevented.

The Bible is reasonably relevant in academia but I still don't know why Christian intellectuals are not bringing the Bible knowledge into practicality.

Movies about the Bible could be endlessly produced considering the fascinating stories in the Bible. If our Christian leaders apply these, people will learn about the Bible and make it easy for people to develop their faith in God.

The third action to take is to make the messages' compact disc (CD) and publications very cheap in order to make it available and accessible to everyone, irrespective of the economic status of the individual.

You can imagine a pornographic CD sells for less than a dollar while a Christian book that will improve one's way of life goes for ten dollars. What advantage does pornography give? Yet the producers make it extremely cheap; so likewise the Christian magazines, books, CD & DVD should be extremely cheap, if not free. Remember, freely you were given, so also you give freely.

I can bet some people, in the day of judgement, will give excuses of not accepting Christ or developing faith in God because they cannot afford materials to make them do so. Do you think God will take it lightly with the leaders? Absolutely no!

Also imagine the telecommunication services telling you to subscribe for a pastor's quote for fifty naira in a week. It just doesn't make sense. The gospel should be made free.

Today, how many Christian websites do we have where people can download songs, Christian movies, literatures and Christian cartoons for kids freely?

I can remember, sometimes ago; the Nigerian Christians protested against Islamic banking. The question is why doesn't the Christian community start their Christian banking, where interest will not be charged on money borrowed or did they not read in the Bible that they should not put "usury", that is interest, on loans to the poor? They will never see that but the next thing they say is that Muslims are trying to sponsor terrorism with the Islamic banks. What a parochial view. Let the Christians also sponsor the poor and fellow less privileged brethren.

The fourth point to improve people interest in Christian knowledge is to prove the veracity of Bible's claims. How many times have people questioned statements in the Bible and get it proven? To buttress the leader's myopic and lazy attitude, they will say the Word of God is inspirational and therefore should not be questioned. While deliberating on what topic to write my master's thesis on, God gave me an instance in the Bible.

If you can remember Daniel and the three Hebrew kids did well in their academics, just eating vegetables and water, more than their colleagues that ate delicacies. They did well because their memories were intact. I, then, discovered that vegetables could have preserved their memories, on the other hand delicacy given to their counterparts could contain additive, precisely Monosodium Glutamate, used in making food tasty in recent time. Glutamate has been discovered to be neurotoxic impeding balanced memory.

Alcohol, present in the king's wine, obviously doesn't go well with the brain. I now used the scenario to conduct a research on Monosodium glutamate and also research the antioxidative effects of a vegetable spice, ginger, which helped improve memory and that gave me a brilliant presentation in my research.

The research was, eventually, published in the abstract listing of the Molecular and Cellular Cognition Societies in San Diego, California United States of America. I got the idea from the Bible.

The Bible also talked about mutation when Jacob dipped a stick inside the water for Laban's, his uncle, livestock to get strong animals by staining while the sheep with no stick-dipping in their water were unstained but weak. Jacob has initially negotiated stained sheep with Laban. That is the Bible's application in genetics

Do you know that Joshua prayers to stop the sun from going down during one of his battles, was responsible for an additional "one" day added every leap year?

Every year, the earth take 365 ¼ days to revolve in its orbit round the sun, instead of 366 days, because Joshua slowed the earth's rotation down by some hundredth of a second.

These are few points to tell you the Bible can be made presentable and interesting to everyone both to the illiterates and intellectuals instead of threatening people with hell fire if they fail to come to church.

I, always, ask them, since they have been preaching "hell fire" how many souls have been converted.

The Bible, in Revelation 13:18, mentioned "number of the beast" which is the "number of man" and the Bible says people will not be able to buy or sell without the number.

Please do not misunderstand me, I didn't say you have the mark of the beast but come to think of it, is there any aspect of your life that is not decided by numbers, talk of registration in examinations and schools, telecom contacts, bank accounts, DSTV and air time purchases, you can see that there is virtually nothing you can do without numbers.

So you need numbers to buy and sell. These tell us there are lot of things you can learn and say about the Bible that will drive people interests to its knowledge. Let our leaders see reasons to motivate the youth, develop the Christian music industry and Christian knowledge programs. There is nothing bad in making the message interesting and palatable so that the message of the Word can spread throughout the nations of the earth.

This write up should stir up zeal in making Christianity popular, acceptable and enthusiastic. You don't have to moody and sad as a Christian, for it has been heard that "....in the presence of God, there is fullness of joy and the Lord's right hand is pleasure forever more..." Psalm 16: 11b.

Thank you for your time in reading this piece.