“This is What Apostasy Looks Like by Akin Ojumu
Apostasy takes two forms. The first occurs when there’s a falling away from key and true doctrines of the Bible into heretical teachings that claim to be “the real” Christian doctrine. A second form of apostasy is when a self-professed Believer completely renounces the Christian faith and fully abandons Christ.
You can determine the extent of the apostasy of a Church body by how the people react and respond to transgression. A Church that rejoices when God’s law is flaunted is a Church that’s far gone into an apostate state. Whenever a group of professing Christians celebrates a rebellion against God’s command, you know that’s a people who have abandoned biblical Christianity for a man-made idolatrous religion.
Considering the rejoicing, celebration, and the outpouring of congratulatory messages that trail the installation of Mrs Funke Felix-Adejumo as a Bishop in the Household of God, you know that the Church in Nigeria is an apostate Church. They may have the appearance of being alive, but, like the Church in Sardis, they are dead.
Those of you who think Mrs Funke Felix-Adejumo is called by God to the office of a Bishop, you all need to hook yourself up to a spiritual Holter monitor and check whether your beating heart is actually beating for God. If you endorse this illegitimate coronation, you either don’t know or want to accept what the Bible says about the role of women in the Church.
In his first letter to Timothy, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, set the rules guiding women’s responsibility in God’s House.
1 Timothy 2:11-15
“Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
Paul echoed a similar sentiment in his first letter to the Corinthians when he addressed the issue of order in the Church.
1 Corinthians 14:33-35
“As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”
Paul’s teaching regarding women’s role in the Church is not based on his personal preferences or opinion. The rationale for his instruction is the divine order of Creation. When God formed mankind, Adam was made first and Eve second. Paul’s guide for how men and women are to function in Church worship gatherings is predicated on this divine pattern. It was the violation of this divine order of Creation that ushered the catastrophe of sin and death into our world.
It’s through the lens of above clear biblical guidance on the role of women in the Church that the consecration of Mrs Funke Felix-Adejumo as Bishop, which is in reality a desecration of God’s precept, should be seen. The shambolic elevation is an affront to God and effrontery to His command. It’s an egregious violation that’s as eternally damning as the rebellion of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
If, by now, you’ve already labelled me a holier-than-thou male chauvinist, let me make myself explicitly clear. What I AM NOT saying in this commentary is that women are less spiritual than men. And I’m also not saying that women are inferior to men either. The Bible does not teach any of these things.
Before God, there is no distinction in spirituality, no distinction in the essence, no distinction in personhood, and no distinction in the worth or value of the person, between a man and a woman.
There’s no distinction between men and women when it comes to thought, intellect, will, mind, capacity, or ability. Likewise, there’s no distinction in terms of what they can accomplish for God or how they can relate with God. Women are not subordinate to men in terms of anything other than the role each has been assigned within the framework of family, society, and the Church.
Nevertheless, as you study the Bible, it becomes pretty clear that God has a divine order in society relative to man and woman. This divine order is manifest in marriage, the Church, and every dimension of human life.
The basic pattern of God in every society, as it relates to the differences between men and women, falls into two broad categories comprised of two factors: authority and submission.
For the purposes of their role in society, men have been designed by God to have the position of authority, while women have been assigned the position of submission. That is God’s divine pattern, and it’s the distinction in the role each of the sexes is supposed to play.
Authority, however, must never be confused or conflated with superiority. While men have been given divine authority over women in the society, God has not given men divine superiority over women. The distinction in the roles between men and women does not mean men are superior.
Just as men and women are biologically different, they are also functionally different. Each plays different roles in the family, Church and society. Having said that, the role one group plays is of no greater importance than the role played by the other group. The role God creates a woman to perform is equally important as the role of a man.
Women are permitted to fill many roles in the Church. The only roles women are prohibited to fill in the Church are the ones that involve teaching or exercising authority over men. And as Paul concluded in 1 Corinthians 14:38, “If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.”
And this is why the Bishopric of Mrs Funke Felix-Adejumo, or of any other woman for that matter, is not recognized by God. So, if you belong in a Church where the Pastor is a woman, I hate to break it you, you are not really in a Church and you don’t have a Pastor.