By Oyewole O. Sarumi
In the contemporary ecclesiastical environment, a subtle yet profound heresy has taken root: the portrayal of the Almighty as a divine solicitor. This was emphasised much in the first part of this article.
The fact is that today’s church leaders have moved from a genuine Gospel of Grace to what can only be described as a Gospel of Grift, where the Creator of the universe is presented to the pew as an entity in perpetual financial distress and utter needs.
As a teacher of the Word and a shepherd of souls, I find it imperative to address this theological erosion. This is because leaders of thought in Faith are in the vanguard of this nonsensical greed.
The notion that God needs your money is not merely a harmless fundraising tactic; it is a fundamental assault on the Nature of God, specifically His theology proper, and a direct distortion of the New Covenant established by Jesus Christ. When we suggest that God is lacking, we are not preaching the Bible; we are practicing a form of spiritual witchcraft characterized by manipulation, fear, and human ego.
This second treatise serves as a clarion call to return to a Christ-centered understanding of resources and worship, acknowledging that God is not broke, He is not searching for sponsors, and He is certainly not served by human hands as though He lacked a single thing.
To understand why God does not need money, we must first grapple with the theological concept of Aseity which mentioned briefly in the first part. . This refers to the property by which a being exists of itself and from itself; God is “Ens a se”, the self-existent Being. We find the definitive rebuke to modern commercialized Christianity in the Acts 17 Mandate. The Apostle Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, confronted a culture obsessed with feeding and housing their gods. He declared that the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.
Paul’s logic is devastatingly simple: if God made everything, He cannot be enriched by anything we offer. He is the Source, not the Sink. When a leader stands on a pulpit and suggests that God’s vision is stalled because of a lack of dollars or naira, they are contradicting the very nature of the Creator. This is reinforced in the Old Testament through the words of Psalm 50, where God speaks with divine irony, noting that every animal of the forest and the cattle upon a thousand hills are His. He concludes that if He were hungry, He would not tell us, for the world is His and all that is in it. If the Creator of the cosmos required capital, He would not look to a human bank account; He would speak it into existence. To suggest otherwise is to demote the King of Kings to a beggar at the gates of His own creation.
Furthermore, we must address the transition from stone to spirit, which nullifies the “temple tax” mentality prevalent in many modern ministries.
A significant portion of modern financial manipulation relies on Old Testament shadows that Jesus has already fulfilled and set aside. Many leaders use the blueprint of the Solomonic Temple to justify massive fundraising for what they call God’s House. However, under the New Covenant, the architecture of God’s dwelling has changed. As Scripture reveals in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 1 Peter 2:5, believers themselves are God’s temple, and His Spirit dwells within them as living stones being built into a spiritual house.
When millions are demanded to build cathedrals as proof of loyalty to God, we are essentially building monuments to human vanity. God does not dwell in high-definition LED screens or gold-plated pulpits; He dwells in the broken heart and the contrite spirit. To demand money for a building under the guise that God needs a home is a theological lie.
This leads us to the psychology of manipulation, which is effectively witchcraft practiced in the garment of Christianity. In a biblical sense, witchcraft is often associated with the illegitimate use of control. When a leader uses fear by claiming you will be cursed if you do not give, or uses guilt by suggesting God is watching your stinginess, they are not operating in the Holy Spirit.
Manipulation does not require physical force; it only requires the hijacking of the believer’s conscience. When the focus shifts from the finished work of Christ to the unfinished financial goals of a ministry, the pulpit has been turned into a marketplace, the very thing Jesus cleansed with a whip in the Gospel of John.
We must compare these tactics to biblical reality: while leaders might preach a fear of lack, Philippians 4:19 promises that God shall supply all your needs. While they push transactional giving, Matthew 10:8 commands us to give freely because we have received freely. While they create loyalty tests, our ultimate loyalty belongs to Christ, not a man’s building project.
If God doesn’t need money, we must ask why the Apostles discussed giving at all. A careful study of the New Testament reveals a pattern starkly different from today’s seed-faith marathons. The purpose of New Testament giving was centered on relief for the poor, as seen in the collection for the saints in Jerusalem, and support for labourers who preach the gospel.
However, even this support was framed as an act of community care rather than meeting a divine need. The overarching goal, as stated in 2 Corinthians 8, was equality, ensuring that those with much helped those with little.
The Apostles never marketed Christ or suggested that God’s power was proportional to the size of an offering. They preached repentance and the Kingdom, knowing that if the heart was captured by Christ, the hands would naturally open to help the needy, not because God was broke, but because the believer was full of love.
Today, we face the dangerous commercialization of the Gospel, where ministry has become a brand and leaders function as CEOs while members are treated as customers or sponsors. This commercialization leads to the appetite of the leader becoming the primary vision of the church.
When leaders claim God told them they need ten million dollars or 100million Naira for their projects, we must ask if that was truly God’s voice or merely the leaders ambition. The New Covenant does not authorize the commercialization of the anointing. The gospel is not a product, and God is not a commodity. When we use God’s name to sponsor personal appetites, we take His name in vain in the most egregious way possible.
Current research into Religious Trauma Syndrome suggests that this financial manipulation is a leading cause of deconstruction and apostasy among young adults. When the divine is associated with debt, people eventually walk away from the faith.
Biblical analysis of the Greek word hilarios in 2 Corinthians 9:7 indicates that giving should be cheerful and of choice, not under compulsion. True giving is an overflow of joy, which is impossible to maintain while being pressured or manipulated.
In conclusion, we must return to a Christ-centered faith, acknowledging that the God of Heaven does not spend currency. He is the Sovereign Ruler of all dimensions, and as leaders, we must be sincere in asking whether we are building God’s kingdom or our own reputations and empires. We must stop the rhetoric of divine lack and retire the phrase “God needs.” Instead, let us preach what God has: He has grace, He has mercy, and He has provided everything we need for life and godliness through Jesus Christ.
Christ is enough; His sacrifice was final, His temple is us, and His provision is certain. For the believer who has been told that their financial status determines their standing with God, be at peace, for that is a lie. He is the Alpha and the Omega, moving long before currency existed and moving long after it is gone. Trust in the Provider, not the pressure, from these earthly pastoprenuers whose taste for luxurious living is drving them into extra biblical practices that God of heaven abhors.
Remember, brethren, God is enough, He doesn’t need your money. He need your soul and life to be at rest in Him. That’s all that matters in the end. Maranatha!!!
Prof. Sarumi, a Bible Scholar, write from Lagos