By Ighomuaye Lucky. O
The general overseer and founder of God’s Greater Grace General Assembly Intl Incorporated, Benin, Rev Sunny Akenbor, has admonished believers in Christ to be wary of some cultural practices because they could serve as impediments to growth, peace, progress and stability in their homes and in the society.
He gave the admonition while speaking on the topic: “Salvation is greater than tradition” during the church Cultural Day celebration which was marked in grandeur.
Rev. Akenbor said God Himself is not against the tradition and customs of the people but those which are not in conformity with His doctrines.
Reading from the book of John 4:3-24, Akenbor said the Samaritan woman by the well was about losing her golden chance of redemption by holding firmly to the laid down tradition and customs of her people until she succumbed to a greater logic and reasoning.
“So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
“Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
“Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
“When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
“The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
“Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
““Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
“Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
“The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
“He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth”, John 4:3-24
He said such a thing is still happening in our modern day society where some households/families are forbidden from marrying from a particular tribe because of what they were told or believed in.
He said such a thing should not be practiced among believers rather they should subject themselves to the will of God.
He said maintaining such an aged long standard/tradition have ruined many homes even in the bible where a woman has to marry seven times because the tradition permits her to marry her brother-in-laws because the demise of her first husband.
“That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.
“Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother.
“The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”
“Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.
“At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’[a]? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
“When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching”, Matthew 22:23-34.
The clergyman added that traditions and customs will not take any one to heaven but salvation through Christ Jesus will.
He said some of these traditions and customs are mere bandage and that believers in Christ should submit them to the will of God and allow God’s spirit to dwell in them because where the spirit of the Lord God is, there is liberty.
