Friday, 4 September 2015
Check Out Our Own Julius Agwu And Amiable Wife Hosted At Buckingham Palace...
Nigerian President Buhari Names Chief of Staff And Media Aid For Osinbanjo
Press statement from presidency
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Mr. Rahman Adeola Ipaye as Deputy Chief of Staff and Mr. Laolu Akande as Senior Special Assistant (Media & Publicity) in the Presidency.
The two new appointees will work in the Office of the Vice President.
Mr. Ipaye is the immediate past Attorney General of Lagos State.
He studied at the University of Lagos where he graduated with B.A. (Hons) Degree (History) in 1984; LL.B. Hons (1988) and LL.M. (1991). He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators respectively.
Before his appointment as Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ipaye was employed as a lecturer in the Department of Commercial and Industrial Law, University of Lagos (1992 to 2001); Special Assistant (Legal Matters) to the Governor of Lagos State (2001 to 2007); and Special Adviser (Taxation and Revenue) to the Governor of Lagos State and member of the State Executive Council (2007 to 2011).
Mr. Laolu Akande graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1990 with an honours degree in History and a Masters degree in Communication & Language Arts in 1992.
He became a Staff Reporter of the Guardian newspaper in 1990 while still serving under the National Youth Service Corps. He left The Guardian to join the foundation team of The News Magazine in 1993, where he became Senior Writer. In 1997, he was appointed by Nigerian Tribune as editor of the Tribune on Saturday, a position he held until he moved to the United States of America in 1998.
In the United States, he worked as a journalist with the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Newsday. He also served at the United Nations as a Press Officer and later as an Advocacy and Communication Consultant. He was also the Bureau Chief of The Guardian in North America and the Executive Director of the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, CANAN.
Mr. Akande taught at the State University of New York at Stonybrook and also Suffolk County Community College in Long Island, New York between 2002 and 2015.
Ipaye and Akande have been working with Vice President Osinbajo since the inception of the present Administration.
Femi Adesina
Special Adviser to the President
(Media & Publicity)
Cult Members Bury Motorist Live In Lagos...
A war is brewing in the Mushin area of Lagos State after some suspected cultists dragged a motorist out of a commercial bus and buried him alive. PUNCH Metro learnt that the yet-to-be-identified victim was on his way to the Oyingbo area of the state. He was said to have been dragged out of the bus at the Total bus stop in the Mushin end of the Ikorodu Road. A witness, Jacob Amos, said the incident happened around 8pm on Wednesday, adding that policemen from the Alakara Police Division were alerted.
He said, “The man was in the bus when he was dragged out at Total bus stop. They brought him into Mushin and I immediately alerted the policemen from Alakara.“The police went to Adewusi Street, and searched the place for more than one hour, but they did not find anything. They patrolled the place and when they did not see anything, they left.“Around 10pm when everybody had gone home, they brought the man to the Railway Line and push him from head down into a filled canal. Only his leg was sticking out.”The victim was said to have died soon afterwards.
A witness, who did not identify himself, said the police ordered him to pull out the corpse from the murky water. Friends of the deceased from Market Street, Oyingbo, were said to have shown up to identify him. A resident lamented that the police in the area, were not doing enough to arrest the unrest in Mushin, lamenting that there were saboteurs in the force. He said it was the second time in a week that people from the Oyingbo area would be hounded and killed in Mushin, which could start a war between the two communities. He said, “The police in this area have been compromised. When we called them yesterday that someone had been captured around Oyewusi Street, an informant of the cultists whom we suspect work with the police, quickly alerted the guys and they left the place.“They brought the victim to our side to make it look as if we are responsible for his death. Their plan is to set the Oyingbo boys against us and trigger a war.”
Residents of the area alleged that the increased killing of suspected cult members from Oyingbo was orchestrated by one Rilwan, aka Itakun. Other men said to be in the group are White, Ese Chicago, Ina, Anarchy and Riliwanu. The source said Itakun had his family house in Oyingbo and left the area due to persecution by some suspected cultists. He said, “After he left, he started living in Mushin with a gang member. Later, he decided to start paying back those he perceived as the leaders of the gang in Oyingbo. “Last week, he invited one Tunde Eleto to Mushin and the man was stabbed and shot dead by his squad,” he added.
However, another resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, denied that anyone was killed in the community. He said, “There is nothing like that. Nobody was killed on the Railway Line or anywhere for that matter.” A resident, John Ayuba, told PUNCH Metro that the government was complicit in the cult fights in Mushin. He said successive governments in Lagos State had refused to address the problem because they used the cult members for politics. When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Command, DSP Patricia Amadin, had yet to reply to a text sent to her as of press time.
Nigerian Actor Emeka Blames Pastor Chris Okotie For Ruptured Marriage
Pastor of the Household of God Church, Lagos, Chris Okotie, has described an allegation levelled against him by Nollywood actor, Emeka Ike, that he is responsible for the crisis rocking his marriage, as rubbish. Ike had, in a statement on Thursday, accused Okotie of stalling efforts he is making to save his marriage with Suzanne.Trouble started in Ike’s home recently, when the wife accused him of assaulting her.While the actor has repeatedly denied this, the woman is said to have filed for a divorce in a Lagos court.
Ike alleged that instead of Okotie, who he claimed to have admitted Suzanne to his church, to intervene in the matter, he was encouraging her to pursue the case.He also claimed that the pastor gave the woman N500,000 to hire a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.He added, “Yes, Pastor Chris Okotie just absolved (sic) my wife into his church without making any effort to get in touch with me. If, as a pastor, your church member is having issues with her husband, and you fail to do anything to resolve it, what kind of pastor are you? When I called him, he refused to pick my call. He also failed to react to a text message I sent to him. Is that a man of God?
“Even, if you have a police case, they will make an effort to hear from you before taking a position, not to talk of the church. I want the whole world to know because there is a lot of misinformation out there. The lawyer which Okotie hired for my wife is also frustrating every attempt I make to resolve the matter peacefully.” But speaking through his media consultant in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Thursday, Mr. Ladi Ayodeji, media consultant to Okotie, said Ike’s allegations were so baseless that he was not prepared to dignify them with a comment.
He said, “There is nothing to what he is saying. It is total rubbish. What is he saying? Why will the pastor be interested in his domestic issue? Will he say he wants to marry the woman? “What kind of man will be saying that kind of things on the Internet? Why is it that each time any of them has any issue, they always want to bring Okotie into it? Responding to the outburst will only make the guy feel important. The pastor can’t dignify him with any.”
Airport Cleaner Caught With N53M At Murtala Mohammed Airport...
And this cleaner wanted to get rich quick but see what happened....
An airport cleaner has been arrested with the sum of $271,135 (about N53m) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, it has been learnt.
The suspect was arrested by the aviation security personnel of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria while trying to carry the huge sum of money through the screening point.
The airport worker, named Mr. Tijani Owolabi, works with one of the cleaning contractors at the airport, according to a FAAN statement.
The statement quoted the Deputy General Manager, Corporate Affairs, FAAN, Mr. Onyekwere Nnaekpe, as saying that some of the foreign currency was found on Owolabi while the rest was recovered from the sanitary bucket he was holding while trying to pass through screening machine.
Nnaekpe said the agency suspected that Owolabi was conveying the currency to an accomplice at the airside of the airport.
The statement by the FAAN read in part, “Aviation security personnel of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria today September 3, 2015 prevented the trafficking of a total sum of 271,135 American dollars through the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja.
“The sum was found on a worker with one of the cleaning contractors at the airport, Mr. Tijani Owolabi, during a pat down at one of the screening points at ‘D’ Finger of the international terminal.
“The airport cleaner who was suspected to be conveying the foreign currency to an accomplice at the sterile area of the terminal, was immediately apprehended by aviation security staff on duty and handed over to the appropriate security agencies at the airport for further investigation.”
NDLEA and other security agencies said they had increased security surveillance at the nation’s airports, especially the international airports.
Amaechi Says Nobody Can Probe Me...
Big bros Amaechi just declared that nobody can probe him....read every every below
The immediate past Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, says no anti-corruption agency in the country can probe him.
It was reported some days ago that Amaechi along with some other former governors: Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano); Sullivan Chime (Enugu); Babatunde Fashola (Lagos); Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom); Sule Lamido (Jigawa); Shehu Shema (Katsina) and Martin Elechi of Ebonyi State were being probed by the Independent Corrupt Practices and related offences Commission.
However, Chief Tony Okocha, a former aide to Amaechi, saidthat the ex-governor was not afraid of ICPC or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as long as the probe was not a witch-hunt.
Okocha, however, recalled that the ICPC and the EFCC had not vacated a court order stopping any of them from investigating any Rivers Government official and as such could not probe him.
He stated that Governor Nyesom Wike was a beneficiary of such order from the court, adding that until the court injunction was vacated, it would be illegal for the ICPC to probe his boss.
“I have always said that Amaechi is not afraid of the EFCC or the ICPC as long as such probe is not a witch-hunt. Again, there is a court order that the EFCC or other agency like it cannot probe any government official in the state. Wike is a beneficiary of that court order.
“Until that court order is vacated, the ICPC or the EFCC have no right to investigate Amaechi. Since what they are going to investigate is his (Amaechi’s) activities while in government, the EFCC and the ICPC do not have such right to do so based on the standing court order.”
Heartless housemaid Murders HIs Boyfriend...
The 24-year-old Uyo, Akwa Ibom State indigene, said Ebong died because he was jealous and suspicious of her, adding that she felt no remorse since it was “a case of two fighting”.
Edeh and Ebong had been dating for one year and six months.
The 33-year-old truck driver was said to have moved into his girlfriend’s apartment on Falana Street, Ogombo, Lekki, after they both agreed to marry.
However, on the fateful day, Ebong was said to have returned from work late in the night and told his lover to prepare food for him.
The suspect allegedly abused him, leading to a scuffle between them.
In the ensuing brawl, the suspect allegedly stabbed the victim in the stomach. He died in a hospital in the area.
The matter was reported at the Ogombo Police Division and was subsequently transferred to the State Department of Criminal Investigation, Yaba.
Edeh told Punch Metro that she killed Ebong, saying the victim was drunk on the night of the incident.
She said:
On the fateful day, August 18, he came back from work and was drunk. He said I was messing around and sleeping with other men. He demanded the ring that he gave me, and I told him I could not find it. I later told him it was on the table and he should go and pick it.
He became angry and broke the mirror on the wall and we started fighting. He used part of it to cut me in the eye, and I stabbed him in the stomach with one of the splinters.
The suspect’s younger brother, who was in the room, raised the alarm.
The victim was said to have been rushed to a private hospital in the area, where he died.
Edeh said she was arrested by policemen from the Ogombo division, adding that she learnt about Ebong’s death while in detention.
She said:
It was not my intention to kill him. But it was a case of two fighting; he was drunk that night and was misbehaving. He was also the first person to cut me in the eyebrow with glass before I retaliated.
A police source told Punch Metro that the suspect stabbed the victim with a kitchen knife, and not a glass splinter as she claimed.
“The fight started after he returned from work and asked her to prepare noodles. She began to abuse him that he was irresponsible. She said she was the one housing and feeding him, while he did nothing. That made the man angry. He asked for the engagement ring he gave her, and she asked him to pick it from the table. And that started the fight.
“She picked a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the stomach, exposing his intestines. He died the next day,” he said.
This Strong Christian Lady Got Jailed Standing For The Truth.
The Christian Kentucky county clerk who has become a symbol of religious opposition to same-sex marriage was jailed Thursday after defying a federal court order to issue licenses to gay couples.
The clerk, Kim Davis of Rowan County, Ky., was ordered detained for contempt of court and later rejected a proposal to allow her deputies to process same-sex marriage licenses that could have prompted her release.
She was summoned to court on Thursday to testify before the federal Judge David L. Bunning and reiterated that she can’t issue marriage licenses to same sex couples, that it was against her Christian beliefs.
“My conscience will not allow me,” she said over and over again as she cried. She had maintained that marriage should be between one man and one woman.
Stating that her reason was ‘insufficient’, the judge sent her to jail until she changes her mind and agrees to issue the licenses.
The ruling has spurred controversies. Mat Staver who represents Davis said:
“Everyone is stunned at this development. Kim Davis is being treated as a criminal because she cannot violate her conscience. While she may be behind bars for now, Kim Davis is a free woman. Her conscience remains unshackled.” And I Lumi says she is the true voice of Christianity the world should listen to.
Thursday, 3 September 2015
True Selflessnes Displayed by a Serving Corper in Baruten Local Govt,Kwara.
A batch C Corp member named Idowu Kayode, who studied Agriculture and Animal Science at Ahmadu Bello university, Zaria, serving at Baruten local government, Kosubosu, Kwara state. According to his friend, he voluntarily did this charitable service to the people of Kosubosu because of the poor nutrition among the masses.
"His voluntary farm land comprises of various cash crops, vegetables and tuber crops. This project have added much value to the nutritional value of the people of Baruba. This kind of humanitarian self less service should be the core value of all corp members not looking out for national or presidential awards in return." Corp member Okere Ugonna said. See more photos after the cut...
Saturday, 11 January 2014
Homeland Security Arrests Missionary at Airport for Allegedly Fleeing After Wife's Murder
The good book says no man shall go unpunished so even if he had fled, i am sure nemesis would have caught up with him. What do you think?
Richard Shahan was attempting to board a flight to Germany at the
Nashville International Airport on New Year's Day when authorities
nabbed him for allegedly killing his wife last summer, according to AL.com.
Shahan, who resigned as children and families pastor of First Baptist Church of Birmingham on December 31, had announced plans at the end of November to work with Bible Mission International
in Frankfort for three years, developing teaching materials and
discipleship resources for children in Kazakhstan and other post-Soviet
countries.
But a "customs lookout" caused Shahan to be red-flagged in the computer
system, which led to his arrest by Homeland Security agents, according
to his arrest affidavit.
Police chief Jim Roberson told the press that it was important to arrest Shahan before he left the country.
"Obviously once he got over into Germany and ultimately to Russia, the
chances of extraditing him are pretty nil," Roberson said. "I mean if we
can't get Snowden back, we probably wouldn't get him back."
But Shahan's attorneys, and his former church, said the pastor wasn't aware of the arrest warrant and had no chance to turn himself in.
"I don't know all the facts that the authorities know, but I tend to
believe he's innocent," Charles Carter, the interim pastor at First
Baptist since October 2012, told Associated Baptist Press. "I do know that he was not fleeing. He was going to a mission assignment."
Baptist Press also reports on Shahan's defenders. His former church posted this statement on its website:
All of us were saddened by the unexpected news that Richard Shahan was arrested by Homeland Security just moments before his planned flight departure for Frankfurt, Germany. There he was to assume his new role working with the Children's ministry of Bible Mission International, primarily in Kazakhstan.As we know, on November 29 Richard announced his plans to pursue this mission ministry. His resignation from First Baptist Church of Birmingham was effective December 31, 2013.Our Prayers go out to Richard and his family. We trust that eventually truth and justice can prevail.
Friday, 10 January 2014
A Real Cause for Christian Outrage
Believers around the world are dying for their faith. Where’s the evangelical groundswell for them?
Swiftly on the heels of
Christmas comes the feast of the Holy Innocents. On December 28,
churches around the world commemorate the first Christian martyrs—those
who lost their lives when King Herod ordered
the execution of all males two and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
(Greek liturgy maintains that 14,000 boys were killed, while several
medieval writers claimed 144,000. Given the small population of
Bethlehem, most modern scholars agree the number to be closer to 20.)
We consider such atrocities relegated to the ancient past, a barbaric
time of intemperate, megalomaniac rulers. In today's enlightened era of
diplomacy, such evil would not go unchecked.
And yet, Christians today are massacred on a far greater scale than
from any edict issued from Herod. According to Open Doors, which
provides support for Christians around the world, Christians are the
most persecuted religious group in the world today, with 100 people
martyred for their faith each month. The Pew Forum on Religion and
Public Life reports that Christians suffer persecution, discrimination,
and harassment in 133 countries—a full two-thirds of all countries
worldwide.
In September, 85 congregants were killed in bombing
of All Saints Church in Pakistan while a consecutive attack at
Nairobi's Westgate mall claimed the lives of 72 people. On October 21,
U.S. supported Islamic rebels invaded the Syrian town of Sadad and
carried out one of the largest massacres in the country's history.
Forty-five Christians, including women and children, were tortured and
murdered. The Syrian rebels documented the massacre in YouTube videos.
British politicians, including the Minister for Faith and Communities
and Prince Charles, have called the rise of Christian persecution a "global crisis" in which Christians are becoming extinct in the birthplace of the Christian religion.
These stories get reported in Christian media here and there, or maybe
listed in a roundup of international news. They don't get written up
viral blog posts. They don't fuel tweets and retweets. They don't get
mentioned over and over again in Sunday sermons. They don't earn
Christian leaders a commentary spot on the cable news.
This is what's happening, in our world, to our brothers and sisters in faith: Babies are being ripped apart by bombs, people are losing their lives, limbs, and homes for their faith while we in the West go about our merry business.
We're incensed when a millionaire is suspended from a reality television shows for expressing his faith in a coarse manner. We march out in support
of a multi-million dollar business when the CEO comes under fire for
expressing his views on traditional marriage. But we turn our heads and
avert our eyes when the blood of the martyrs, our fellow Christians, cry
out to us from the ground.
The Problem With Trying On Atheism
We’re confused by one California pastor’s “year without God.”
Ever since A.J. Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically,
we've watched people take on—and write about—their annual religious
challenges, both the spiritually significant and the gimmicky.
I enjoyed following Rachel Held Evan's Year of Biblical Womanhood and Ed Dobson's Living Like Jesus. Now, though, comes Ryan Bell's year of atheism.
Bell, a former adjunct professor at Azusa Pacific University and Fuller
Seminary, announced that 2014 would be the year he tried atheism.
A Seventh-day Adventist, Bell resigned from a pastoral position months
ago following outspoken criticism of a number of the church's stances,
including its treatment of women. His work for peace and justice and
interfaith dialogue "earned me rebuke and alienation from church
administrators," he writes for the Huffington Post. Bell's theological concerns led him to undertake a "year without God." For 12 months, he writes:
I will live as if there is no God. I will not pray, read the Bible for inspiration… I will do whatever I can to enter the world of atheism and live, for a year, as an atheist. It's important to make the distinction that I am not an atheist. At least not yet. I am not sure what I am. That's part of what this year is about.
Bell's year without God raises plenty of questions. How does one try
atheism on, as if it were no more than a pair of jeans to wriggle into? I
applaud Bell's pursuit of truth here, though not his methodology. Every
person should have the freedom and ability to seek out truth, so Bell's
curiosity and honesty are commendable. But this notion that he can turn
his faith off for one calendar year, then flip the switch back should
he so desire strikes me as strange.
I love what Dallas Willard had to say
about finding truth in the person of Jesus: "Indeed, no one can
actually believe the truth about him without trusting him by intending
to obey him. It is a mental impossibility." Belief, in this case, is
more than mere mental assent. So I wonder why Bell chose to turn to
atheism rather than, say, a more progressive version of
Christianity—especially when he is employed by so many Christian
organizations.
The issues Bell has with the church, and even his interest in atheist
thought, doesn't require a turn to atheism. There must be room for
doubters in the church, and this is certainly a good reminder to those
of us who fill the pews on Sunday to make a place for them.
Christians Can't Be Too Busy to Love Their Neighbors
Even as "living in
community" and "intentionality" become buzzwords among Christians, our
lives seem to be getting busier than ever and our packed schedules—and
misplaced priorities—can keep us from taking the time to get to know one
another.
Many of us build barriers that prevent us from reaching out to the
people that we encounter on a daily basis, those that live right next to
us, and even the parents of those kids that play with our kids. Barely half of us know our neighbors' names.
It's not that we simply don't care; in fact, we are quick to respond to
someone in need, we bring food, offer money or a ride to work, and even
pet sit. But that's only as long as it is just temporary assistance,
something we can do once, or only when it is really needed. We like to
feel that have contributed and have somehow acted "Christianly" enough.
It can be uncomfortable to suggest that that's not enough, that we are
called to much closer community and much greater sacrifice than we're
allowing for right now. A couple of books I've recently read (and asked
my students at Oklahoma Baptist Unversity to read) propose these
questions: Do we have a responsibility, as believers, to build more
genuine relationships with our neighbors? And is part of the Christian
life being intentional about getting to know and care for our immigrant
brothers and sisters in particular?
In The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside our Door and Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion, & Truth in the Immigration Debate, the
authors propose that living in isolation from our immediate neighbors
and keeping a distance from the immigrant community often lead to fear
and misunderstanding, and most importantly, a missed opportunity to care
and love for others just as God has loved us.
In The Art of Neighboring, pastor Jay
Pathak and nonprofit director Dave Runyon tell us that neighboring is
about "empowering people and breaking down walls. It's about doing
something together for the common good." In essence, each of us can
better our communities and advance the Kingdom by being engaged and
involved in the lives of others via service, friendship, and daily
interactions with one another.
While Welcoming the Stranger focuses on
our relationships with and understanding of immigrants, both books point
to fear as the main obstacle hindering our developing real
relationships. In the book, the authors—World Relief's Matthew Soerens
and Jenny Hwang Yang—give examples of how listening to the stories of
others helps clarify, connect, and erase misunderstandings we might have
about them.
Jesus Is More All Right with Jews
Whether
more Jews are accepting Jesus remains a matter of debate. But more
American Jews seem to be increasingly accepting of other Jews who accept
Jesus.
A Pew Research Center study
released in October reported that 34 percent of American Jews think
believing Jesus is the Messiah is compatible with being Jewish.
Thirty-five percent of ultra-Orthodox Jews agreed. By comparison, 94
percent of all U.S. Jews said a person can be Jewish and work on the
Sabbath, and 68 percent said a person can be Jewish and not believe in
God.
"This does not mean that most Jews think those things are good," said
Alan Cooperman, deputy director of Pew Research Center's Religion and
Public Life Project. "They are saying that those things do not
disqualify a person from being Jewish. [But] most Jews think that belief
in Jesus is disqualifying by roughly a 2-to-1 margin."
Still, some see the survey positively. "The Pew survey highlights a
quantum shift," said Richard Harvey, senior researcher for Jews for
Jesus. "Jewish identity is more and more seen in cultural and ancestral
ways rather than through religious expression."
Markers for Jewish identity have shifted, said Russ Resnik, executive
director of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations. "The
gatekeepers are still holding the line against us, but a lot of Jewish
people in the larger community recognize we're here to stay, that we're
part of the Jewish community, that we're concerned about Jewish causes."
According to Pew, messianic Judaism is still small: Of Americans with a
Jewish background or identity who practice a religion other than
Judaism, only 2 or 3 percent say they're messianic. A similar percentage
say they're "Jewish and Christian." (About two-thirds just say they're
Christian.)
Yet they are a distinctly visible minority. One reason for that is
their mission efforts. For example, Chosen People Ministries recently
opened the multimillion-dollar Messianic Center in Brooklyn, New York,
to attract the borough's many ultra-Orthodox residents. It launched with
the organization's largest outreach campaign ever. "We've had very
little opposition," said president Mitch Glaser. "The Jewish community
is more used to us."
But suspicions remain. Ruth Guggenheim, director of the Baltimore-based
Jews for Judaism, warned members of the Brooklyn community that the
missionaries will, as she told The Times of Israel, "make inroads because they are offering free services to the community and unconditional love."
Derek Leman, rabbi at Tikvat David Messianic Synagogue in Roswell,
Georgia, said faithful Jewish living has worn down opposition more than
overt evangelism has. In recent decades, he said, "more messianic Jews
have participated in the mainstream Jewish community. Many of us see
ourselves as fellow travelers on a journey with God with the rest of the
Jewish community, and we take a posture of humility about the reasons
we believe in Yeshua."
Messianics are being accepted in the academy as well. The 16th World
Congress of Jewish Studies included a first-time panel on messianic
Jewish studies. Gershon Nerel, a historian of Jewish believers in Jesus,
said organizers included the panel "because the topic reflects not only
a developing social reality within contemporary Jewry but also a
growing field of scholarly research." Though Jewish believers in Jesus
are marginal, they are salient and impossible to ignore, he said.
Still, Glaser noted, there is "considerable prejudice in the Jewish
community toward those who believe in Jesus. And there are far more of
us than the Jewish community is ready to admit."
Can We Date Outside the Faith?
Type the word "dating" into your Bible search tool, and what comes up? Nothing.
I remember wishing there was an entire book of the Bible dedicated to
the topic when I was single, or at least a chapter. Now, I get emails
from singles across the country looking for guidance on who and how to
date.
While many start off with intentions of finding a godly partner, with
each passing year the waiting feels longer and the hoping gets harder.
Slowly, we can find ourselves starting to second-guess our original
standards, wondering if we've been too extreme or unrealistic. Within
that struggle, inevitably the question comes up: Can a Christian date a
non-Christian?
The Bible addresses the hardships that come with marrying a
nonbeliever, so that's rather clear. But single Christians may be
tempted to say, "Well, it doesn't talk about dating. Can't we just
date?"
To answer, it's important to take a step back and look at some
principles found in Scripture. In Corinthians, Paul writes to a new
group of Christians, who've asked him what's okay and not okay for them
to partake in as believers in Christ. Paul then challenges the church
not to simply ask, "Is it okay?" but instead to ask, "Is it beneficial?"
(1 Cor. 10:23).
When a topic isn't directly addressed in the Bible, this can be a
helpful guide for us. Because yes, it's okay for us to date someone who
doesn't profess Christ. But to ask Paul's question, does it benefit our
walk? Does it push us closer to Jesus? God doesn't call us to simply go
after the acceptable in life, but the best, most enriching, most
God-glorifying. Dating a nonbeliever may not be a sin, but we can do
ourselves an injustice when okay gets in the way of what is best for us.
Again, God's Word doesn't talk about dating in particular, though many
of its principles can guide our relationships. 2 Corinthians 6:14
reminds us of the importance of being bound together with believers.
Genesis 2:24 tells us there is no greater binding experience than the
commingling of two people into one, in this thing we call marriage. God
knows the difficulty that comes with making two into one, and he
encourages his children to be yoked together with someone with whom they
can become fully one—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We are
holistic beings, and in order to truly connect, we must find someone
with whom we can connect on every level.
Many Christian singles, even those considering pursuing relationships
with people outside of the church, know this deep down. But waiting for
love can be trying. It's easy to grow weary in waiting and attempt to
jump into a relationship with someone that you may connect with
physically and emotionally, but not spiritually—believing that this is
as good as it gets and settling for less than best. For people who find
themselves in this situation, it's important to remember the reason for
the waiting.
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