Vice President Yemi Osinbajo challenged leaders to document their experiences to change the world while advising preachers in Nigeria to pay Pentecost Tax.
The Nation’s Vice President who is also a clergyman spoke in Lagos on Friday, September 17, 2021 during the public presentation of “Kumuyi, Defender of the Faith”.
The book is a biography of Pastor Folorunsho Kumuyi, Founder and General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry.
The book is a biography of Pastor Folorunsho Kumuyi, Founder and General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry.
According to Osinbajo, “every person, especially those who succeed in their endeavours in life, owes society three taxes. The first is income taxes – personal income tax, and if you own a company, company, or corporation tax.
“The second is a social tax, another name for that is philanthropy. The obligation of the wealthy to give back to society.
“The third tax is a civic tax; the obligation of the successful to write their stories, to share the histories of the phenomena they have become, in order to instruct, to admonish and to inspire the present and the future.”
In summation of taxes citizens are obligated to pay, Osinbajo added that there is a fourth tax. This he called “the Pentecost Tax,” which he said was for successful preachers of the gospel.
“But for the successful preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, there is the fourth tax, this is the Pentecost Tax. The obligation of men and women since the day of Pentecost, the day described in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit empowered the disciples to preach the gospel, to tell the story of their missionary journeys. The miracles, signs, and wonders that God has wrought on that journey, the deprivations, the fastings, and the persecutions. The victories and failures, the mountains and the valleys.”
According to the Vice President, “this is a huge responsibility. But the saints before us discharged that responsibility so we are the beneficiaries of the Acts of the Apostles, the stories of the men and women who carried the gospel first to Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
“Their stories have encouraged generations of Christians since, their recorded experiences may seem to make them stars, but they are meant to instruct us in adherence to sound doctrine, to rebuke us and instruct us unto righteousness.”
While unveiling the book, he stated that “the book, Kumuyi the Defender of the Faith, begins the work of discharging the Pentecostal tax obligation of Pastor Kumuyi. The book tells the story of the incredible work of the Holy Spirit in his life and Ministry. How by His grace, he not only preached and continues to preach holiness to a whole generation, but lived and lives it himself daily.
Giving a summary of the book, the Vice President mentioned that, “the book tells the story of how the Holy Spirit worked miracles through him (Kumuyi) and how from a Bible study group of 15 members in 1973, the ministry grew to what is now the Deeper Christian Life Ministry and at one point, with 120,000 members, making it the third-largest single congregation in the world.”
