The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, has issued an apology for his previous statement that any believer who does not pay tithes will not enter heaven.
While addressing the congregation during the ongoing annual national youth convention at RCCG Redemption City, Pastor Adeboye expressed his regret and offered clarification on the matter. He said: “I am going to be talking to everybody as soon as God permit me, I am going to apologise for making a mistake for saying that if you don’t pay tithe, you will not be making it to heaven. That is wrong.
“That is not in the Bible. What the Bible says is to make peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see God. What the Bible says is, to follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man will make heaven.
“It is possible to be right and wrong at the same time. I will prove it to you. For years, we taught that light travels in a straight line. Later we say it travels in waves.”
Adeboye went on to share an experience from one of Kenneth E. Hagin’s ministry conventions in Tulsa, United States. He recounted how a man made a pledge to contribute more than all the other participants at the event. At the time, the total contributions toward the construction of Rhema Bible College amounted to approximately $3.5 million, but the man vowed to surpass the combined donations of everyone else toward the project.
He said: “The man told me how he had started a business with 500 dollars and had told God if he blessed him, he would not insult Him with 10 per cent.
“Five years after the man started the business, he said he was making a turnover of 50 million dollars. And that was what inspired me also to give towards God’s work violently.
“If you want to dominate, you must know how to praise God violently. How did David become king? He was not the first in the family, he was not even recognised but he knew how to praise God, he did not do it gently but violently, with all his might.
“Unfortunately, most of us don’t appreciate that. When we are much younger in the Lord, we praise God freely. As we begin to grow in the Lord, our praise becomes gentle, more civilised, and more polite. David, even after he became king, danced so vigorously that even his wife mocked him.
“Your giving must be of the violent type. King Solomon gave thousands of burnt offerings to God and God said there would not be a king before or after him, and he would not fight a single war, because kings fight war to retain their domain and the Bible records that he has peace all round.”