My Mentor In A Scandal?! (REPOST)

Happy Sunday guys. It’s been a while I know…. Sighs I’m not even gonna dwell on it. I’ve been thinking about this particular thing, these past few weeks and just when I was about to draw the curtains on the topic, I read a post. And in reality that was the conclusion I drew. So I’m gonna post that here instead of saying practically the same thing. 

P.S. The post was on goldinwords.com so I hope you enjoy it.

Over the past two months, I’ve got three different messages from some Steve guy. First I thought it was spam, but the way he’d taken his time to fill out all the required details, it was clear this guy was legit. In it, he was telling me that my favourite apologist, a man whose talks, sermons and intellectual arguments in defence of Christianity has impacted me beyond words, had been recently involved in a sex scandal! There norrrrr my heart did kpa. He’d even added links I could read on to see for myself. I’m hopelessly curious, so me too I clicked on it. There were copious well-crafted narrations all ‘proving’ that indeed Ravi was guilty.

I went back to Google, and typed ‘Ravi Zacharias in sex scandal’. The links that came up were from a specific kind of sites…about three of them. Immediately I sensed foul play. It felt more like the result of a well-brainstormed lifelong mission and unrelenting determination to defame Ravi. But I caught myself thinking ‘So what?’ So what if Ravi had done it? What if he had five children with different women and there were sex tapes? what if he was a kleptomaniac or a patron of a porn website? So what? Will I suddenly start looking for a second wife? Will I suddenly start entertaining thoughts that his powerful messages had dispelled from my mind? Will I be justified in courting my sensualities? Tweaaaaaa!

One of the easiest ways to start compromising your values is to see someone you respect do same. It gives this sweet escape for your conscience. I mean if indeed David and Jonathan were lovers, then then then it’s ok to be gay right? or if Jesus and Mary Magdalene were doing Maame ne Paapa, then He was a hypocrite right? If adultery was behind the Arch Bishop’s divorce then masturbation by an up-and-coming believer cant be bad right? Wrong!

Never make the mistake of making the morality or amorality (speculated or factual) of anyone you respect the basis for your faith. I mean take me for example, I keep nudging you to believe God for more, to do right, to draw closer to Him, will every meaning I’ve made become nonsense because I’ve contravened it? No.

Ravi spoke one of my favourite quotes “The Bible has a sense of humour in how over the generations it has managed to outlive its pallbearers”. If a man has at any point spoken the true words of God, his shortfalls are his shortfalls. They are unfortunate, but they don’t invalidate the edifying truth he’s impacted you with. No man is God, no pastor is. They’re all vessels! Does it mean that because today water is pouring from the same bottle you poured ice kenkey out of last week, that the ice kenkey wasn’t indeed ice kenkey? What are you talking me?!!

I stared at the scathing message sent to me to tarnish Ravi to me and decided that even if it was true, it wouldn’t change how I felt about the transformational impact his messages have had on me. Yes I will be disappointed in him, pray for him, and myself that I never end up in that spot but I wouldn’t release my mind from the conscience his messages have sharpened. When you get to that point, you free yourself from the moral implosion you feel when you hear of a respected preacher in a scandal.

The thing you should crave most and long for and pray for is discernment!You’re so sad if you cant  discern and even worse if you think you’re discerning but arent. Only the Holy Spirit can make you discerning. Proof? But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.  So you need to know Him personally and be sensitive to His voice, that way if your version of a Ravi isn’t legit, you wont feel right inside. That way you wont make a God of a man who himself has weaknesses to deal with. Crave discernment fam, crave it like life! It protects you from all the ‘intelligent’, ‘lucid’, ‘logical’, ‘flawless’ atheistic arguments that could dissolve the foundation of your faith. Even when a respected God’s general falls, it filters the edifying truths of the man’s ministry from his failures.

So Steve, whether Ravi Zacharias did it o, he didn’t do it o, it doesn’t make this boy here appreciate him any less. God help us all!

Thanks for making it thus far, let’s meet in the comment section then, shall we?