Fountain of Reason

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (Rom. 8: 26-27)     I remember that night in 1983. I was invited to an Activity by the Evangelical Christian group of the University College Hospital Ibadan, and I was there. Towards the end of the event the Leader, Paul Temile, made some announcements and did some promotions which included a Prayer Programme coming up in a few days. He gave some superlative projections of expectations of the night of the promoted prayer session; continuing, he said “We shall be tonguing, tonguing, tonguing, tonguing, ---”. Roars, heckles, claps whistles, rent the air. He started again and they joined him: “tonguing, tonguing, to...

Once upon a time, Jesus was teaching, and there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by. A paralyzed man was brought on a bed, whom they wanted to bring in to him but could not find a way to bring him in, because of the crowd. They went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed, through the tiling, into their midst and before Jesus. Something happened: When He saw their faith, He said to him, "Man, your sins are forgiven you." And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Luke 5: 20-21) Once upon another time, in the house of Simon the Pharisee, Jesus encountered the sinner woman who washed his feet with her tears, wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet and anointed them with fragrant oil. Something happened: Then He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themsel...

Abiding   1. THE FLESH AND THE BLOOD One day, when Jesus taught at Capernaum, directly after the miracle of the Feeding of Five Thousand with five barley loaves of bread and two small pieces of fish, he said to the people, who had sought him out perhaps to see if he could perform that kind of miracle again: "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." (John 6: 48-51). This statement astounded the people hearing it. Some of them perhaps thought he was speaking metaphorically but most of them understood there was nothing metaphorical or allegorical about the statement. That is why they reacted the way they did:   “ The Jews therefore qua...