maedan:

Wow. He has no "testimony"> that's really deep. Some of the points raised actually make sense. How, when and where was he saved, who was his pastor/ spiritual leader? Even if he was a pagan(and he claims he was born a Christian, so that's out), there must be some background somewhere. In any case one day the truth will out, as they say.

I haven't find any reason to believe he is not a man of God yet. I think we should hear TB Joshua testimony of his salvation and not what soft sell magazines claim . This is an article of his I found of his conversion and calling.

I was brought up from a Christian home. My father’s name is Kolawole Balogun. He was a Christian. He was a farmer who was also the secretary to St. Steven’s church in our village. When the white people came to our village, he served as a translator. He was translating English into Yoruba. He was an educated man. He lived with the white people as well as serving as church secretary. I cannot say much about my father because he died when I was a small boy. I know that he loved me a lot. I was his pet. I was the one who suffered most from the effect of his death. Being the last born, anywhere he is going, he would take me along. He would carry me to the church. As a little boy, I would be running inside the church. I would jump from the choir to the catechist’s table.

Some people used to rumour that my father was a Muslim. I don’t know where they got that from. My father was a Christian and I am a Christian. When I was very small, I could recall him taking me to church regularly. As a kid attending primary school, my dad would make me to stay after school with a Catholic priest whose house was at the back of the church. I did all the normal things kids do, like running around and playing football.

When my father died, my mum’s brother who became the father figure to me was a Muslim. That does not make me a Muslim. I was brought up in a Christian home. And right from childhood, I was passionate about the Bible. Right from primary school, I was well versed in Bible knowledge. It was my favourite subject and I excelled in it. As a primary six kid, I read the New Testament twice. In my secondary school days, I finished reading the Bible on the average of two months.

Every two months, I would have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It was the only subject that I believed so much in. It was as if Bible was the only subject that interested me in primary and secondary schools. In exams, I scored 99 percent consistently whereas I performed woefully in other subjects. My excelling in Bible knowledge affected the other subjects where I performed poorly. At school, I was the leader of the Scripture Union.

Even though I was second in primary school, I didn’t find it easy getting admitted into secondary school. As luck would have it, I got late admission into Muslim College. In that Muslim College, we were restricted from carrying the Bible openly. To read the Bible, we would have to hide under the mango tree or backyard and the Muslim community would begin to chase us. We were all 20 in number then. Like the early Christians, we would read the Bible in secrecy because they never allowed us to do it openly. I was the leader of the Christian team in the school, at Ansar-Ud-deen Grammar School, Ikare. And because of the pressure, I couldn’t finish a year in that school. It was obvious I couldn’t fit into this dominantly Muslim setting. So I left the school. I left because my life was in danger. I could sense that since I was doing this thing secretly, one day something could happen to me. To avoid that I had to leave. From Ikare, I came to Lagos.

Based on the hostility and the religious intolerance at Ansar-Ud-Deen Grammar School, I decided to leave Ikare for Lagos. I met some people who used to carry cassava from the village to places like Ibadan and Lagos. I approached them and explained my predicament to them. They would spend four days on the road transporting the cassava to Lagos on the trailer. The trailer would be loaded with stuff like cassava and cocoa while the owners would sleep on top. I decided to join them. I did not tell my parent I was going to Lagos. I stayed inside the vehicle for four days before getting to Ibadan. From Ibadan we landed in Mile 12 in Lagos. They dropped me there and told me: “This is where we can carry you.”

For five days, I was in Mile 12. It was during the rainy season. The job I was doing was washing the feet of people coming out of the muddy market. I would wash feet and be paid little money with which I fed. I was washing feet until one day I heard two women conversing in my native dialect. I interrupted their conversation and asked if they were from Arigidi, my hometown, and they said yes. I told them I was in Lagos to trace my sister whose whereabouts I don’t know. Luckily, I was able to trace my sister to Egbe area of Lagos. After 10 days, I traced her and started to live with her. That is how I started my life. Today, I have an NGO for motor park boys, because I have also been one myself.

I realized my sister had her own family and I should not be burden to her. I do not like inconveniencing people. If I visit your house and you give me a bottle of soft drinks, I would make sure I put something in the envelope, because I believe we make a living by what we give and we make a life by what we receive. This is what I believe in. In life, you don’t just have to collect and collect. It destroys one’s life. You have to give and give. Because the Bible says, you must see giving as an assignment from God.

‘I carried shit to make a living’
I left my sister to live with a friend. From there, I got a job as a poultry farm attendant. The poultry is still there now. Not long ago, I traced the poultry to somewhere in Ikotun. The job they gave me is to carry shit. Fowl shit. And fowl shit smell is more terrible than human faeces. I was doing this job with many Ghanaians. There were so many Ghanaians in Nigeria then. I was the only Nigerian in that poultry farm. And I never let people know I was a Nigerian. I declared myself a Ghanaian too, because nobody would believe a Nigerian would do that kind of job. I did the job for three days and my body odour changed. When I’m moving about, people would perceive odour and flies would be hovering around me because I was smelling very badly. There was no amount of soap I would bath that would remove this odour from my body. As you are working in the poultry farm, the fowl shit would be dropping on your head. I did this for one good year.

At the same time, I enrolled in an evening school. New State High School is the name of the school. I attended many schools in Lagos. I would attend one school for two months, only to be sent away because of school fees. I attended New State High School, Ansar-Ud-Deen Grammar School, Isolo, and another school called Metropolitan. Because I was very good in athletics, I was given what looked like scholarship. I won gold, silver and bronze in athletics. But I needed to work to support myself at school. That was why I took the poultry job. I was using it to pay my school fees. In those days, evening schools were like full, normal schools. You could easily attend evening school to do your WAEC and GCE. We even received better lessons in the evening than in the day school in those days. I was sending myself to school and at the same time teaching children Bible studies.

My athletics took me to Baptist Academy. When I was running they picked me. Under one year, I attended 15 schools here in Lagos. And I did not finish one year. I don’t remember the year, because I cannot keep records. But it’s all in the documentary on my life. I was born 1963. At least, I remember that one.

‘I confronted a mad man at school’
My first attempt at discovering God’s spirit in me was when a mad man came to my school. In those days, I used to be called Small Pastor. One morning a madman came to our school with a cutlass and everybody was running helter-skelter. The teachers all fled and the classroom was empty. I came and saw this mad person. The spirit of God spoke to my heart, not to my ear. I hear the voice of God in my heart and not in my ears. I heard the voice of God telling me: “Go there and collect the cutlass. Just tell the madman to bring the cutlass.” When I was moving towards the madman, everybody was concerned for my safety. They were saying something like: ‘This is boy, he wants to die.’ I just went to the madman and commanded him: “Give me this cutlass, in the name of Jesus.” The madman gave me the cutlass. I collected it and gave it to a teacher. It was from there they started calling me Small Pastor.

From there, they would call me in the assembly and ask me to pray for them. Every time I would pray for them. If they want to play football, I would pray for them. They began to come to me individually for prayers. It was pray for me, pray for me, pray for me all the way. They asked me how I was able to overcome the madman and I told them I was surprised myself to see what happened.

You see, God Almighty is awesome. He can use any medium to express Himself. He can use sand, water, stone, rod, he can use anything. When Moses was asking God, what should he do, God asked him: “What is in your hand?” He said rod. Then God said: “Use it to divide the sea.” Or are you talking about Paul and Silas in the prison yard? They were there and they never said: Hey, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus. They just sang praises to God. The used the medium of sound. Or are you talking of Joshua. He said to his people to just shout Alleluia and the walls of Jericho fell. God uses any medium to express Himself.

The ministry started from St. Stevens Primary School where I collected the cutlass from the madman and where I started leading the Scriptures Union, teaching the Bible and everything. This is where the awareness of God’s presence in me started. It continued. Everything big starts little. If everything big starts big, it calls for concern.

I was in Bahamas with the President of Bahamas, very close to Florida when my mother died. This is the picture. I was with him when they called me. Synagogue had already come into being. I was with him when they said my mother was a bit down, that they brought her from the village. They said my mother wanted to see me and have a word with me. Before I came back home, my mummy was gone. My mummy was late. It was too late for me. That was how I missed my mum.

She was a wonderful mother. The only little problem I had with my mum is that she wanted to see everybody succeed in life. I used to tell my mum: success is a two-sided affair. I have a role to play, God has His own role. It is not all up to God and certainly it’s all not up to me. Success is a kind of partnership between man and God. I cannot define failure, because I don’t believe in failure. There is no failure in my book. All I see is success, directed by the spirit of God. But as human beings, we cannot be perfect. Perfection eludes every human being. God is perfection.

‘I spent 15 months in my mother’s womb’
Back to my early beginnings, I was the last born of the family. When I was born a lot of strange things happened. Seven days after I was born, I was told that I was put on a mat and a big stone nearly crushed me but miraculously I escaped. How did it happen? White people used to come to do borehole in our village. And in our village, it’s all stone under. When they are drilling, they would be hitting stone and stones would be flying out dangerously. Before any drilling, they would publicly announce that everybody must stay at home to avoid the danger of being hit by a flying stone. The stone used to fly because of the nature of the machine they use. It was on the seventh day when they wanted to name me that they put me on the mat and a big stone flew from where they were drilling, pierced the roof where people were celebrating and landed where I was placed. But it missed me, narrowly. The stone is still being kept till now. Nobody has ever heard this story from me.

maedan:


So what is the essence of this autobiography and what exactly does it show/prove?

" I was brought up from a Christian home. My father’s name is Kolawole Balogun. He was a Christian. He was a farmer who was also the secretary to St. Steven’s church in our village. When the white people came to our village, he served as a translator. He was translating English into Yoruba. He was an educated man. He lived with the white people as well as serving as church secretary. I cannot say much about my father because he died when I was a small boy. I know that he loved me a lot. I was his pet. I was the one who suffered most from the effect of his death. Being the last born, anywhere he is going, he would take me along. He would carry me to the church. As a little boy, I would be running inside the church. I would jump from the choir to the catechist’s table.
Some people used to rumour that my father was a Muslim. I don’t know where they got that from. My father was a Christian and I am a Christian. When I was very small, I could recall him taking me to church regularly. As a kid attending primary school, my dad would make me to stay after school with a Catholic priest whose house was at the back of the church. I did all the normal things kids do, like running around and playing football.

When my father died, my mum’s brother who became the father figure to me was a Muslim. That does not make me a Muslim. I was brought up in a Christian home. And right from childhood, I was passionate about the Bible. Right from primary school, I was well versed in Bible knowledge. It was my favourite subject and I excelled in it. As a primary six kid, I read the New Testament twice. In my secondary school days, I finished reading the Bible on the average of two months.

Every two months, I would have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It was the only subject that I believed so much in. It was as if Bible was the only subject that interested me in primary and secondary schools. In exams, I scored 99 percent consistently whereas I performed woefully in other subjects. My excelling in Bible knowledge affected the other subjects where I performed poorly. At school, I was the leader of the Scripture Union.

Even though I was second in primary school, I didn’t find it easy getting admitted into secondary school. As luck would have it, I got late admission into Muslim College. In that Muslim College, we were restricted from carrying the Bible openly. To read the Bible, we would have to hide under the mango tree or backyard and the Muslim community would begin to chase us. We were all 20 in number then. Like the early Christians, we would read the Bible in secrecy because they never allowed us to do it openly. I was the leader of the Christian team in the school, at Ansar-Ud-deen Grammar School, Ikare. And because of the pressure, I couldn’t finish a year in that school. It was obvious I couldn’t fit into this dominantly Muslim setting. So I left the school. I left because my life was in danger. I could sense that since I was doing this thing secretly, one day something could happen to me. To avoid that I had to leave. From Ikare, I came to Lagos.

Based on the hostility and the religious intolerance at Ansar-Ud-Deen Grammar School, I decided to leave Ikare for Lagos.

‘I confronted a mad man at school’
My first attempt at discovering God’s spirit in me was when a mad man came to my school. In those days, I used to be called Small Pastor. One morning a madman came to our school with a cutlass and everybody was running helter-skelter. The teachers all fled and the classroom was empty. I came and saw this mad person. The spirit of God spoke to my heart, not to my ear. I hear the voice of God in my heart and not in my ears. I heard the voice of God telling me: “Go there and collect the cutlass. Just tell the madman to bring the cutlass.” When I was moving towards the madman, everybody was concerned for my safety. They were saying something like: ‘This is boy, he wants to die.’ I just went to the madman and commanded him: “Give me this cutlass, in the name of Jesus.” The madman gave me the cutlass. I collected it and gave it to a teacher. It was from there they started calling me Small Pastor.

From there, they would call me in the assembly and ask me to pray for them. Every time I would pray for them. If they want to play football, I would pray for them. They began to come to me individually for prayers. It was pray for me, pray for me, pray for me all the way. They asked me how I was able to overcome the madman and I told them I was surprised myself to see what happened.

onye_ngbu:

I only sense jealousy in all these TB Joshua criticisms.

Back in the '90s when TB Joshua has no swagger or followership, how many of all these funky pastors did care tp trace his roots?

Now that the man has got  followership which is = more money and swagger, they are now on his case like 24/7.

I can only say its jealousy. Period!

Me sef I no trust TB Joshua but I trust him a million times more than ashimolowo, chris okotie and chris oyakhilome.