PENnED

At the outset, let me say that I like Pastor Tony Rapu’s preaching style. He is also a good communicator. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he is a popular pastor in Nigeria.

Pastor Rapu’s communication skill may be above average but the way he preached on the story of the people of Israel, who were enslaved in Egypt, is quite typical of what you’d hear from the average pastor. So what’s the difference?

The difference lies in the fact that people call his message a prophecy of the coronavirus pandemic.

Let’s be clear about what a prophecy is. As you have probably already heard before, there are two kinds. One has to do with the proclamation of the previously revealed word of God. Some have called it the “forthtelling” kind. Preaching the Scripture falls under that category.

Another has to do with the proclamation of the word of God about a future event that nobody else knows about until the prophet reveals it. The prophecy is a privileged information until the prophet makes it known to others. Some have described it as the “foretelling” kind.

When people talk about Pastor Rapu’s “prophecy” of the coronavirus in December 2019, what kind of prophecy are they referring to? Forthtelling? Or foretelling?

In an article published in a Nigerian magazine, City People, Tayo Oyediji wrote:

Within the Christian fold, some pastors were privileged to have heard God told them about the global pandemic disease, Coronavirus (COVID 19) ravaging the world as it stands now. It has affected the world that most people now resort to God to take control. This outbreak could be likened to the pestilence been mentioned in the bible and also some school of thought termed it to be the end times as the book of revelation in the bible revealed. But one of the most privileged pastors to have seen and heard from God about this global outbreak is Pastor Tony Rapu.

According to Oyediji, Pastor Rapu received privileged information and thus the latter meaning of prophecy, foretelling, applies.

And it seems very clear that that’s the kind of meaning the people who spread the message on social media have in mind. The most obvious is in the way it is introduced:

This is the Prophet everyone is talking about with the accurate 2020 Prophecy. He preached this December 31, 2019.

Here are a couple of  problems I see with that claim:

1. The “prophecy” was preached on December 31, 2019

That date is very important. We must ask the question, If it was a privileged information, such as in a predictive prophecy, then only Pastor Rapu knew about the coronavirus at that time.

The problem with that is that the first known case of COVID-19 dates back to November 17, 2019, perhaps when a 55-year-old person from Hubei province contracted it.

By the time Pator Rapu preached on the last day of 2019, the news about the virus has already spread across the globe. In Minessota, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported the following:

Health officials in China are investigating the cause of a pneumonia outbreak in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province that has sickened 27 people and seems to be linked to a seafood market.

Could Dr. Rapu have known about the epidemic in Wuhan? (Yes, “Doctor” Rapu because he is also a medical doctor, even though he is reported to have “put down his stethoscope and picked up the Bible some 25 years ago.” )

The answer to that is, being a doctor, it is likely that Dr. Rapu knew about it. It is easy to see the reverend doctor as a person who keeps himself abreast with what’s going on in his first area of interest: health.

We do not know that for sure though. However, even if Pastor Rapu did not know about it, I still don’t think we can call his message prophetic, in the predictive sense of the word. And that’s for the simple reason that it was not a privileged information. Other people, perhaps a great number, already knew about it.

Pastor Rapu himself does not seem to claim that his sermon was a prediction of the pandemic. When you listen to him about how believers should respond to coronavirus, he does not make any connection to the sermon he preached, or at least to the “Stay in the house” exhortation (the meaning of which might have changed if he claimed his sermon as a predictive prophecy.

Also, Pastor Rapu’s Facebook posts do not show any indication that he knew something as bad as a pandemic would plague the world. In fact, on the same day he preached the sermon he wrote with optimism (which appears to contradict his “prophetic” message),

Better days are coming.
Stayed (sic) tuned child of God.
Get ready for 2020
The best is yet to come.

But if Pastor Rapu has in fact claimed that his message was a prediction of the coronavirus pandemic, then that’s another story. As far as I know, he has not done that.

And that leads us to the next problem.

2. “Stay in the house” in Pastor Rapu’s sermon is taken literally

“Stay in the house” does not have the same meaning as the encouragement to stay home or self-quarantine because of the coronavirus.

When you listen carefully to what Pastor Rapu said, you cannot miss the metaphorical meaning of “Stay in the house”:

What is the house? The bible is saying stay in a certain attitude, stay within a certain framework of your mind, do not panic about the situation. Have a certain attitude. It is an attitude of faith. It is an unshakable trust in God.

Any preacher who used the same Scripture passage could have used the same or similar expression, “Stay in the house.”

God said to Moses,

On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.” (Exodus 12;12-13, NIV).

With those words from God–assuring his people that they would be safe in their houses–what do you think Moses could have said to the people? You got it. Stay in the house! (Or something to that effect.) That’s what any preacher might say too. And like how Pastor Rapu used it, with an allegorical meaning.

The conclusion, Pastor Rapu preached a very good reminder: Stay in the house. And what he meant by that was to have an attitude of faith. But it was not a prophecy in the predictive sense of the word.