“EVALUATING THE EFFECTS OF MERCHANDIZING MINISTRY ON SOME TELEVISION STATIONS IN 21ST CENTURY: A STUDY OF PROPHETIC MINISTRY IN GHANA”

Abstract

In contemporary day’s doom-trapped spirituality where illusory through exploitative means by façade prophets in Ghana is on ascendancy with its outrageous consequences, there is urgent need to evaluate the effects and the awareness of the Church, the academy and the general public through insightful, informative, and educative avenues which is grounded in the Word of God to expose Satan’s manipulative agenda for desperate clients through merchandizing prophetic ministry in Ghana. This article evaluates the effects of merchandizing ministry in the context of prophetic ministry in Ghana. It explains ministry as a whole and prophetic ministry in the context of Christian theology, and further draws a clear dichotomy between false prophetic ministry that leads to slavery in satanic kingdom and true prophetic ministry that leads to emancipation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Few factors like cultural worldview of African spirituality and illiteracy rate of the Ghanaian populace that contribute to merchandizing ministry are discussed. Again, this research compares ministry as set forth in the Bible with that of the 21st century and concludes that a great number of contemporary prophetic ministry is slavery and not emancipatory. To buttress biblical truth, this paper unfolds some of the extreme biblical praxis of these merchandizing ministry and their frustrated patrons on few selected television stations in Ghana. Finally, there are biblical recommendations which serve as “a wake-up call” to the 21st century Christian Church to teach and preach sound biblical doctrine in the power of the Holy Spirit to emancipate such tyrannical exploiters as well as their distressed clients from the mud of slavery into the Kingdom of God through faith in the Prophet, Priest and King Jesus the Christ.