"the good confession"

Two weeks ago, Pastor Ntapo preached a short message based on John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

The preacher's point was that Jesus came in order that we might know God, and indeed that the purpose of human life on this earth is to know God. Consequently, he admonished his people to know God before they die.

This probably sounds too typical, another example of standard preaching-for-conversion. Except that it wasn't.

The pastor's message was not accompanied by the question "Where will you go when you die?", the stereotypical warning of revivalism, but "What will you confess at the end of your life?"

He said that many of "our people confess when they die that they have killed so and so through witchcraft"; instead of a confession of evil-doing, he urged his people to do good in order that they could confess it in the end.

Obviously, the pastor thought that having nothing good to confess at the end of one's life is punishment enough--and motivation enough for his people to walk now in the way of Jesus, growing in the knowledge of God.

That the pastor might not accomplish the purpose for which he was placed on this earth is, in fact, his greatest fear. I have heard him say on several occasions that "the cemetery is very rich because of all the people buried there who never used up what God deposited in them."

"When I die," he says, "I want to be empty."

And that is why he presses on, amidst formidable obstacles, to teach a young congregation the way of God. "I was born for that," he testifies, citing Jesus' words before Pilate (Jn. 18:37). It will likewise be his "good confession" when he dies (1 Tim. 6:13).

-Joe