Book
review: Back from America with Wisdom of the Serpent
By IGNATIUS ONYIA
Sunday,
April 13, 2008
Two years after he left Nigeria for the United States for
further studies, Vincent Chiedu, the president of Surrender
& Triumph Ministries International, is back to the country
with a controversial religious book, The Wisdom of the Serpent.
Published by Xulon Press in the US, the book seeks to, among
others, make Christians rediscover their identity in Christ
and brace up to fulfil their specific assignment in the Kingdom
of God, as well as make non-Christians awaken an inner desire
in their hearts for relevance in the outworking of the glorious
plan of God for mankind.
An automobile engineer and a pastor, the author has served
the Lord in various dimensions in the ministry of prayer and
deliverance, including leading and teaching the prayer department
of a large Pentecostal church in Nigeria for nine years as
a director of prayer and hosting the highly popular early
morning duty devotional prayer programme called “The
Dew of Heaven” on an FM radio station in Lagos for three
years.
Before writing the book, the author, who has occupied a leadership
position in the house of God for many years was able to have
a bird’s eye view of some of the problems bedeviling
the Christian faith, historically and in the present and what
he envisaged as the challenges in future.
“So, as part of my growing process in the faith, I immersed
myself in the scriptures through the benefit of the revelation
from the holy spirit and my personal experiences, my mentors
and different people, I was able to distill what I found to
be some of the core contradictions in the practice of faith
today.
“So, I decided I was going to steer men back towards
the eternal truth that has been captured for us in the scripture
so that we can all live more fulfilled and successful lives
in the world,” he said on what inspired the writing
of The Wisdom of the Serpent.
Vincent admitted that the book has some controversial contents,
but they are not deliberate. Above all, “The most controversial
human being in existence is our Jesus Christ, and I don’t
think he intended to be controversial. So, likewise, anybody
who decides to stand for the truth will come against certain
traditions, mindsets and worldviews that have been accepted,
whereas truth is immutable, not what men have come up with
as the normal way of doing things. So, inevitably, I did expect
it to be controversial when I decided to stay on the part
of truth as reviewing the scripture.”
One of the issues discussed by the author in the book is tushiya,
a Hebrew word for sound wisdom, which he said is lacking in
the body of Christ. He explained: “The Lord said that
my people perish for lack of knowledge, so it is understandable
if there is lack of knowledge. If there is a prevalent lack
of knowledge, there will b4 a prevalent lack of understanding
in some of the spiritual realities.”
One of the reasons he wrote the book is to make people understand
what they need to be questing after. “Tushiya is one
of the seven pillars of wisdom, though it is applied, but
not in its optional context,” he said.
To the untrained eye, it may appear that Christians are not
winning the battle against the principalities. But to the
trained eye, like Vincent, the devil has been getting a good
hiding from Christendom for so long.
“There are scriptures that suggest to us the things
that we should look for as evidence to us that the Kingdom
of Heaven is actually taking the battle to the place, and
that is actually taking place. The battle is on; we are winning
the war. The spoils of wars for us are not the trappings of
the world; they are higher, more noble realities.”
Vincent affirmed that there is no nation on earth that is
exempted from the operations of the rulers of darkness. “The
Bible says that the god of this world has blinded the minds
of people. Satan is the god of this world, because Adam surrendered
authority of the earth to it in the Garden of Eden. So, wherever
you find yourself in the world, the rulers of darkness are
in operation, but it is more in certain areas than others.”
He refrained from specifying any particular country as being
the headquarters of Satan in the world, although an American
religious minister he quoted in the book stated that Nigeria
is the notorious place.
“Some writers also believe that the Republic of Benin
is the headquarters of Voodoo and sorcery in the world. To
me, it is really doesn’t matter where the headquarters
of Satan is, but, as long as you have exempted yourself by
an acceptance of the truth and the application of the revelation
that comes from that, it doesn’t really matter where
you find yourself,” he said.
The author stated in the book that prayer is a dying act in
Christendom, yet we have more churches in every nook and cranny
of the world now than ever before. Vincent reiterated the
view that “an increase in churches doesn’t automatically
translate into an increase in prayers, because prayer is an
act, a communion between man and an infinite God, and involves
the disposition of your heart. Therefore, one is not necessarily
a conqueror of the other.”
The Wisdom of the Serpent is currently available in some major
bookshops in Nigeria, the UK and the US, as well as online
at amazon.com, barnesand noble.com, etcetera.
(photo caption: Vincent in a book signing at Barnes &
Noble, Arizona, USA)
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