Month: February 2019

Cogitation XVII: Who Am I?

Posted on by Leke Alder

My name is Leke Alder. It’s a name given me by my father. The surname was a name given him by HIS father. That name, “Leke” is a piece of history, not of me but of my father. It is his perspective on my birth. The full name, Oluwaleke literally means “the Lord overcame.” It is a Yoruba word from the west coast of Africa. It is a narrative of the difficulty of my birth. It enunciates the brutal warfare between the forces of darkness and light as propounded in Christian theology. It’s actually my middle name. My first name is Samuel. Curiously I had adopted the name in response to my search for identity as a 16year old African. But both my middle and first names are two expressions of the same difficulty. In Shakespearean lore I was not born of a woman. I was born by caesarean section. It was a most difficult birth and for my mother it would be the first and the last. The name Oluwaleke is therefore a proclamation of victory. […]

Cogitation XVI: Tourism Sites In Heaven

Posted on by Leke Alder

There’s that mistaken belief heaven is a one-way ticket. Truth is, it’s not. Only hell is. In Christian theology hell is a one-way ticket. There’s no return flight from that dimension. But heaven is not a one-way ticket. The Bible says the righteous are coming back to earth after a relatively brief stay in heaven, albeit as citizens of a new earth: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.” Revelation 21:1-3 NLT. The passage suggests God will have a base on earth and domicile with mankind. He’ll live with humanity. […]

Cogitation XV: Stranger Than Fiction

Posted on by Leke Alder

Jesus liked to provoke the politicians of his day, especially those pesky Pharisees and Sadducees. They were insufferable! They controlled the levers of power in Jewish society, but they were caught in contradictions. They were vicious with power and yet claimed religious piety. There was all that hypocrisy as well. Pharisees specialised in religious showmanship – finding the best camera angle to display piety on TV… Well, they didn’t have TV in those days but you get the point. They prayed on street corners to get extra view. They staged prayers! […]

Cogitation XIV: God And Time

Posted on by Leke Alder
The Book of Revelation has to be the scariest literature ever produced. What with all those strange creatures that Marvel and Star Wars movies borrow from! Even the image of God in Revelation is scary. There’s so much energy coursing through him – enormous amounts of energy: “Immediately I was in the Spirit, and a throne was standing in heaven with someone seated on it! And the one seated on it was like jasper and carnelian in appearance, a rainbow looking like it was made of emerald encircled the throne.” Revelation 4:2‭-‬3 NET‬. ‬‬Those colours are energy spectra, God is not a stone. It’s why John says he’s LIKE jasper and carnelian. Carnelian is reddish brown. Jasper is brownish. Those colours are wavelengths of energy. There are flashes of lightning and thunder from that throne. That’s because there’s so much energy electricity is being generated. It’s why we can’t move near God physically. Too much radiation. ‬Now we can understand why Jesus is the intermediary. He stepped down the power and energy the way you step down voltage: “The Son is the radiance and only expression of the glory of our awesome God, reflecting God’s Shekinah glory, the Light-being, the brilliant light of the divine, the exact representation and perfect imprint of His Father’s essence…” Hebrews 1:3 AMP. ‬‬

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