Leadership lessons from the Bible
We didn’t lose the church in one day.
We lost it the day a new message entered quietly — and nobody noticed what it was replacing.
Bro Gbile once said something that still sounds like a prophetic siren to anyone who has sat still long enough to hear it:
“We were all here when these prosperity preachers started coming.”
No noise. No controversy. Just free poison.
In the 70s, while he was still on campus, something began to seep into the Nigerian church quietly:
Pamphlets — free. Tapes — free. Books — free.
They carried Bible verses. They sounded motivational. They felt empowering.
Even he admitted, “I was excited.” But one day, the Lord whispered to him:
“A problem is coming.”
He didn’t have a platform. He didn’t have a position. He didn’t have the stature to confront it. He said, “I wish I had grown like this at that time. I would have done something.”
But the seed had already entered. And like every seed, it began to grow silently.
When the alarm finally became loud
He told the story of visiting a young Christian sister in her room.
By her bedside, he saw a paper titled: “My Daily Confession.”
“I’m an overcomer. I’m a millionaire. I am this. I am that. I cannot be less than this.”
He asked her, “Sister, what is this?”
She replied, “That’s my daily confession.”
Then she added something that broke him:
“Instead of all this long quiet time you people worry us about, I just wake up and say these things. And since I started, things are happening!”
That was the moment he understood the danger.
Because the shift was complete.
Kneeling prayer became performance prayer. Brokenness became bravado. Bible study became phraseology. Reverence became declarations. Submission became self-confidence.
And it all happened while men slept.
This is one of the sharpest leadership lessons from the Bible for workers: what you replace your foundation with will not announce the replacement. It will simply begin producing different fruit — slowly, quietly, and then all at once.
Proverbs 29:18 says where there is no vision, the people perish. But the perishing is never dramatic. It is gradual. It lives in the gap between when the vision is abandoned and when anyone admits it is gone.
What I watched happen in real time
I saw how a new message began to redefine ministry, prayer, calling, and Christian identity.
And here is the truth many don’t want to admit:
Most of the famous and respected pastors in this generation are offshoots of that wave that entered the church in the 70s.
They inherited the language. They inherited the posture. They inherited the emphasis. They inherited the culture of testimonies, declarations, and performance spirituality.
And because the movement became popular, powerful, and prosperous, the next generation copied the model without questioning the foundation.
The young ones today never saw the original.
They only met the edited version. They only met the amplified version. They only met the commercial version.
And when a generation grows up on the imitation, the imitation becomes their normal.
That is how a whole movement can hijack the church — and a whole career, and a whole organisation — without anyone noticing when it entered.
Jesus spoke to this directly. In Matthew 23:27, he described people who look clean and credible on the outside while carrying a different reality underneath. The presentation had become the point. Nobody had noticed the inside had been replaced.
Why I chose a different path
By the time this wave was rising, I was already a mature Christian leader.
I had seen enough of Scripture, discipleship, and authentic ministry to know what was genuine and what was exaggerated.
I saw how stories became stretched. How testimonies became embellished. How people tried to “help God” with narratives that were not accurate. And how success became the new proof of anointing.
I made my choice early.
I chose the narrow way. The old path. The path of brokenness, obedience, and Scripture — not slogans.
For the worker, the same choice arrives. Just wearing different clothes.
Your industry will reward the performance. The presentation. The declaration.
The things it does not reward as visibly — the slow work of character, the integrity no one sees, the consistency that only pays off years later — are not glamorous enough to trend.
Choosing them anyway is the leadership lesson from the Bible that most workers only understand after they have spent years on the wrong foundation.
I chose the way of men like Bro Gbile, who refused to bow to trends, who refused to dilute the gospel, who refused to turn ministry into performance.
His voice has never been the loudest.
But it has always been one of the clearest.
What the storm reveals
Jesus ended the Sermon on the Mount with two builders.
Both built. Both worked hard. Both faced the same storm.
The difference was entirely in the foundation — rock versus sand — and the difference only became visible when the rain came down (Matthew 7:24–27).
The application is not complicated. It is simply demanding.
What you build on will be tested.
The test is not optional.
The only question is what is underneath when it arrives.
Those of us who stand where Bro Gbile stands may not be many.
But we know the path we are on. We know the cost. We know the witness of the Spirit. And we know what Jesus confirmed.
The narrow way has never been popular.
But it has always been right.
The Top Achievers exists for workers and leaders asking these questions seriously — not as theory, but as the framework for how they actually build their lives and careers. Click here to Join us.
Credit: Dae Jumong
