The Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo on Friday charged religious leaders, especially well-to-do pastors, to pay their ‘Pentecostal tax’ which will go a long way in telling their stories, achievements and life experiences in the Ministry to affect generations.
Osinbajo made this call in Lagos during the Public Presentation of the biography of the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry entitled “Kumuyi: Defender of the Faith”.
The Vice President asked religious leaders in the country to emulate early apostles of the gospel who also discharged the responsibility of paying tax, stressing that religious leaders in the country owe this as an obligation.
According to him, “For the successful preacher of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a fourth tax. This is the Pentecost tax; the tasks to tell what you have gone through in ministry and this is a huge responsibility.
“The saints before us, discharge that responsibility. So we are beneficiaries of the Acts of the Apostles, the stories of the men and women who carry the gospel first to Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, and then to the end of the earth. Their stories continue today, and the baton has been handed over to our own generation.
“This Pentecost tax is one that we must all pay, it is one that men and women who preach the gospel must pay. It is not about personal reflections and personal aggrandisement. They owe an obligation and it is that obligation that produced the Book of Acts. So the book, ‘Kumuyi: defender of the faith’ just begins the work of discharging that tax, that obligation to tell the story of the missionary journey.”
Osinbajo further explained that every successful person must pay three forms of taxes including a Civic tax which is “the obligation of the successful to write their stories and share the histories of the phenomena they have become, in order to instruct, to admonish and to inspire the present and the future”.
“Every person, especially those who succeed in their endeavours owe society three forms of tax. The first is Income tax; personal income tax. The second is a Social tax, another name for that is philanthropy; the obligation of the wealthy or simply those who have to give back to society”.
