— Tim Cantrell
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
“Stay out of my private life!” We expect to hear that in the world, but not in the church. Unsaved professionals might live a two-faced, double life – shining in public, while masking a home life in shambles. But if there is any one place, amidst this world of lies, where we expect integrity and honesty, it is God’s house, “the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).
That’s why we are rightly angered and dismayed every time we hear of hypocrites in the pulpit. In recent years in Africa, there have been an appalling number of public scandals of high-profile preachers who are now biblically disqualified by divorce, yet they refused to step down or soon returned to the pulpit: Ray McCauley; Chris Oyakhilome; Enoch Phiri; Joshua Iginla; Aloysius Bugingo, and the shameful list of villains goes on and on.
Guilty Pastors
The latest, most prominent of these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt. 7:15) in South Africa is At Boshoff, founder and senior pastor of Christian Revival Church (CRC), claiming more than 90 church campuses worldwide with an estimated 120,000 members across Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. In December 2024, CRC’s media outlets publicly celebrated Pastor At’s wedding anniversary. Yet two months earlier in October 2024, after months of separation, At and Nyretta Boshoff were legally divorced in a Gauteng court!
These latest incriminating evidences against Boshoff amount to at least a triple disqualification of a very popular and influential pastor who should’ve been removed long ago, and who has been misleading tens of thousands of souls and deserves a millstone hung around his neck (Matt. 18:6). Boshoff is disqualified on three counts: (a) for teaching unbiblical, soul-damning Word-Faith heresy; (b) for a failed marriage (not a “one-woman man”, 1 Tim. 3:2; Tit. 1:6); (c) for lying and covering it all up for years.
Guilty Accomplices
How does someone like Boshoff still have a ministry? How can anyone still bear to listen to such a liar? How many layers of complicity among his leaders does it take to shield such a heretic from accountability? Do God’s people not realise that they too will be held responsible, not just their failed leaders? God’s Word is clear that He will judge hearers who tolerate the disqualified preachers who tickle their ears (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
What is the whole reason the biblical list of requirements for church leaders is given to the whole congregation (in 1 Tim. 3 and Titus 1)? So that the flock can affirm or deny if these men are qualified in God’s eyes. Which is also why the Bible tells us how to publicly rebuke and remove a pastor who has become disqualified (1 Tim. 5:19-22). It is not the job of the state to guard the pulpit (or some CRL); that is our job as congregations, and it cannot be delegated to Caesar!
God owns everything, so we will all answer to Him one day for every cent that we spend, including which ministries we endorse and which preachers we are funding (Ps. 24:1; Rom. 14:12; Matt. 25:19). Likewise, every time you attend another meeting with a disqualified preacher, or even click on or download his on-line messages or tune in to his radio show, you are condoning his life and his doctrine.
The Apostle Paul warned, “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed” (Gal. 1:8-9, same warning repeated twice). By supporting a scandalous hypocrite in the pulpit, how dare we approve of one whom God curses? Jesus rebuked the churches of Pergamum and Thyatira for tolerating sin and heresy instead of confronting it (Rev. 2:14-15, 20).
Guilty Excuses
But some will ask, “How could God use these preachers so mightily, with so many followers, if they are disqualified?” Yet Scripture warns that “many” will be led astray by Satan’s lies and myths (Lk. 6:26; 2 Pet. 2:1; Matt. 24:11). Cults and false religions draw massive numbers, as revealed every year in Mecca as Muslims flock there by the millions. Truth is measured by God’s Word alone, not by numbers (Jn. 17:17).
Others will ask, “How could such pastors be rejected by God when He used them so powerfully in my own life?” But God can speak through a donkey if He wishes (Num. 22:28-30)! God’s Word is so powerful that He can use the tiniest portions of it in the most unlikely places. The power is in the message, sometimes despite the messenger (Isa. 40:6-8; 55:11; 1 Pet. 1:23-25).
Just because God honours His Word, or His providence uses a cursed instrument, it does not signal His approval of sin (Jam. 1:13-15; God used wicked kings like Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus, but still judged them). Give credit where credit is due – to God’s truth, not a disqualified mouthpiece.
Grave Consequences
Worst of all, these bad-boy Boshoffs cause an unsaved world to mock and scoff at our faith and discredit our gospel. The very reason a church must only appoint a blameless leader is so that “he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil” (1 Tim. 3:7). Preachers are called to vigilance over their life and their doctrine, for the sake of their own salvation and their hearers (1 Tim. 4:12,16). But when churches tolerate hypocrites in the pulpit, the Word of God is “dishonoured” (Tit. 2:5,8,10).
Why do so many professing Christians keep platforming these wolves (including denominations, church associations, ministerial fraternals, ordination & licensing councils, Bible schools, media platforms, TV & radio stations, and broadcasting networks, etc.)? What does that say about their own souls if they don’t love the truth enough to confront error (2 Thess. 2:10-12)?
Are they more in love with the bright lights, the big show and the loud music, bowing down to the idols of entertainment, experience and income? All it would take to shut down these snakes and liars would be for their hearers to stop listening to them!
May God remove these false prophets from our midst and replace them with biblically qualified shepherds who will love the flock enough to feed them with the truth and to back it up with holy lives (Acts 20:17-35).