Makandiwa's spokesperson responds to criticism on call to "sacrifice money" for a prosperous 2017, says concept is biblical

United Family International Church (UFIC) pastor and Emmanuel Makandiwa‘s spokesperson, Prime Kufa has written an article in The Sunday Mail responding to criticism on calls by the church for people to sacrifice either $77, $770, $7700 or $77 000 to secure a prosperous 2017.

In the article, Kufa argues that the concept of sacrifice is not the invention of Makandiwa or UFIC but is a principle originating from God Himself and practised by the people in the Bible such as Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob through to the New Testament church. He also argues that Jesus Christ was God’s sacrifice to the world and mentions the story in Mark 12 from verse 41 where a poor widow gave all that she had to live on meaning she had nothing left to live on. He argues that if the issue of making financial sacrifices was wrong, Jesus would have said so to His disciples and gone on to stop the poor widow from giving.

He argues that every church should accept offerings and sacrifices, just like football clubs and political parties accept donations (or subscriptions or membership fees or whatever vocabulary they choose to use) from their membership for their running costs.