Original Research

Gehazi: Profiting in African Christianity from diseases, poverty, demons and death

Favour C. Uroko

Received: 26 Mar. 2025; Accepted: 10 Dec. 2025; Published: 28 Jan. 2026

Copyright: © 2026. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Abstract

This article examines the spiritual merchandising in African Christianity in light of the narrative regarding Gehazi in the Old Testament. In Africa, faith-based healing and deliverance are performed on an exploitative basis and for personal enrichment. Many Africans experience physical and spiritual challenges, making them vulnerable in the hands of these exploitative prophets and pastors. These challenges are the reasons why religious leaders commercialise healing, deliverance, exorcism and prophecy. Existing literature has failed to address this issue through the lens of Gehazi in 2 Kings 5:20–27. This study adopts the narrative method, using data from the pericope and relevant academic literature. The study shows that under no circumstances should spiritual gifts be for sale. This study further shows that deception attracts God’s judgement. Furthermore, the narrative shows that greed corrupts one’s ministry.

Contribution: The study highlights the importance of contentment. The church in Africa should prioritise spiritual growth, integrity, contentment and honesty in mission and ministerial work. Christian teachings should be centred on spiritual transformation rather than emphasising miracles and deliverance.

Keywords: Gehazi; Elisha; contentment; deception; African Christianity; deliverance.

Introduction

In African Christianity, cashing in on diseases, death and demons is a phenomenon that has defied all known social–cultural solutions. Christianity in Africa is no doubt on the rise. From Nigeria in Western Africa to South Africa in the South, and from Uganda in the East to Sudan in the North, one hears an increasing number of narratives concerning pastors and prophets making money by charging those seeking their spiritual assistance in matters of helping during sicknesses, preventing one’s death or that of a dear one, and casting out demons. Africans believe so much in the spiritual world and its power to inflict death and disease on human beings. Thus, notwithstanding that Christianity is from Europe, Africans have succeeded in assimilating the Christian religion into the African Traditional Religion. This is a religion in which the African prays to his ancestors for protection from diseases, evil spirits and death. The increasing Africanisation of Christianity necessitated the increasing patronage that Christianity enjoys in Africa. An African Christian sees the Christian God as having the ability to save him or her from attacks and death. Thus, many Christians approach the clergy to seek favour from God for protection and provision. Thus, many of these prophets take advantage of the numerous challenges faced by a continent rapidly transforming socially (Owojaiye 2019). The challenges are many, ranging from the spiritual to the physical.

No doubt, Africans always attribute religion to everything that happens to them. Africans feel that their physical and spiritual problems can be curbed through God’s assistance. Healing in African culture is an inextricable component of African spirituality and the traditional way of living (Singh & Bhagwan 2020). The challenges in Africa include leprosy, blindness, deafness, dumbness, Down syndrome, juvenile delinquency, misbehaviour such as one having the spirit of stealing or prostitution, and insanity. All these and many more push the African man or woman into seeking spiritual solace. The traditional African view of the world believes that unseen powers affect everyday life. For example, these forces may provide a bumper harvest, guard properties from theft or inflict undesirable consequences (Gachuki 2021). This quest by Africans to seek spiritual insight into their challenges, notwithstanding the price they have to pay, provides a background that was observed by the money-for-prayer prophets, and they used this to strengthen their selfish grasp over their victims. The Old Testament is not silent on this, as it has narratives of money paid for prayer and of prophets who suffered the consequences of that.

The narrative of Gehazi is one of those painful stories in the Old Testament in which the faithful servant (2 Ki 4), Gehazi, lost all he had laboured for as a result of greed and lack of contentment (2 Ki 5:20–27). Gehazi, whose master Elisha had rejected cash for prayer from Naaman, went ahead to collect those gifts. This action was the fruit of his unbelief in Elisha and inability to control his thoughts and behaviour (Woodcock 2021). Notwithstanding that every day of the week, Gehazi was in the presence of the Spirit-endued prophet Elisha, observed the lifestyle of this man of God whose privilege was to enter the presence of the Lord day by day and received instructions from him and other privileges, he wanted to profit from spiritual gifts (Thomas 2007). The end was that those gifts led to his downfall both as a servant of a prophet and also as the possible replacement of Elisha. The lessons in Gehazi’s life are crucial for shedding light on the consequences of African prophets engaging in cash-for-money prayers. The merchandising activities of these prophets have been going on for centuries, with many approaches taken to curb the negative component of these activities.

Studies have investigated the merchandising of spiritual powers in African Christianity (Okuyade 2011; Uroko 2024). Even so, the existing literature has not yet studied the increasing cash-for-money Christianity amongst prophets in Nigeria, using the theoretical framework of Gehazi. This study explores this gap. Regarding the research methodology, this study adopted the narrative method with data obtained from the pericope and relevant academic literature. Firstly, this article will examine the ministry of Elisha. Secondly, the article discusses his positive exploits and his quest for profiteering in I Kings 5. Thereafter, the lessons from the pericope were used to shed light on the Nigerian context.

The ministry of Elisha

Elisha took over from Elijah as the most powerful prophet in Israel. Elisha performed so many miracles that even in death, he was still performing miracles. Furthermore, he engaged in prophecy beyond the conventional prophetic tone of prophets before him. Elisha even engaged in the politics of his day (war with Moab, ch. 3; war with Aram, chs. 5–7) (Satterthwaite 1998:1). His prophetic oracles were both for the commoner and for kings, such that even warriors from other nations, such as Naaman, came to him for help. In fact, Bostock (1980) likens Jesus to the new Elisha. Jesus and Elisha are seen as having similar lives and ministries. They both multiplied food and raised the dead. Elisha used 20 loaves to feed 100 men. Jesus used five loaves to feed 5000 people.

Elisha was called through Elijah (1 Ki 19). Elijah was the person that God commanded to choose Elisha as prophet in his stead, Jehu as king of Israel and Hazael as king over Syria. Throughout the narrative of the prophet Elisha (2 Ki 2–13), Elisha’s miracles repeat and multiply elements of the miracles of his teacher Elijah (1 Ki 17 – 2 Ki 2), from whom he requested ‘twice as much as your spirit’ (2 Ki 2.9) (Levine 1999). Elijah found Elisha ploughing a field and placed his mantle on him. Immediately, Elisha left everything and followed Elijah.

After Elijah went to Heaven, Elisha began his prophetic ministry. In fact, in 2 Kings 2:9–10, Elisha received a double portion of Elijah’s anointing. The miracles of Elisha cannot be underestimated. He parted the River Jordan (2 Ki 2:13ff), healed the waters at Jericho (2 Ki 2:19ff), multiplied the widow’s keg of oil (2 Ki 4:1–7), raised the Shunammite woman’s son (2 Ki 4:18), purified a stew that was poisoned (2 Ki 4:38), fed 100 men with 20 loaves of bread (2 Ki 4:42ff), healed the Syrian general of his leprosy (2 Ki 5:1ff) and made an iron axe head float on the water (2 Ki 6:1–7). Elijah, his predecessor, showcased power when he pronounced death on Ahaziah for engaging in the worship of Baal (1 Ki 22:53) and consulting Baal Zebub of Ekron (Hess 2023:54).

Elisha demonstrated the imminent judgement that God can give. Some children were mocking him, and he called upon God to send two bears that ate the 42 children. Elisha facilitated Jehu’s anointing so that the anger of God upon the house of Ahab could be fastened. Elisha pointed people and nations to God, showing practically the power of God to make and to destroy. These manifestations informed Nantenaina, Raveloharimisy and McWilliams (2015) to claim that modern Christian leaders can become involved as agents of change in their communities, specifically in ways demonstrated by principles of community development seen in the Old Testament prophet Elisha’s miracles. Elisha addressed the problems of poverty, conflict and illness, amongst others. Christian leaders could imbibe these by performing actions showing compassion for those suffering, mobilising resources and granting mentorship, amongst others.

The positive exploits of Gehazi

From the beginning, Gehazi showed traits of a loyal servant and prospective prophet to Elisha. This was the same role Elisha had towards Elijah. He was very much involved in going on errands for Elisha and also taking the gospel of Elisha’s exploits to those willing or unwilling to hear. Gehazi was a faithful servant, who walked in the same power as Elisha (Njade 2025). In 2 Kings 4, Gehazi sealed the relationship between Elisha and a wealthy woman in Shunem. The Shunammite woman took care of Elisha without Elisha knowing she was barren. The Shunammite woman offered a room in her home to the prophet Elisha, as mentioned in 2 Kings 4 and 8 (Krumrey 2021).

Gehazi, displaying how kind he was at heart to people with challenges, informed Elisha that the woman was barren. As Elisha and Gehazi were resting in that room, Elisha asked Gehazi what could be given for the woman in return. Gehazi informed him that the woman was childless, and Elisha declared unto her that she and her husband would have a son (Francis n.d.). Elisha prophesied that the woman would bear a son. It was to the glory of God also that the son died, and Elisha showcased the power of God to liberate.

After the child’s death, Elisha gave his staff to Gehazi to go and resurrect the dead son of the Shunammite woman. Unfortunately, Gehazi could not achieve his purpose. This incident may be the beginning of Gehazi’s rejection of his prospective role as a prophet in Israel. Also, the fact that Elisha would ultimately have to assume responsibility for that which he had originally delegated to his student might imply that Elisha had erred in delegating the task instead of doing it himself (Klein 2017:104). Gehazi witnessed the greatest of miracles that Elisha performed. These include Elisha’s multiplication of oil, his healing of Naaman and raising the dead. Ordinarily, one would have expected that his experiences of seeing these miracles should have disciplined him to be faithful to God and improve his spiritual insights; however, he was careless when material benefits began to come to his superior, Elisha. In 2 Kings 8:4–6, Gehazi was seen telling the King of Israel the exploits of Elisha. This assisted in the recovery of the Shunammite woman’s property.

Gehazi and profiteering in spirituality

The narrative of the fall of Gehazi is one of the saddest in the Old Testament. It showcases a warning against greed and cashing in on people’s predicament. Because of his disloyalty, Gehazi got only the leprosy that Naaman had contracted, whilst Elisha served Elijah faithfully to the very end and was given a twofold share of Elijah’s spirit (Banso 2020). In 2 Kings 5, Gehazi used his position for spiritual gain.

2 Kings 5 relates that Gehazi was the servant of Prophet Elijah and the probable person to take over from Elisha as the prophet of Israel. If Gehazi had been faithful, he could have been the next prophet, just as Elisha had succeeded Elijah as the prophet. But first, Gehazi had to be tested (Poonen 2003). His downfall is presented in 2 Kings 5, in which the narrative mentions a man named Naaman, the leader of the Syrian troops against Israel. The Syrians won the war and even took war slaves back to Syria. One of these war slaves was a girl, whom Naaman took to his house to be his house help. As a young slave girl, she was helpless like Israel, which was subdued by Syria (Menn 2008). The house girl told Naaman about the power of a prophet of Israel to heal him.

Naaman gained the approval of the King of Syria to visit Israel for his healing. He even collected a letter to give to the King of Israel; however, Elisha requested that Naaman be brought to him. When Naaman came to him, Elisha healed him by telling him to go and bathe in the River Jordan, which he did, notwithstanding that he resisted initially. It could be a lesson in humility that worldly power must recognise the humility required to approach spiritual matters (Zackovitch 1985).

Naaman, as a mark of gratitude, came to Elisha with gifts. Elisha rejected them. According to Klingbeil (2010), Gehazi must have also been present when the Aramean general, Naaman, knocked on Elisha’s door, even though the biblical text does not mention him by name until we reach the sad anticlimax of the narrative in 2 Kings 5:20. The servant that Elisha sent in 2 Kings 5:10 to inform Naaman to bathe in the River Jordan seven times was most likely Gehazi. Then Naaman was going back with his gift when Gehazi rushed and approached him, collected the gifts that Elisha rejected and came back to the house.

Elisha called Gehazi and laid a curse on him for collecting gifts based on his spiritual powers. His greed attracted Naaman’s leprosy and cost him his privileged front-row seat in God’s wonderful demonstration of signs and wonders (Klingbeil 2010). Gehazi lost his place as a prophet’s servant and probable replacement for Elisha. Gehazi seems to have forgotten who Elisha truly was, although he had a long-standing friendship with the Holy Man of God, saw and participated in many of his miracles and demonstrated faithfulness to him (Evans 2022). Greed made Gehazi lose everything.

Cashing in on diseases, poverty, death and demons

In Africa, prophets and priests are exploiting social issues such as diseases, poverty, demons and death for their financial gain. These problems push African Christians to seek deliverance. A part of the transformation that Christianity brings to each culture is how it seeks supernatural intervention (Mogakane 2023). Many Christians worry about negative spiritual influences in their day-to-day lives. Therefore, the desire to defeat demonic forces and the fear of evil spirits can be major themes in sermons, prayers and songs. Deliverance from evil spirits is often used to describe the act of praying against evil (by one or more individuals) or exorcising (casting out devils in the name of Jesus). According to Gachuki (2021), some Africans suffer from this predicament, and prophets take advantage of their plight by aligning with manipulative teachings and money-for-miracle performances. So many models abound.

Africans are passing through one physical and spiritual challenge or another. For instance, a Nigerian pastor, Noah Ade Abraham, offered to take his members to heaven if they paid a ticket fee of N310 000.00 to escape the problems of this world (Jannamike & Ojomoyela 2022). Prophets and pastors are charging Africans, claiming that they have supernatural healing powers. These men of religion ask payment for prayers, anointing oil, anointed water, anointed soap, and anointed hair tie, amongst others. Take the case of the South African prophet, the founder of the Enlightened Christian Gathering Church, Malawian prophet Shepherd Bushiri, who promised prosperity if the faithful made donations, which he used to finance his lavish lifestyle (Mapenzauswa 2020). Unfortunately, the lack of hospitals and healthcare centres has made Africans prone to the compromising antics of these prophets.

Furthermore, Africans are passing through one financial challenge or another. Some of these prophets put too much pressure on their members to bring large amounts of money, promising them financial breakthroughs. Take the case of Uebert Angel from Zimbabwe, founder of Spirit Embassy, who is known for his supernatural gifting and emphasis on financial empowerment (Heward-Mills 2024). Africans have no work or viable means of employment; unfortunately, they are asked to bring enough money and told that these monies will bring God’s blessing upon them.

Funerals and death in Africa are increasingly monetised. For a pastor or prophet to be invited for a funeral, the people must pay him a certain amount. Unfortunately, the leaders of Christianity charge a fee for religious services such as funerals, running into hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars (JW.org 2025). Thus, even in death, African prophets and pastors make much money. The grieving families are forced to bear the additional financial burdens.

Prophets and pastors are also very much into the act of charging very heavily for deliverance sessions. A pastor in Nigeria, named Pastor David of The God’s Spirit Touch Church International Calabar, charged five thousand naira for a deliverance session (Ogundipe 2017). Deliverance sessions in Africa are of various types. There is the personal deliverance session and the family deliverance session. Figure 1 presents an organogram of the deliverance session.

FIGURE 1: An organogram of the deliverance session.

These prophets and pastors usually counsel their victims that they are passing through generational curses and witchcraft and are chased by demons and that the only way of escape is by paying large amounts of money to be free from the spiritual forces. This deliverance sometimes lasts from 3 days to 7 days, and the prophets are fed and housed by their victims.

There is also the challenge of prophets and pastors who manipulate scriptures to suit their compromised nature. The general preaching in Africa is that God’s favour is seen in one’s financial success. They further teach that poverty is caused by stinginess in giving to God in the church, not to the poor in society. This guilt makes the followers and victims give and even borrow loans to give to the pastor or prophets, whilst the victims wallow in abject poverty.

The similarity between Gehazi and the profiteers of Christianity

The narrative of Gehazi is enormously similar to the developments in contemporary African Christianity. The narrative shows that under no circumstances should spiritual gifts be for sale. Gehazi traded the spiritual gift of his master Elisha for monetary and material benefits. Gehazi was not interested in any of the spiritual gifts manifested by his master (Admin 2019). Elisha rebuked him for that action. This situation is similar to the contemporary developments in African Christianity. Elisha’s refusal to accept a material inducement from Naaman shows that true ministry for God should not be based on material benefits, because the blessings of God are not a commodity. In the African context, material benefits are believed to be the reward of ministerial work. Prophets and pastors feel that one cannot serve God as a prophet and remain poor. This is the reason most of them enter into diabolic actions, moving away from their original callings by God when God may have left them. Some African prophets are not even called by God; they pretend so, just as Gehazi pretended to be called by the prophet Elisha, and with this, they manipulate the minds of the masses and extort from them.

This study further shows that deception attracts God’s judgement. Gehazi lied to two people. He lied to the prophet Elisha and to Naaman. However, Elisha then revealed his divinely given knowledge of Gehazi’s lies (Hardy 2002). This situation is similar to the spirituality in Africa, in which prophets and pastors lie to their members and victims in the name of God. They usually start with ‘The Lord said that …’. Thus, they gaslight their victims into believing anything they say. Just as the deception of Gehazi was not hidden, prophets and pastors in Africa need to understand that their deceptive antics against the people are seen by God and that at the right time they will receive their reward from God. This example indicates that just like Gehazi faced divine consequences for trying to profit from spirituality, African prophets and pastors are also vulnerable to punishment from God if they deceive their followers.

Furthermore, the narrative shows that greed corrupts one’s ministry. Gehazi had an inordinate desire for wealth, abandoning his integrity and the service to God he would have rendered. This condition seems to be the order of the day in African Christianity, in which formerly committed pastors and prophets abandon their integrity and pursue wealth and material gains. Likewise, Iroegbu (2021:156) noted that a person without integrity cannot stand firm, cannot stand by his word and will always make slippery promises. Some of these prophets and pastors were humble and transparent in their spiritual and physical dealings; however, immediately after their promotion, they began to misbehave, considering their position the surest way to receive material benefits and even sexual benefits from the female members of their congregation, with the continuous prophesying of ‘thus says the Lord’.

Gehazi’s story illustrates how a lack of contentment in spiritual leadership leads to moral failure and damaging consequences. In 2 Kings 5:20–27, Gehazi, driven by greed, deceitfully pursued Naaman to obtain gifts that Elisha had rejected (Ngan 1997). His discontentment produced dishonesty, abuse of prophetic authority and ultimately divine judgement – he and his descendants were afflicted with leprosy (2 Ki 5:27). This narrative serves as a timeless warning. In parts of contemporary Africa, some prophets similarly fall into patterns of discontentment expressed through materialism, manipulation and commercialisation of spiritual gifts. Studies on African Pentecostalism note that when leaders prioritise wealth, fame and power over spiritual integrity and service, they exploit followers, distort doctrine and damage the credibility of the church (Gifford 2014; Ojo 2006). The pursuit of material gain often results in unethical practices such as selling prophecy, staging miracles and demanding costly ‘seed offerings’, leading to public distrust and spiritual harm within congregations.

Like Gehazi, these prophets may begin with a genuine calling but drift when internal desires override spiritual discipline. Gehazi’s actions show that discontentment blinds leaders to accountability and disrupts the moral order of the ministry. Elisha’s response – confrontation and judgement – demonstrates that God holds leaders to a high standard and that spiritual authority is never a licence for self-enrichment (Olson 2005). The consequences today parallel Gehazi’s loss of integrity, broken trust, congregational disillusionment and societal criticism of Christianity. In some cases, such misconduct also promotes legal issues, church splits and long-term spiritual trauma amongst followers. The biblical narrative, therefore, calls African prophets and all Christian leaders to embrace contentment, stewardship, humility and accountability to prevent the destructive outcomes that follow greed-driven ministry.

Recommendation

The place of Gehazi as a lesson to African Christianity cannot be underestimated. Firstly, prophets and priests must uphold the moral and ethical ethos, rather than chasing money. They should place the watchword of their ministries on spiritual guidance, rather than financial exploitation. Secondly, the various churches in Nigeria should provide a framework in which priests and prophets under the ministry will have little or no chance to engage in financial extortion under the guise of healing and deliverance. Thirdly, the various churches in Africa should emphasise living holy and moral lives rather than the contemporary setup that focuses on miracles and deliverance. Fourthly, the masses should be sensitised by faith-based communities on the features they should use to demarcate genuine from exploitative religious practices. Fifthly, after a fair hearing with evidence, the various Christian organisations in Africa should sanction anyone perceived to be practising exploitatively. Sixthly, churches should begin to establish hospitals and clinics so that less attention is paid to payment for miracles and healing. Seventhly, members should be encouraged to seek medical attention. Eighthly, the media should continue to be bold by exposing fraudulent prophets through investigative journalism. This move will help to protect the more vulnerable Africans from exploitation. Ninthly, church leaders should begin to openly condemn anyone whose practice is not in tandem with genuine Christian practice. Tenthly, Christians throughout Africa need to begin to seek a direct relationship with God, rather than depending on third parties such as prophets for their spiritual experience.

Conclusion

The increasing practice of prophets and pastors profiting from spiritual activities such as receiving payment for praying for people with various diseases, financial crises and demonic attacks, amongst others, is similar to the exploitative antics in the Gehazi narrative. Gehazi, notwithstanding his position as the second in line to the prophet Elisha, could not control his urge for material wealth and demanded material payment from Naaman, whose gift the prophet Elisha had rejected. The consequences affected him and his generation. This context is similar to what some African prophets are engaging in without considering the consequences of their actions. Their actions have affected their personal image and the image of the church and Christianity in Africa. It is important for the church in Africa to prioritise spiritual growth, integrity, contentment and honesty in mission and ministerial work. Christian teachings should be centred on spiritual transformation, rather than emphasising miracles and deliverance.

Acknowledgements

The author declares that no financial or personal relationships inappropriately influenced the writing of this article.

Favour C. Uroko: Conceptualisation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. The author confirms that this work is entirely their own, has reviewed the article, approved the final version for submission and publication, and takes full responsibility for the integrity of its findings.

This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and are the product of professional research. It does not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency, or that of the publisher. The authors are responsible for this article’s results, findings, and content.

References