Donnie McClurkin rebukes Jamal Bryant for equating ‘abracadabra’ with Romans 4:17

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Wednesday, August 26, 2026

Donnie McClurkin, a Grammy-winning gospel star and pastor, recently rebuked Pastor Jamal Bryant for equating the magic word “abracadabra” with Romans 4:17. 

In an Aug. 2 sermon to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, Bryant recalled how he learned about the origins of the term from a magician at his daughters’ school when they were in second grade.

“The magician told them little girls in the second grade, … that today I'm going to teach you Arabic. In the second grade. I went to public school and had no idea that this was even a possibility. And the magician said, the Arabic word that I want to teach you is abracadabra,” Bryant told his congregation. 

“All my life, I never knew that abracadabra was Arabic. I just thought they just made that word up,” he quipped.  

“Abracadabra is an Arabic word that means … ‘I create what I speak,’” he added before referencing Romans 4:17. 

“Did you hear what I just said? Speak those things that are not as though they already are. If you don't want to see nothing, don't say nothing. But if you want to see the hand of God in the month of August, abracadabra! Let all my bills get paid. Abra,” he said, trailing off.  “I'm going to see whatever I spoke.”

Preaching from 2 Corinthians 6:14during an Aug. 12 service at his Perfecting Faith Church in Freeport, New York, McClurkin rebuked Bryant without calling his name. “You cannot mix witchcraft with holiness,” McClurkin said.

“I want you to understand the power of words and not like these false teachings have been given you. For you cannot speak things into existence. … There was a preacher down in Atlanta that got up the beginning of this month and declared that he went to a classroom and a magician came in and he taught the children magic, and he used the word abracadabra,” he recounted.

“Abracadabra, an Aramaic word, abracadabra, which means I create what I speak. And he incorporated it into his message and said that this month of August is going to be the month where you can create what you speak. So if you've got bills, you need to say abracadabra. What are we doing?” McClurkin asked.

“You cannot incorporate witchcraft into holiness. … And that doctrine is wrong. That dogma is wrong, because it leads the believer to believe the wrong belief. It leads the believer to believe that if I say something, it comes to pass. He said, ‘If you want your bills paid, abracadabra, speak it.”

While some members of his church laughed at the criticism, McClurkin quickly told them that the concern he was raising is “not funny" and suggested Bryant’s teaching is “dangerous.”

“We're foolish. We laugh at things that are dangerous and don't take seriously when we see people incorporating that which is arcane with that which is holy. It can never happen,” he declared.

“And they said, ‘Speak those things, abracadabra. You got to speak those things which are not as though they were.’ That's a lie,” McClurkin said. “And the reason why I don't use the name of the person this time is because God can always cause someone to repent. But I must decry against what they preached, which was damnable and wrong.”

The Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board agrees with McClurkin.

“Can we create our realities with our words? Can we speak certain things into existence, such as health, wealth, or anything else we imagine? Well, the answer is simple: no, we cannot. This teaching is from the new age cultist and depends not on the Sovereign God of the Universe but metaphysical laws that control all things. In short, it is deism on steroids,” the North American Mission Board notes on its website.

NAMB continues: “Our words matter, and we should use them wisely, but nowhere does the Scripture teach we are creating our realities with our words. The Scripture makes clear the distinctions between the finite and the infinite. See, God is God, and we are not. He has created and has that authority.”