God’s blessings of prosperity and success
The Lord spoke to Joshua after the death of Moses, and said that He would give to Joshua and the people he led out of Egypt the land He had promised to their forefathers. He promised to Joshua that he and his people will prosper wherever they go, and that they will be successful. (Josh 1:6-8)
These words clearly stipulated God’s promise of prosperity and success to Joshua and the Hebrew people; but it came with clear conditions. God repeatedly emphasized that Joshua and the people had to “observe to do according to all the law” and that “this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth”, and that they should “meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein.”
In the Old Testament, Matthew 6:33 records Jesus’ words: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Again, God promises blessings, but only to those who seek first His kingdom and righteousness.
These are verses in the Bible which are commonly quoted to give support to what is preached in some charismatic churches when the preachers propagate the “prosperity gospel”. It is a belief that those who lead lives faithful to God will be rewarded with material wealth. This belief is sometimes confused with the gospel of wealth which claims that it is the responsibility of the rich or upper class to be philanthropic, i.e. to be ready to share their wealth with the poor (propagated by Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-American industrialist, business magnate and philanthropist (Wikipedia.org/wiki/The Gospel of Wealth).
The proponents of the prosperity gospel believe that financial and physical well-being are always God’s will for them. Thus, the sermons in some mega-churches often link the believer’s faith to positive thinking, generosity, tithes and offerings given to the church so as to increase one’s wealth. This really sounds good to those who have some money and wish for God to bless them with even more. This is a very dangerous belief as it gives a false sense of security. It makes people think that if they believe in God, He will bless them totally with success and prosperity.
This is NOT what the Bible emphasizes on. The Biblical teaching is that he who believes in God, in His Son Jesus Christ and His death on the cross, will have the promise of salvation, the forgiveness of sin and eternal life in heaven. Thus, the promise of riches, good health and a good life is erroneous! And belief in Christ should never be linked to the removal of sickness and poverty which again the charismatic church teaches as God’s curse on those who do not have faith. They believe that good health can be attained through more giving to the church, positive thinking and visualization of wealth.
The concept of prosperity gospel was propounded during the Healing Revivals in the 1950s in the USA which later was linked to the New Thought movement, and then the Word of Faith movement and televangelism in the 1980’s. I remember watching one of the evangelists on American television (while studying in the US) who challenged those watching his programme to touch their tv sets in order to get healing for their illnesses. They were challenged to send in their donations in order to be healed. This idea soon became associated with the Pentecostal and Charismative movements in the 1990s and 2000s. People like Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland, E W Kenyon, Robert Tilton, T L Osborn, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Hagin and many more were prominently teaching this idea in their churches. Gradually, this concept came over to Singapore, and its so-called new theology is propounded by Kong Hee, Naomi Dowdy and Joseph Prince.
David W Jones, professor of Christian Ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has written much to warn Christians against prosperity gospel. He wrote an article entitled 5 Errors of Prosperity Gospel, and these are highlighted below.
1. The Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement.
The Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 12, 15, 17, 22) is one of the theological bases of the prosperity gospel. It’s good that prosperity theologians recognize much of Scripture is the record of the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, but it’s bad that they don’t maintain an orthodox view of this covenant. They incorrectly view the inception of the covenant; more significantly, they erroneously view the application of the covenant. Paul clearly reminds the Galatians of the spiritual blessing of salvation, not the material blessing of wealth.
2. Jesus’ atonement extends to the “sin” of material poverty.
The misunderstanding of the scope of Christ’s atonement stems from two errors prosperity gospel proponents make. First, many who espouse prosperity theology have a fundamental misconception of the life of Jesus. For example, teacher John Avanzini proclaimed on a TBN program, Jesus had “a nice house,” “a big house,” “Jesus was handling big money,” and he even “wore designer clothes.” It’s easy to see how such a warped view of the life of Christ could lead to an equally warped misconception of the death of Christ.
A second error that leads to a faulty view of the atonement is misinterpreting 2 Corinthians 8:9, which reads, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.” While a shallow reading of this verse may lead one to believe Paul was teaching about an increase in material wealth, a contextual reading reveals he was actually teaching the exact opposite principle. Indeed, Paul was teaching the Corinthians that since Christ accomplished so much for them through the atonement, they should empty themselves of their riches in service of the Savior. This is why just five short verses later Paul would urge the Corinthians to give their wealth away to their needy brothers, writing “that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack” (2 Cor. 8:14).
3. Christians give in order to gain material compensation from God.
According to their interpretation of the teaching purportedly based on Mark 10:30 – Christians should give generously to others because when they do, God gives back more in return. This, in turn, leads to a cycle of ever-increasing prosperity.
As Gloria Copeland put it in her 2012 book, God’s Will is Prosperity, “Give $10 and receive $1,000; give $1,000 and receive $100,000. . . . In short, Mark 10:30 is a very good deal.” It’s evident, then, that the prosperity gospel’s doctrine of giving is built on faulty motives. Whereas Jesus taught his disciples to “give, hoping for nothing in return” (Luke 10:35), prosperity theologians teach their disciples to give because they will get a great return.
4. Faith is a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity.
Whereas orthodox Christianity understands faith to be trust in the person of Jesus Christ, prosperity teachers espouse something quite different. “Faith is a spiritual force, a spiritual energy, a spiritual power. It is this force of faith which makes the laws of the spirit world function,” Copeland writes in The Laws of Prosperity. “There are certain laws governing prosperity revealed in God’s Word. Faith causes them to function.” This is obviously a faulty, perhaps even heretical, understanding of faith.
According to prosperity theology, faith is not a God-granted, God-centered act of the will. Rather, it is a humanly wrought spiritual force, directed at God. Indeed, any theology that views faith chiefly as a means to material gain rather than justification before God must be judged inadequate at best.
5. Prayer is a tool to force God to grant prosperity.
Prosperity gospel preachers often note we “have not because we ask not” (James 4:2). They encourage us to pray for personal success in all areas of life. As Creflo Dollar writes, “When we pray, believing that we have already received what we are praying, God has no choice but to make our prayers come to pass. . . . It is a key to getting results as a Christian.”
Prayers for personal blessing are not inherently wrong, but the prosperity gospel’s overemphasis on man turns prayer into a tool that believers can use to force God to grant their desires. Within prosperity theology, man – not God – becomes the focal point of prayer. Curiously, prosperity preachers often ignore the second half of James’s teaching on prayer: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James. 4:3). God does not answer selfish requests that do not honor his name.
Certainly all our requests should be made known to God (e.g., Phil. 4:6), but the prosperity gospel focuses so much on man’s desires that it may lead people to pray selfish, shallow, superficial prayers that don’t bring God glory. Further, when coupled with the prosperity doctrine of faith, this teaching may lead people to attempt to manipulate God to get what they want – a futile task. This is far removed from praying “Your will be done.”
The Preachers of the Prosperity Gospel Exploit the People of Their Money
Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace Be with You in a television interview said about the Prosperity Gospel, “I guess the common name for this is The Prosperity Gospel. The sale’s pitch is, “You give me your money…me the evangelist, me the preacher…and you’ll get rich.” And the truth is, you give him your money and you’ll get poor and he’ll get really rich. And it’s a Ponzi scheme and I saw it everywhere and no critique of it, no analysis of it, no evaluation, no exposure, to expose of it at all.”
Prosperity theology has been criticized by leaders from various Christian denominations, including those within the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, who maintain that it is irresponsible, promotes idolatry, and is contrary to scripture. Secular observers have also criticized prosperity theology as exploitative of the poor.
False Gospel
David Jones concluded, “In light of Scripture, the prosperity gospel is fundamentally flawed. At the bottom line, it is a false gospel because of its faulty view of the relationship between God and man. Simply put, if the prosperity gospel is true, grace is obsolete, God is irrelevant, and man is the measure of all things. Whether they’re talking about the Abrahamic covenant, the atonement, giving, faith, or prayer, prosperity teachers turn the relationship between God and man into a quid proquo transaction. As James Goff noted in a 1990 Christianity Today article, God is “reduced to a kind of ‘cosmic bellhop’ attending to the needs and desires of his creation.” This is a wholly inadequate and unbiblical view of the relationship between God and man.
May God grant us His wisdom to know the Bible well, and be spiritually discerning about what is Biblical and what is not. May God the Holy Spirit help us to fight against the wiles of the devil, and those who take advantage of some believers’ ignorance or their simplistic mindset. Let us warn fellow-Christians of what some so-called charismatic preachers are propogating so as to enrich their own bank accounts.
Pastor Bob Phee