The Insidious Nature of the Prosperity Gospel

I believe most solid evangelicals can recognize the full-blown prosperity Gospel when they see it. "Send me a seed gift of $100 and God will multiply it 10 fold!" "We've got to have a prosperity mentality, not a poverty mentality." "God wants you to be wealthy!" etc. The common thread in this philosophy is that God's blessing will be given in the form of financial gains to those who are faithful. Therefore, if you are a "have not" you do not have faith. While the Hinny Benns, Oel Josteens, Dreflo A. Collars (the names have been changed to expose the guilty and protect the innocent) are easy to spot, there are subtle yet just as wrong-headed ways of communicating the same message, that most Christians don't detect.

Here is what I'm not saying:
1. God does not give financial blessing.
2. God does not give financial blessing in response to your giving (or other faithfulness).
3. It is wrong to attribute God with the credit for receiving financial (or physically sustaining) blessings.
4. It is wrong to give "in faith" that God will supply your needs.

I hear people say all the time "You can't out give God." or "God has always been faithful in supplying our needs." or "God came through with provision for a need while I was on my way to pay the bill!" All of this is fine, and I believe God does all of those things. We just must be careful not to equate God's faithfulness with the satisfaction of our physical needs. If God is obligated to fulfill our physical needs if we are faithful to Him, then there would be no such thing as a Christian starving to death. There would be no such thing as a Christian dying from a disease. No Christians would ever suffocate (because God will always provide oxygen). There would be no such thing as a Christian being late on a bill. God has certainly promised blessings to us if we remain faithful to Him, and those blessings may include physical sustenance, but He is never obligated to give us all that we need to live. Sometimes we sell God short on the type of blessings that we expect from Him. If we equate God's blessing with merely physical blessings, we may be missing out on God's greatest blessing- Himself.

Through pain, suffering, sickness, lack, and even death God has designs for the suffering of His people. He meets them in their worst suffering, and gives them Himself. IN: tribulation (catastrophe), distress (abandonment and fear), persecution (people physically or psychologically harming you), famine (no food), nakedness (no clothes), danger (risk to your life), or sword (death by slaying). Paul says "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Paul does not say instead of all these things, as though Christians will escape physical harm. Neither does Paul equate the love of God with physical sustenance, but with Jesus Christ. If your faith in God is based on the fact that you have always had your physical needs satisfied and all of the sudden you don't anymore, you are at risk of abandoning your faith. Of course if your faith is in a cosmic genie who always provides for your physical needs, I hope he lets you down so that you can trust in the real God of the universe. He will not let you down, He will always give you everything you need, even at the moment that the guillotine slices your head off, or when the tumor on your lung prevents you from breathing and causes you to suffocate, or when your children are taken from you by an oppressive government, or when you lose your job, or when you are thrown from your vehicle and never regain consciousness.

Question: If you have never been without food and water, can you deduce that God has blessed you?

Answer: Maybe. There are many rich pagans who have never been without who have gone to their grave treasuring their full bellies more than God. Was their bounty a blessing from God? I would say it was judgment, or at least the fact that they did not give God glory for their bounty increased their condemnation. Christians who love God more than His gifts who have always had enough to eat, never suffered physical illness, never lost a child or a close friend early in life, always had enough money to pay the bills, who die in their sleep when they are 97 all the while treasuring Christ more than all of these physical blessings are certainly blessed by God.

Question: If you have had a life of suffering in which you have constantly been in poverty, sickness, a broken financial situation, can you deduce that God has cursed you?

Answer: Not necessarily. One of the main problems with prosperity theology is that God's blessing is equated with ease, abundance, and lack of suffering. If we have faith, we are promised that we will have these things. Therefore the presence of stress, lack, and pain means that we don't have enough faith. Some of the greatest Christians in the history of Christianity endured the most suffering- John Bunyan, Richard Wurmbrand, Charles Simeon, Adoniram Judson, John Paton, David Brainerd, David Livingston, and many others. Did these men suffer because they didn't have enough faith? Was God punishing them for not believing as they ought? Did they lack a "prosperity mindset"? No, God works all things together for good to those who love Him, and are called according to His purpose.

Question: Should you give tithes and offerings with the idea that God is obligated to bless you with physical blessing?

Answer: No. God may indeed bless you financially, but He is not obligated to. You should give money joyfully and sacrificially. The system of tithes and offerings is not some kind of money making scheme that you can exploit by giving. Again, we have a tendency to sell God short on His blessings by equating them with physical blessing when He wants to give us Himself.

Question: What if you cannot afford tithing should you anyway?

Answer: You should give joyfully, sacrificially and regularly. If you cannot afford to give much, give what you can and make intentional sacrifices in order to give. While the New Testament doesn't explicitly teach tithing I believe it is a good place to start, or a good goal for people to set. For most of us in America tithing is a way to rob God. I assure you that most of us can give far more than we do, and that we make decisions everyday that keep us from giving what we ought. The problem is that we see it as an obligation- "I've given my 10% now I can buy my toys!" All this does is show where our true treasure lies. If we ultimately see our income as a way for God to bless us we have a wrong view of God's priorities. Our incomes are a way that God blesses us with the things we need, but I find it hard to believe that He is honored when we spend our money on boats and 4-wheelers while people starve around the world, are killed for their faith in Christ, and die without hearing about Christ even though there are missionaries ready to go, but lack the funds.