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Episode 16
The Problem with Prosperity Gospel
- , Prosperity gospel is frequently called health and wealth gospel. Basically from my understanding, it promises or preaches that God rewards faith with health and wealth
- I believe that prosperity gospel or components of it often do sneak into even some of the best of churches and most solid of christians because it it SO pushed. This idea that we can EARN God’s favor and that that favor is wealth and health is so promoted. It’s something I’ve believed in forms.
- This is problematic because first of all we’ll see as we chat that this is not promised of God, so the financially poor person — which is A TON of children of God — is basically told they don’t have enough faith. It preys on the poor. And we see in Scripture that God HATES when the poor and defenseless are preyed on.
- Prosperity gospel seems to really focus more on what God can do for me in my satisfaction on this earth rather what can I do for God to bring Him glory and be more heavenly minded.
- This is NOT a bash on being rich. We find in Proverbs wisdom for how to be wise with finances and we see incredible people in the Bible that are followers of God who are wealthy from Abraham to David the King and so on.
- Calling out prosperity gospel is NOT calling out the rich. It’s calling out the claim that God PROMISES earthly prosperity to those who have faith.
- ARGUMENTS for prosperity gospel and their counter
- Using verses like when John said “I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health as it goes well with your soul” as an argument that “Prosperity gospel is the result of obedience to God.” — I think this argument touches on the point that God and the Bible and the body of Christ isn’t ANTI things going well, health and even wealth. But this verse is NOT God promising or even John promising it to believers. It’s well wishes.
- Saying Jesus took lack at the cross so we could be rich — This argument hurt my heart because it diminishes the incredible work of our Lord at the cross to something as insignificant as wealth. Jesus Christ died on the cross to forgive us of sin, free us of sin and reunite us with God. Jesus Christ did not live a life of prosperity, His apostles who were martyred after Him did not live a life of prosperity. NO WHERE does it say that Jesus died so you could be rich in money on earth. In 2 Corinthians 8:9, it DOES say that he became poor so that we might become rich but that’s not referring to earthly wealth. In fact in CONTEXT we see that the writer is using the example of the church of Macedonia that is in “extreme poverty” who have overlooked in a wealth of what? Of GENEROSITY. This doesn’t mean they’re wealthy. This means they have an abundance of generosity despite their poverty.
- I’ve seen another similar argument that states Jesus took the cross so we could live heaven on earth, when in reality, friends, Jesus calls us to also take up our cross and follow him and says MULTIPLE times that we are called to give UP things for Him. That this is not our home. We endure suffering here for a little while because we have the hope of heaven. All of those things explicitly contradicting any idea that God’s only hope for us is earthly wealth.
- People saying we have to prosper to show the world we’re successful so they’ll listen to us. — God doesn’t NEED the rich. In fact scripture tells us he uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He chooses the orphan Esther and the young, shepherd David and the Virgin Mary not JUST the healthy, wealthy and successful that have proven their worth to God. We can’t prove anything to Him. And if we think we can we deceive ourselves. In Romans 10 it says that there are those who are ignorant because they seek to establish their own righteousness and not submit to God’s. Pretending we can EARN God’s favor or be good enough for Him is thinking too highly of ourselves and not enough of all God has done for us.
- Using the argument that Abraham was rich — Again God is not anti wealth. There are incredible people used in scripture and all throughout history that used their wealth for the glory of God and God blessed them with that and that’s incredible. But God does not promise we will all have Abraham’s wealth because of our faith.
- What the Bible says about prosperity
- We see all throughout scripture stories of God’s followers who do prosper but we all see those who do NOT. Are the apostles marytyred of less faith then those today with wealth?
- Matthew 19:21-23 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
- In Colossians 1:24, the writer rejoices in what he is suffering for the sake of the body of Christ.
- 1 Timothy 6:6-12 — But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
- John 2:16 — we see Jesus flip tables because the religious leaders of the time were selling overpriced animals used for sacrifice because they told people they would need only these were good enough.
- All in all friends – I think it is IMPORTANT to be on guard with the truths of scripture, to not be swayed by things that sound nice but hold no weight or verses taken out of context – or in other words what they’re written in context of – to fit them into whatever we want it to mean. This isn’t an interpretive poem. These are the words of God. Let’s treat them as such.
- I know this was probably an intense episode today and I am so thankful to y’all for listening! It is SO important that we are studying God’s word for ourselves and growing in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. I encourage you to do that and dive into topics you’re interested in so you can KNOW what you believe. His Word is ALIVE.
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Meet Your Hostess, Meg!
My name is Megan, and, first things first, thanks for being a part of this community!
My hope for this podcast is to chat about what living purposefully looks like. I’m a verbal processor & can chat up a storm when it comes to all things Jesus, hot topics & advice.
PLUS, people say they love the sound of my voice, but, hey, I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
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