Prosperity Gospel: Are We Buying It?

The term "Prosperity Gospel" is widely used and propagated by believers in the States because of tele-evangelists who had unfortunately taken the true Gospel of Christ to an extreme. This is commonly known as the "naming and claiming theology" - that if we positively confess what we want, God will have no choice but to answer it. I think this theology is totally flawed and is not a theology that we believe in. We must be clear that a balanced and full understanding of the word of God is what we must have.

It is saddening that fellow believers hastily generalise the theology that is adopted based on one or two messages that they have heard delivered from the pulpit. The truth is that a theology that is adopted by a Church can only be captured by a comprehensive array of messages delivered over time, and not just one or two messages. That can be piecemeal in nature.

First and foremost, let me make my stand clear, that I do not believe in the prosperity gospel, but a balanced Gospel of Christ that is biblical. In this blogpost, we will explore different schools of thought and examine them carefully.

Let us consider some verses to begin with.

Deuteronomy 8:13,18

When your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and ALL that you have multiplied...And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth...

Genesis 26:12-14

Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him. The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous; for he had possessions of flocks and possession of herds and a great number of servants. So the Philistines envied him.

Matthew 19:23-24

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Now, is the bible conflicted? Are scriptures contradicting themselves? One one hand, we see faithful servants of God prospering in wealth and possessions, and on the other, we notice that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

1st School of Thought: Poverty equates to Spirituality

As mentioned in the previous post, Plato's dualism has strong influences on the majority of our belief system even up till today, and most believers just accept it as true teachings, because it passed down the chain of command within the denomination or leadership. This relates to lower levels of the POW misery comfort scale. Believers who subscribes to this belief lack the fullness of God's word because of their myopic focus on verses like Matt 19:23-24 and Matt 6:24. They believe that prosperity is not from God and are fearful that having more wealth means storing up treasures on earth. They believe that having more money equates to serving mammon. This is a theology that is skewed to one extreme and is clearly of error - it is influenced by pagan teachings from Greek origins.

2nd School of Thought: The Prosperity Gospel

The Prosperity Gospel believes that God will prosper me, bless me, make me rich because God have to, as long as we follow the sowing and reaping patterns, as long as we have the faith to believe. This form of theology is self-serving, self-centred and lack spirituality. It is naming and claiming the promises of God. This school of thought takes verses such as Deut 8:13,18 and Gen 6:12-14 to an extreme, and it is in itself also a theology of error.

3rd School of Thought: The Primary Reason for Prosperity is to serve the Purposes of God

This is the balance view that takes into account the fullness of the word of God. It is not skewed towards one or the other extreme, but accounts for a thoughtful comprehension of God's truths. This is the belief that I subscribe to, and I believe my Church subscribes to. God is not against us having money, but money having us. We observe that the rich young ruler in Matt 19 was unable to let go of his possessions because of his love for money, and because of that, it was impossible for him to enter the kingdom of God. It does not matter how much money we have, we know this from Isaac, Abraham, Job and other biblical characters - they were rich. But, it does matter where our heart is. We cannot serve God and mammon, but we can channel our money to serve the purpose of God.

Becoming rich should never be our objective (this is totally wrong) but the desire to serve God's purposes is. We know God calls people to become financial supporters, because in today's age, we have to agree that we cannot effectively serve the purposes of God to bring the Gospel to all the world without sufficient resources. Let us recognise that God has a greater purpose than what our minds can comprehend. We mustn't let our narrow-mindedness blind us to what God is doing among his people. We are living in the last days, our hearts must be right before God.

The primary reason for prosperity is to serve the purposes of God!