Prosperity

Banking on God: Theology, Part 2

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The prosperity gospel. You know it. You probably despise it.

Just the thought of some loud, sweaty, Armani-wearing “preacher” telling you that sending him $100 as “seed faith” money guarantees an increase of three, ten, or even a hundredfold…No, not this guy...the OTHER prophet Joel...well, the veins start pounding in your forehead and you’re wishing you could reach into your TV and slap the guy a good one.

“God wants you rich!”

“If you can envision it, you can have it by faith!”

“If words of death come out of your mouth, you’re going to reap death. Speak words of life!”

“Why ask God for a Ford when you should be asking for a Lexus?”

“You don’t have to live with disease if you have faith in God.”

“The power of wealth creation is in your tongue, so speak out that wealth!”

“You’re a child of the King, and you’ll never see a prince or princess enjoying anything less than the best the world has to offer.”

Now I made all those up. I’ll bet, though, that at some time or other a prosperity gospel preacher said something pretty darned similar. In fact, we could almost make a game of it by coming up with outrageous claims by prosperity teachers who teach a gospel without a cross, without sin, without holiness, and without—unbelieveably enough—Jesus.

These “preachers” of prosperity sucker millions of dollars from millions of people. Naifs who fall under the spell of these slick-talking, Bible-waving, perfectly coiffed “evangelists” often come to a sad—and savings-less— conclusion. Those prosperity preachers like to call everyone “Brother ” or “Sister,” and they often go by titles like “Apostle” and “Bishop.” And sadly for the rest of us charismatics, they claim Pentecostal and Assemblies of God backgrounds.

I feel for the people taken by these manipulators. For the most part, many of the fleeced are poor to begin with. Or perhaps it’s better to think of them as the working poor, especially in America. They have jobs; they’re just not good jobs.

Consider a mom and dad who collectively bring home about $16 an hour with no decent benefits. They have a car, but it costs more to keep it running than it’s worth. Things break in their home and they can’t afford to repair them. Doctor? Who can afford one when there’s no insurance and a simple office visit costs a day’s wages (and there’s always more days at the end of the month than there are wages). Taxes keep going up. Energy keeps going up. Prices for everything are up, up, up. Yet for these folks, wages stay the same. They’re the ones getting destroyed in this recession.

And every day they see themselves sinking further and further down with no hope of recovery. Think they’re going to latch onto anyone who can give them hope of getting out of their predicament?

The two question I ask amid all this is Where are we and what hope do we give them?

And that’s a problem for us Evangelicals who gag every time we think about the prosperity gospel.

Here’s a clue for us suburban McMansion-dwellers in our newly-erected, mega-community-churches: Poor people don’t like being poor.

It stinks to be poor. When your kid needs glasses and you can’t secure a pair because you’re too “rich” for government aid yet you’re not rich enough to afford them outright…well, it stinks even more.

I live in a not-so-rich area. Many of the houses on my road aren’t houses; they’re trailers. The state of the economy is putting a terrible squeeze on these already-squeezed people. So when they start putting faith in the prosperity gospel, I’m not surprised. The real Church hasn’t given them much other hope. Billy Joe Jim Bob Preacher Boy with a Gilt-fendered Escalade was there when the real Church wasn’t.

Do we remember Acts 2 & 4?

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
—Acts 2:44-45

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
—Acts 4:34-35

I would contend that if we in the Church actually lived as those four verses describe, there wouldn’t be any need for anyone to rush to prosperity teachings for hope. But when we simply ignore those passages, especially in light of those parents who don’t know how they’re going to pay the hospital bill for their kid’s broken arm, then we’re assisting the prosperity message through our inability to live by the Bible so many of us call inerrant.

But you want to know the craziest part of all this? As bad as these prosperity preachers are, as little as they care about the cross and bearing it, they’re not wrong on everything.

Psalm 112 says this:

Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments! His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous. It is well with the man who deals generously and lends; who conducts his affairs with justice. For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries. He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever; his horn is exalted in honor. The wicked man sees it and is angry; he gnashes his teeth and melts away; the desire of the wicked will perish!
—Psalms 112:1-10

Well, is that true or not?

That passage embodies many of the teachings found in the prosperity gospel.

And what of this?

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
—James 5:13-18

Do we believe that or not? The scary thing is that the prosperity preachers do.

And that’s a problem for us. Because there’s little difference in the eyes of the Lord between someone who preaches the wrong kind of faith and someone who has no faith at all.

Recently, I visited a few sites where people who believed God for healing terminal diseases came under fire from commenters. That made me livid. While it may be true that the commenters were wise enough to see through the phony promises of prosperity preachers who took money from the sick in exchange for a promised healing, is that any worse than not believing for healing at all? When I read those commenters, this quote struck me:

“Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
—Mark 5:35b

Isn’t that the voice of resignation? Isn’t that the voice that says to give up? Isn’t that the voice that says to just make peace with the suffering?

Isn’t that the voice of the Enemy?

To which Jesus replies:

“Do not fear, only believe.”
—Mark 5:36b

I’m convinced that when we get right down to it, for many of us, our so-called faith is a sham. We may pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” but which of us actually lives from one day to the next dependent on God to provide that day’s food? Can’t we buy our way out of almost any trouble we encounter? Why do we need God for anything?

Sure, Christ died and with His blood secured eternity for us who believe. No, we couldn’t do that ourselves. But beyond having faith that He will take us to heaven at some future date, how well do we live in the dark moments before then?

What happens should we find ourselves on the tight loop of the downward spiral? That time when we can no longer afford medical care, even if we have insurance? What happens when we confront some expensive-to-deal-with disease. Will we have faith then that God will come to help when before we counted on our money to make it all better?

Or will it all be suffering?

Prosperity preachers don’t like suffering much. In fact they pretty much hate suffering in every form. Boo on them, because we should expect suffering in life, right?

Funny thing is, the Scriptures tell us that one of the reasons Christ came was to relieve suffering:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
—Luke 4:18-19

Isn’t our Gospel supposed to be Good News to suffering people? How then did we turn it back into being about suffering? Isn’t the Kingdom of God a Kingdom that drives out that wicked kingdom filled with suffering? I mean, if we should be content in our suffering, I guess all those sick folks and families of demon-possessed people had it all wrong when they cried out to Jesus to come and take away their suffering.

And while we’re at it, what is so wrong with speaking positive things by faith? The prosperity gospel people always talk about making a positive confession:

From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.
—Proverbs 18:20-21

True or not true? Obviously, I believe it’s true. Why then do so many act as if it’s not? I’ve got to believe the world would be a better place if Christians, especially here in the States, showed their faith more effectively to the world by speaking words of life rather than so many deadly words that only drive the lost further from Christ. And even in our own lives, how many times do we condemn ourselves by the negative words we speak with regard to our own lives? If a man truly reaps what he sows, what is reaped by the negative things we say about ourselves or our neighbors?

So as much we say we despise these prosperity preachers for filling desperate people with naive hope while draining their wallets, I look at my own life and the lives of a lot of other Christians who oppose those charlatans and wonder if our faith is even visible at all.

Now which problem should concern me most?

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Banking On God: Series Compendium

Banking on God: Theology, Part 1

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Uncials & stuff—now we're getting serious!For Christians, where do our ideas on wealth and benevolence originate? Well, supposedly from the Bible.

But we tend to look at the Bible as chunks of passages, some of which we like, some of which we tolerate, and some of which we ignore altogether. Even in the most dedicated Bibliophile, a tendency exists to proclaim fealty to every word of Scripture, yet the backtracking starts the second a few contentious verses come up.

Few passages are more problematic for people than those with money-related insights. Sometimes it seems as if no two churches preach the same basis for their perspectives on wealth and benevolence.

Readers of this blog, though, tended to fall in line on this topic. Critics would say that this is due to self-selection in the polling process, as these polls can’t possibly be a truly random sampling of American Christendom. Though I would tend to agree with that complaint, I also know we get a pretty broad readership here, more so than some other blogs that strictly cater to one specific type of Christian denomination or philosophy.

Despite whatever sampling problems these polls might have, let’s look at the theology readers bring to the issue.

A reminder of the Bible passages quoted for the first few questions:

Deuteronomy 28:13 – “And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them….”

Psalms 1:1-3 – Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

Proverbs 21:13 – Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.

Malachi 3:10 – “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”

Matthew 6:31-33 – “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Mark 11:23-24 – “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Luke 18:24-25 – Jesus, seeing that [the rich young ruler] had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Acts 2:44-45 – And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

2 Corinthians 9:6-7 – The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

1 Timothy 6:10 – For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

[poll=27]

All I can say here is that I’m not surprised by the results. The top three verses are heavily used by churches when justifying their perspective on giving. My only surprise is that the Deuteronomy passage (“Head, not the tail”) was not supported more. That’s a very Pentecostal perspective and I know a respectable number of Pentecostals read this blog.

Then again, the number of people taking these polls dropped by half by the time this poll ran, so perhaps some readers just got fed up with a week of polling!

[poll=26]

I found these responses to be interesting because it shows that readers are more aggressive and less structured in their giving than what their churches preach. The Malachi passage (“10 percent”) dropped here and the Acts passage (“Selling possessions and sharing wealth’) moved up. I think that’s a good thing. Considering how often I talk about going “all in” on this blog, I’m not surprised that readers tended to agree.

[poll=28]

I once blogged that the Mark passage (“Believe and it will be yours”) is the least-believed verse in the Bible, and eerily enough, you readers verified that my assessment may not be off the mark. (“Off the mark“—Ha! a pun!) The Acts passage, though more readers agreed that it was close to what they believed, was also hard for some to handle.

The Mark passage is tough, but I know I personally struggle even harder with the Psalms passage (“In all that he does, he prospers”) in my own life. I know a lot of good people who are struggling, some asking when that promised prosperity is going to show. That’s a tough call. I think of myself as a Psalm 1 kind of guy, but certainly not everything I’ve done prospers. Still trying to process that one in my own life. I guess a few others struggle with it, too.

[poll=29]

Interestingly, my previous unpacking of the poll on tithing had a lot of people agreeing with me in the comments that the temple tithing system had been completed in Jesus and was no longer binding, but a quick look here shows that a third of you disagreed. I’m wondering why the dissenters didn’t comment then on my follow-up post on tithing. Dissenters?

[poll=30]

Well, we’re on the same page regarding consumerism, that’s for sure. Same goes for neglecting the poor. Thanks for those answers. Fewer picked the prosperity gospel as a threat, but guess what? That’s what the second part of this analysis will address, seeing that a few other blogs have talked about prosperity teachings lately and their insidious effects on the American Church today.

But back to consumerism. It’s a form of idolatry, isn’t it? We’ve found a way to fill that classic “God-shaped hole” with whatever the hot new item at Apple or Target may be. Heck, don’t we all know at least one person who has purchased every incarnation of the iPod since the day of its first release? The gal who’s on her fourth digital camera? The guy who’s 30 and yet has owned six different computers in his life? Buy and discard. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And yet that consuming ideal has not only run our country into the ground in our quest for more cheap stuff that rusts and decays, but has been elevated to satisfy the ennui of the soul—if only from one great buy to the next.

Worse, our entire economy is geared to a frenzy of buying. When people finally wise up and scale back, it only damages our economy more, based as it is on a house of cards. Pull out a couple cards and the whole thing collapses. Or so it seems from the newspaper headlines. But I’ll talk about that in a few days, so hold on.

[poll=31]

Ah, Ben Franklin’s classic aphorism. Considered by some to be in the Bible. The “God can’t steer a parked car” passage.

Most of you said that was false, but almost a third said they either weren’t sure or thought ol’ Ben was right on target. I want to thank those of you who answered “True” or “Unknown” for your honesty. I think people struggle with this idea immensely. Everything in American culture tells us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and grab for the gusto.

And while it may seem like that indeed works for a lot of people (I’m thinking Oprah. here), I’ve got to wonder if it’s the arm of flesh rather than the arm of the Lord. Waiting on God to work is a foreign concept to most of us. We want things in our time done our way (because if we want something done right, we have to do it ourselves). But I just can’t find that way of thinking in the Bible.

I’m willing to be corrected, though. If someone would please, and I mean this seriously, sketch out the Biblical support for “God helps those who help themselves,” I’ll be willing to listen and discuss it here. Because as that great theologian Tom Petty once wrote, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

[poll=32]

The Bible most definitely teaches that God is the one who makes a person rich or poor. A verse that comes to mind:

The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.
—1 Samuel 2:7

And this is an interesting concept since God also commands us in hundreds of passages to take care of the poor. In fact, when we ignore the poor, it angers Him.

So what is going on here?

In the case of the Church, I believe that God makes rich and poor to reveal His glory. And He wishes to reveal that glory by using the Church. It is in the Church’s best interest to partner with God to raise the poor up so that they are rich. I think of the state of widows and orphans, two classes of people dear to God’s heart, and the impact the Church in Jerusalem had on their lives. They went from poor outcasts to having families, food, clothing, and shelter. If that’s not being raised up, I don’t know what is.

This goes hand in hand with Jesus’s response about a certain blind man:

And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
—John 9:2-5

Yes, God is in control. But He also wants us to bring things into alignment with His Kingdom. He may indeed bring a good man low, but He also charges the Church with raising that good man up again for His glory.

Too many of us are willing to sit back and do nothing, believing that what is exists because God has made it that way. And that may be true. However, is that state meant to be permanent? The rest of Scripture most definitely shows that God wants those who follow Him to act, to help change the person of lowly estate into one of abundance and riches. We have to understand this! God is glorified when the Church takes a bad situation and corrects it. In fact, God may have provided that bad situation as a learning tool for us. To make us work to bring light into darkness.

May we never be content with someone else’s suffering.

As that 1st Samuel passage concludes:

He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and on them he has set the world.
—1 Samuel 2:8

And guess what? He uses us to accomplish that purpose!

[poll=33]

Your answers surprised me. A couple years back, I asked how many of you were taught to cast your bread upon the waters, so to speak, and most agreed. In other words, when you give, you get in return. Yet here very few said your church taught that idea of the multiplication of giving. Very intriguing. I’m not sure how to think about this.

The KJV has this:

I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
—Psalms 27:13

Do we believe that we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living? Or will we have to wait to see it after we die? Most of you thought the latter.

I’d love to get some feedback from all sides on this particular answer. Why did you answer as you did?

[poll=34]

This last question showed that half of you thought your work impacted your walk with Christ positively. I believe that God blesses our work, so that’s good. Yet a little more than 1 in 6 of you thought it worked against your growth.

I would love to hear feedback from both sides of this answer. Why did you answer as you did?

So ends my first comments on the theology behind wealth and giving. My next post, as I mentioned, will look at prosperity gospel teachings and whether they are good or bad for the Church in America. My answers may surprise you, so stay tuned!

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Banking On God: Series Compendium

How Does Your Garden Grow?

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lemonboyjpg.jpgWe’ve been eating meals of late made from what we’ve grown ourselves here at Edelen Acres. I’m especially diggin’ the fresh herbs. Made salsa out of the wide variety of tomatoes we’re growing (man, those Lemon Boys are superb!) and tossed in our own cilantro. Scrumptious!

Anyone who reads here long enough knows I support the neo-agrarian lifestyle. I think it best fits God’s original intent for us in the Garden. Local economies. Permaculture. Peace. Tim Keller may love the city and use Jonah as his anti-agrarian homeboy, but Jonah went back home at some point—and home wasn’t the bustling metropolis of Nineveh. For me, the city’s okay. But just okay.

And I’m going off topic…

Eating our own salsa this evening got me thinking about the joys of fruitfulness. To watch the fruit grow and then be put to good use, that’s meaningful. It carries in it the seed of God purpose for us all.

But I wonder how fruitful we are. Finding fruit in America feels nigh unto impossible as we’re so distracted by LIFE™ to give any care to spiritual fecundity. If we’re not making disciples, though, then just what are we doing?

When we talk about knowing God, we fall back into the usual talk of reading the Bible more, or praying more, but we never, ever talk about living out our fruitfulness more. It’s as if we’ve divorced God from His working through us.

But I think that the best way to know God is to do what He says. He honors those who obey Him by revealing more of Himself. And it’s the kind of revelation you can’t get except through obedience to His calling.

Why does doing the Lord’s work get such short shrift when we talk about pressing on to know God? I think I’ve learned more about the depths of the Lord’s heart from doing what He tells me to do (feed the hungry, communicate the Gospel to the lost, love my brother, etc.) than nearly any other source.

And that’s an offshoot of fruitfulness, isn’t it? We will be known by our fruits and we will know Him more deeply because we are fruitful. He’ll continue to expand our gardens, and we’ll find more of Him as those gardens grow.

So how does your garden grow?