Examining the Prosperity Gospel

photo credit: noahwesley

My pastor recently gave a sermon on stewardship entitled “How to be Rich Poor!” It was a good sermon given in the negative about how to live a life that God won’t bless. For example, if you don’t want to reap what you have sown (2 Cor 9:6), be sure to give with a bad attitude, because we know God loves a cheerful giver, and we don’t want to be shown God’s love.

Get it? I hope so. Let’s move on.

It really made me think about the prosperity gospel. A person who maybe was coming to our church for the first time might be lead to think, “This is a message on how to get rich, so if I give money to God, I will reap a reward of money! Sign me up!”

Is this a true way to think about 2 Cor 9:6 tho? Does God really want us to be financially rich? Is the fact that your are rich show that you’re favored somehow by God? Let’s look at the facts.

2 Corinthians 9:6: Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

If you stopped there, you might have a leg to stand on with this. But, like all bible verses, it’s important to read a few verses ahead and a few verses behind (2o verses is a good rule of thumb). So, let’s look a little farther.

2 Corinthians 9:7-8: Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

A lot of great stuff here, but lets focus in on 5 little words: “having all that you need.”

So what do we need? Money is nice, but is it always what we need. A CNNMoney.com article states that people who go from earning $20,000 to earning $50,000 are twice as likely to be happy. However, you’re only a little more likely to be happy once you pass $90,000. What does this mean? I think, quite simply, we can say that the extra $40,000 you’re earning isn’t making you happier. It’s only at $50,000, when all our needs can be met (if you can’t meet all your needs at $50,000, perhaps a financial seminar is in order ), can we really be happy. So then, the money isn’t really making us happy, it’s having our needs met. Therefore, money alone doesn’t make us happy, just what it provides.

Perhaps what we need is to be married? The same CNNMoney article claims that 40% of married couples claim they are “very happy”, while only 25% of single people claim the same. With a divorce rate of 50% (never a happy situation), I think we should maybe look elsewhere for finding happiness.

Will a job make us happy? Maybe some people, but to what extent?

Fame? Look at your typical Hollywood celebrity being followed by paparazzi. If that’s happiness, count me out!

Power? Alexander the Great, one of the greatest world leaders in history, is quoted to have cried because he had ‘ran out of worlds to conquer’? Sound happy to you?

So what then is going to make us happy? If you’ve ever been in a Bible study or any kind of sunday school setting, you can probably guess that the answer is either 1) God or 2) Jesus. Well, you’re right on both accounts! What we really need is a relationship with the Living God and to have faith in His Son, Jesus Christ! Look at what the apostle Paul says:

Philippians 3:4-11: though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;6as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Paul had it all before Christ. He was a Pharisee, a zealot, persecutor of the Church. He had all the qualifications a person could want. Yet he says it was all RUBBISH compared to knowing Christ. The hebrew word for rubbish can actually be translated “dung.” It was all dung, manure, compared to his faith in the Risen Lord. (This brings up another issue, that is, the loss of self, but I’ll post about that later)

So next time you’re looking at those dollars in your pocket, feeling unfulfilled, dissatisfied, think about your relationship with Christ, and how that relationship should be where you’re finding your fulfillment.

For Him.