The Love of the Prosperity Message

"5:10 The one who loves money will never be satisfied with money,
he who loves wealth will never be satisfied with his income.
This also is futile.
5:11 When someone’s prosperity increases, those who consume it also increase;
so what does its owner gain, except that he gets to see it with his eyes?
5:12 The sleep of the laborer is pleasant – whether he eats little or much –
but the wealth of the rich will not allow him to sleep." (Ecclesiastes 5:10-12)

This is why I dislike the prosperity-message being preached today by the likes of Joel Osteen and others. Now, I am one to offer people the benefit of the doubt. So I won't go off the deep end and say that Osteen and his ilk are heretics damned for hell. Rather, like many others who teach wayward doctrines, there is some truth in what Osteen has to say. For instance, he preaches that, generally speaking, God wants to raise people higher from where they currently are. He also teaches that "He can use anybody, and when we are at our weakest is when His power is always strongest" (USAToday Article).

I would agree that God does want us to rise higher from our current state, and I would also agree that God's immense power can be shown through us in our weakest moments in life. The difference is, however, that my understanding of what those two things mean comes from an exegesis of Scripture and an overall Biblical Theology, as opposed to coming from a self-help- type mentality, like that espoused by Tony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, or Dr. Phil McGraw.

Let's start with the first one, that God wants us to rise higher from our current state. In a second blog, I will tackle the second point, that God's immense power can be shown through us in our weakest moments in life. One of Osteen's followers, who was briefly profiled in the USAToday article link above, is quoted as saying "Jesus ministered to the poor to let them know they did not need to live like that...God wants more for you than that. Joel Osteen's ministry is doing just that: You teach people what God wants from you, not what he doesn't want from you." Let's pick this apart one statement at a time.


"Jesus ministered to the poor to let them know that they did not need to live like that...."
My question for Osteen and the person who said this is where in the four Gospel accounts did Jesus tell any poor person "...that they did not need to live like that"? When Jesus ministered to people, whether materially rich or poor, he always focused on their spiritual "possession", not on the material possessions. A couple of examples will suffice to prove my point. The first example will show that Jesus cares about one's spiritual condition more than about one's material possessions. The second example will show that a commonly used parable to "prove" Jesus wants us to invest and become materially wealthy, is false.

The rich young man of Matthew 19 asked what he must do to gain eternal life. Jesus first told him that he must keep the commandments to enter into life. The young man claimed to have obeyed the whole moral Law (10 Commandments). Jesus, in his second and final answer to the question, told him:

"19:21 Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 19:22 But when the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he was very rich."

Jesus presented this young man with something that under girds the law he so "perfectly" kept: loving God and loving people. With selling his possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor (more on this later), the young man would have shown his love for people; in the authentic act of loving people, the young man would have invested his "treasure" in heaven, showing he really did love God. However, with the request to truly sacrifice of himself, we can see what the heart of this young man really loved. Remember Jesus' words earlier in Matthew:

6:19 “Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 6:20 But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If then your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 6:23 But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:19-24)

The connection is difficult to miss, I think. The point of this story of the rich young man is to illustrate the idea taught in the Sermon on the Mount, that where one places his trust and security, that will be his true love and master. The young man trusted and loved his riches so much, that even though he could "obey" the law, he couldn't really obey the law. In the Matthew 19 passage, Jesus says that it is very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. In fact, it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom. His disciples, distressed, asked who then can be saved. Jesus responded that with people, it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. The young man couldn't have possibly saved himself; only a sovereign act of God could save him. The principle here is man's love for possession and wealth over-and-above his love for God will keep him out of heaven. Christ's concern here is not necessarily material possession, but the love of that possession. Jesus isn't advocating that we actively pursue greater material possession. Rather, he is advocating that we love God more than we love our possessions, even if that means giving up what we have to serve God.

What say you, Osteen? Does God really care about our material possessions, or is he more concerned with our spiritual status within (or with-out) the kingdom?

The second example is the parable of the talents. I've heard this parable used to promote the prosperity message. This parable appears in Matthew 25. In short, a rich guy has three servants. To each one, he gives varying amounts of money to invest while he (the rich guy) goes off to a far away land. The first slave has ten talents, which he doubles to twenty. The second slave has five talents, which he doubles to ten. The third slave has one talent, but instead of doubling his money, buries it in the ground. He was afraid of his master because the master was a hard man to his slaves. When the rich guy returned, the first and second slaves "entered into the joy of [their] master" because of their faithfulness. The third slave, however, was cast "into the outer darkness, where there [is] weeping and gnashing of teeth" because of his unfaithfulness.

What is the point of this parable? If you notice where the parable is located in its greater context, it is the fourth (and last) of the four Olivet Discourse parables (the other three: the parable of the fig tree, the parable of the faithful and wise slave, and the parable of the ten virgins). The fig tree parable concerns the signs of Christ's return; the faithful and wise slave parable concerns slaves who are ready (faithful) and not ready (unfaithful) for Christ's return; the ten virgins parable concerns virgins who foolishly ran out of oil for their lamps, and as a result, could not enter the wedding party (they were not prepared for the return of Christ). Do you see a pattern of slaves being ready and not ready for the return of their master? The parable of the talents is about slaves who are faithful versus slaves who are not faithful. The unfaithful slave is thrown into hell because he wasn't a true servant of his master.

Principly, the parable doesn't have anything to do with money or investment. The parable is about the kingdom of God. If that isn't enough, immediately after this parable is Jesus' discourse on the final judgment; and guess who goes to hell? It's those people who did not serve Christ. They thought they were Christ's servant, but they weren't, and they were cast into hell.

25:41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels! 25:42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. 25:43 I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 25:44 Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not give you whatever you needed?’ 25:45 Then he will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’ 25:46 And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)

What say you, Osteen? In distributing material aid to the poor, are we to try to make them materially wealthy or are we to give that aid in true service to Christ?

I don't know about Osteen and others, but I don't see a prosperity message anywhere in Matthew, or even in the other three Gospel accounts. Jesus' message to the poor (and rich) centered on spiritual possession, spiritual richness. Read them, Osteen, for what they are: a message of the gospel of Jesus Christ coming to save sinners from God's wrath in hell, not a message of temporal prosperity. The message is one focused on God and his wealth, not on us and our supposed wealth.


"...God wants more for you than that"
What does God for us? Does God want us to be materially wealthy, or does God instead want us to be rich in something else? For this phrase, I'm going to look at Jesus' words in John 10, which is another commonly used passage to show that Jesus wants us to be materially wealthy.

"10:7 So Jesus said to them again, “I tell you the solemn truth, I am the door for the sheep. 10:8 All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 10:9 I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly." (John 10:7-10; emphasis added)

John 10:1-21 is his well-known "I am the Good Shepherd" discourse. The (partial) verse used so often appears at the end of verse 10, where Jesus says, "...I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly." What does Jesus mean by this? Does it mean that he wants us to have an ever increasing financial security? Does it mean that God wants me to have an abundantly large house?

Throughout John, Jesus talks about life. (Selected mentioning by [and about] Jesus about what "life" is; emphasis added)

• 1:4 - In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind
• 3:14-16 - Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."
  
• 3:36 - The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but God’s wrath remains on him.
• 4:13, 14 - Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”
• 5:21 - For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.
• 5:39, 40 - You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me, but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.
• 6:27 - Do not work for the food that disappears, but for the food that remains to eternal life – the food which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has put his seal of approval on him.”
• 6:54, 55 - The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
  
• 10:27, 28 - My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; no one will snatch them from my hand.
• 20:30, 31 - Now Jesus performed many other miraculous signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
  

This brief survey of how "life" is used in John shows us something relevant to the John 10 passage. Jesus is concerned about people having eternal life. He teaches that only in him, in his body and in his blood, can eternal life be found. In Christ, one doesn't thirst or hunger for anything more. Perfect satisfaction is in Christ - the search for "life" is over. Go ahead, read the contexts for each of those passages, and even the passages I didn't mention here. You will not find one passage that teaches that God wants people to have a materially wealthy life. Rather, every relevant passage teaches that God wants people to have eternal life. The consummation of present eternal life in the believer is found in the resurrection from the dead. In Christ, we won't merely be raised from the dead, but we'll be raised from the dead in life, because in him is found life. Absolutely no message about material wealth.

So then what is the "abundant life" in John 10? It is quite evident, I think, that Jesus is talking about the satisfaction that comes with eternal life. Jesus says that all those who came before him were thieves and robbers. His true sheep did not listen to those people. In fact, those evil shepherds stole, killed, and destroyed. Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, came to give his life for his sheep; he came to give his sheep life; he came to restore what was destroyed. The abundant life for his sheep is found in Christ, where he feeds us good food, he gives us new life, and he restores us. Notice in the John 10 passage, Jesus' sheep follow him where he leads because they recognize his voice. The sheep only follow (i.e., obey) their shepherd. The sheep are obedient to the shepherd's commands because they love their shepherd (after he first loved them). The abundant life is not about gaining material wealth; the abundant life is about gaining spiritual wealth through following and obeying Christ's commands. We are to find our ultimate satisfaction in Christ alone, not in gaining material wealth.

What say you, Osteen? Does God want us to have an "abundant life" in this world, or does he want us to have the "abundant life" in Jesus Christ?


"Joel Osteen's ministry is doing just that: You teach people what God wants from you, not what he doesn't want from you"
If we know what God wants for us, then what does he want from us? I believe this can be summed up in a single verse from Ecclesiastes 12:13 - God wants us to fear him and to obey his commandments. In the New Testament, Jesus said this, that we are to first "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind", then "love your neighbor as yourself". As Paul would say, we are to "offer our bodies as a sacrifice - alive, holy, and pleasing to God - which is your reasonable service". He says that it is God's will for us to become "holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to possess his own body in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God". Oh, but in that last verse from First Thessalonians, Paul mentions those things that God doesn't want from us.

My question for Osteen and his followers is, how are we to know where we need to be unless we're told not where to go? Everywhere in Scripture, God tells us to not sin, to not disobey his commandments, to not follow other gods, et al. Besides this, every explicit positive command necessitates a negative command. To be commanded to obey our parents necessitates that we not disobey them. How can a ministry really minister to people when the negative commands are purposefully forgotten?

To conclude this first part, that God wants us to rise higher than where we are now, I can say this much: Jesus cares more about our spiritual poverty than about our physical poverty. I am not saying that Jesus absolutely does not care about physical poverty, not at all, however Jesus' mission on earth was to "save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21), not to save his people from their physical poverty. Remember, the "abundant life" is found only when we are obedient in Christ. I challenge Osteen and anybody else who follows this prosperity message to exegete one passage from Scripture, fitting it into an overall Biblical Theology, that will show that Jesus wants people to not be poor.

In Christ's teaching in his Sermon on the Mount, he discusses that one should not worry about our life, what we will eat or drink, or about our body, what we will wear. Jesus affirms that there is more to life that mere food and clothing, although those are important. God will provide for the physical necessities of his children if he even takes care of the animals. Jesus said,

"And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, won’t he clothe you even more, you people of little faith?" (Matthew 6:30)

Jesus doesn't want us to necessarily worry about we will eat, or what we will drink, or what we will wear. In fact, Jesus is radical in saying that the unsaved pursue these things. Rather, Jesus wants us to "pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Jesus affirms the fact that people should, above all else in life, pursue God's kingdom. If people do that, God will provide for their essential physical needs. Jesus goes on to say,

"So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:33-34)

These three areas (wearing, eating, and drinking) are representative elements of our essential, physical, needs. People need these things to survive in this world. Without them, people die - that's a fact. How does God provide our essential, physical, needs? Through providentially working through the lives of his children. In Matthew 25, Jesus is talking about what will happen at the final judgment. He says,

"25:34Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 25:35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 25:37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 25:38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? 25:39 When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’25:40 And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’" (Matthew 25:34-40)

So even in serving the poor, even in serving the physical needs of those who are 'less fortunate', we, who are the children of God, are serving Christ.

In terms of the prosperity message, Osteen preaches that we should be concerned about what we're wearing, what we're eating, and what we're drinking. In other words, the focus is not the kingdom of God, but rather on the kingdom of the world: if we're poor, then we're not blessed by God. He would say that we're not rising higher in this world because we're not believing that God wants more for us temporally.

This is stupid thinking. Let me say this one more time, just in case you missed it the first time: this is stupid thinking. God is very capable of giving somebody material wealth. Abraham was wealthy. David was wealthy. Solomon was wealthy. God used them for his purpose. God is also very capable of not giving people material wealth. The ultimate example is in Jesus, who was homeless man who died a criminal's death. God gave Job his wealth, and also took away his wealth for his sovereign purposes. In our pursuit of God, we may need to acquire a better paying job. That's fine. In our pursuit of God, we may need to give up our high paying job to become dirt poor, serving God among other dirt poor people. That's just as legitimate. God calls, directs, causes, prevents, and allows all things for his eternal purposes, meaning some of his children will be poor and some will be rich. Some will be in between. Again, I challenge Osteen or anybody else who follows his line of reasoning to exegete a passage from Scripture, form an overall Biblical Theology, and prove that God wants all his children to be wealthy, healthy, materially happy, et al.

I'll post a second blog on this issue in the near future, Lord willing.