The "Prosperity gospel" is also known as the “health and wealth gospel” or by its most popular brand, the “Word of Faith” movement and is a teaching that claims that God rewards increases in faith with increases in health and/or wealth. In short, this means that “health and wealth” are the automatic divine right of all Bible-believing Christians and may be procreated by faith as part of the package of salvation, since the Atonement of Christ includes not just the removal of sin, but also the removal of sickness and poverty.
Scary fact;
A 2006 Times poll found that 17 percent of American Christians identify explicitly with the movement, while 31 percent espouse the idea that “if you give your money to God God will bless you with more money.” A full 61 percent agree with the more general idea that “God wants people to be prosperous.”
What that says is that the level of BIBLICAL Knowledge and Spirituality in America is at an embarrassing level.
There are many reasons why this teaching is false but I will list only 5 errors of the Prosperity teaching here for you................
1. The Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement.
2. Jesus’s atonement extends to the “sin” of material poverty.
3. Christians give in order to gain material compensation from God.
4. Faith is a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity.
5. Prayer is a tool to force God to grant prosperity.
This teaching has its roots not in the Bible but in what is called "New Thought" which is OCCULTIC. a nineteenth-century spiritual movement popular with decidedly unorthodox thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James. Practitioners of New Thought, not all of whom identified as Christian, generally held the divinity of the individual human being and the priority of mind over matter. In other words, if you could correctly channel your mental energy, you could harness its material results......or, NAME it and CLAIM IT!
Many well meaning Christians have fallen into this false teaching with the expectation and understanding that if you are faithful God owes you something.
Throughout the twentieth century, proponents of this particularly American blend of theology envisaged God as a kind of banker, dispensing money to the deserving, with Jesus as a model business executive. Both of these characterizations were, at times, literal fact: ......
In 1936, New Thought mystic and founder of the Unity Church Charles Fillmore rewrote Psalm 23 to read = “The Lord is my banker/my credit is good”.
In 1925, advertising executive Bruce Bowler wrote The Man Nobody Knows to argue that Jesus was the first great capitalist. The literal money quote reads..... “Some day ... someone will write a book about Jesus. Every businessman will read it and send it to his partners and his salesmen. For it will tell the story of the founder of modern business.”
Names of some well known "Prosperity Preachers" are.......
Kenneth Hagin. The father of the Prosperity movement.
Oral Roberts. At the height of his influence, Roberts oversaw a ministry that brought in $110 million in annual revenue.
Kenneth Copeland
T.D. Jakes
Jerry Savelle
Charles Capps
Jesse DuPlantis
Creflo Dollar
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
Joel Osten
Benny Hinn
Pat Robertson, and
Robert Tilton.
It should be noted that Kenneth Hagin openly denounced the Prosperity preaching done today before he died in 2003.
He wrote a brutally honest book to address his concerns. The Midas Touch was published in 2000.
What are your thoughts????????????
Scary fact;
A 2006 Times poll found that 17 percent of American Christians identify explicitly with the movement, while 31 percent espouse the idea that “if you give your money to God God will bless you with more money.” A full 61 percent agree with the more general idea that “God wants people to be prosperous.”
What that says is that the level of BIBLICAL Knowledge and Spirituality in America is at an embarrassing level.
There are many reasons why this teaching is false but I will list only 5 errors of the Prosperity teaching here for you................
1. The Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement.
2. Jesus’s atonement extends to the “sin” of material poverty.
3. Christians give in order to gain material compensation from God.
4. Faith is a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity.
5. Prayer is a tool to force God to grant prosperity.
This teaching has its roots not in the Bible but in what is called "New Thought" which is OCCULTIC. a nineteenth-century spiritual movement popular with decidedly unorthodox thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James. Practitioners of New Thought, not all of whom identified as Christian, generally held the divinity of the individual human being and the priority of mind over matter. In other words, if you could correctly channel your mental energy, you could harness its material results......or, NAME it and CLAIM IT!
Many well meaning Christians have fallen into this false teaching with the expectation and understanding that if you are faithful God owes you something.
Throughout the twentieth century, proponents of this particularly American blend of theology envisaged God as a kind of banker, dispensing money to the deserving, with Jesus as a model business executive. Both of these characterizations were, at times, literal fact: ......
In 1936, New Thought mystic and founder of the Unity Church Charles Fillmore rewrote Psalm 23 to read = “The Lord is my banker/my credit is good”.
In 1925, advertising executive Bruce Bowler wrote The Man Nobody Knows to argue that Jesus was the first great capitalist. The literal money quote reads..... “Some day ... someone will write a book about Jesus. Every businessman will read it and send it to his partners and his salesmen. For it will tell the story of the founder of modern business.”
Names of some well known "Prosperity Preachers" are.......
Kenneth Hagin. The father of the Prosperity movement.
Oral Roberts. At the height of his influence, Roberts oversaw a ministry that brought in $110 million in annual revenue.
Kenneth Copeland
T.D. Jakes
Jerry Savelle
Charles Capps
Jesse DuPlantis
Creflo Dollar
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
Joel Osten
Benny Hinn
Pat Robertson, and
Robert Tilton.
It should be noted that Kenneth Hagin openly denounced the Prosperity preaching done today before he died in 2003.
He wrote a brutally honest book to address his concerns. The Midas Touch was published in 2000.
The Prosperity Gospel Is Not Biblical And It's Not Real“I believe that it is anti-Christian and unholy for any Christian to live with the object of accumulating wealth. You will say, “Are we not to strive all we can to get all the money we can?” You may do so. I cannot doubt but what, in so doing, you may do service to the cause of God. But what I said was that to live with the object of accumulating wealth is anti-Christian.”Source - Tom Carted, ed., 2,200 Quotations from the Writings of Charles H. Spurgeon |
What are your thoughts????????????
