The Propensity Gospel: Never in Isolation

I was thinking about the Prosperity Gospel and the idea that embedded in the Prosperity Gospel that wants us to have our best life now. I have always been adamantly against the whole idea of the Prosperity Gospel because it preaches mostly a health and wealth ideology and if you are not healthy and wealthy you are somehow inferior spiritually or are not praying hard enough or obedient enough. Because of my Pentecostal and Charismatic brethren, I’ve tried to temper my approach to this errant theology when it is taught in isolation.

Therein lays the rub. The Prosperity Gospel when preached in isolation without the balance of Scripture also brought into play is in fact a false teaching and heresy. We are to teach the full counsel of Scripture not just the parts we like. This goes for the 'God is Love' crowd too. Yeah, He is love…He’s also very much the 'God of Wrath' too.

So, look at John 10:10, where Jesus says, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” I have heard Reformed and Calvinist teachers say that life here is only salvation from sin, not earthly prosperity, as though one could prove from this text that the gospel has nothing to do with earthly prosperity or happiness. This isn’t solely and completely true…again, in isolation. People are strangely good at being in denial or prone to their own confirmation bias without seeing the full picture. Sometimes Christians just gather the facts they need to prove what they want to believe but not necessarily what the Scriptures authored by God seek to teach us.

Is there suffering in the teachings of Christianity? Absolutely! The broad underlying premises within Scripture speak to this fact, especially in the story of the Gospel itself. Yet that very Gospel offers us ultimate blessing and rewards…or prosperity. Is it all spiritual? Perhaps, but nothing in the Scriptures precludes the possibility of physical reward here, now. Becoming rich, is it possible? Yes. Probable? Not likely. If there is reward now, in a way it is the 'now but not yet' being brought into a form of physicality. 

Jesus does in fact promise earthly prosperity for his people, “with persecutions,” in this life, and prosperity in the life to come:

Mark 10:29-31~ Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” 

This was similar to God’s promise to Israel in the Old Testament also.

Exodus 3:8 ~ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

Exodus 3:17 ~ And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’

Exodus 13:5 ~ When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month:

Deuteronomy 28:1-15 If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to him. Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will fear you. The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

What we can clearly see in the Deuteronomy passage is that prosperity is provisional or conditional on obedience/belief. After fourteen verse of blessing there are then fifty-four verses of curses for the disobedient and unfaithful. In essence, if you insist on doubling-down on stupid in your sin and disobedience God might forgive this time but eventually He's going to call you out. God's going to cut you down.

So, it appears that Jesus in Mark announces at least a provisional fulfillment of possible prosperity in the lives of his people.

Mark 10:29-31 ~ “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” 

We should therefore not doubt that such blessing is part of the “abundance” of life that Jesus offers in this world now in John 10:10…but I just wouldn't expect it because Jesus also told us to take up our crosses daily. In John’s writing throughout the entire Gospel of John's context is life in direct contrast with death, not with prosperity. I agree with the critics of the Prosperity Gospel that the true gospel always focuses on the forgiveness of sins. But I believe it is too simplistic to say that the Gospel is limited to just forgiveness. The prosperity preachers didn’t get their idea out of thin air. The prosperity of God’s people is a regular theme of Scripture. The prosperity movement misreads this promise though, without the balancing teaching of Mark 10. But the prosperity gospel needs to be addressed by a more discerning examination of Scripture than one finds in some of their broadly generalizing critics.

It is the propensity of human nature to want to simplify things but as we know with other topics in Scripture, a simple, direct or straightforward dogmatic statement about a non-essential is not always prudent. We should never form dogma around single statements in Scripture but use the 'Analogy of Scripture' as encouraged by the Reformers. Scripture interprets Scripture. If we’re honest, we’ll admit Scripture speaks to suffering now but not later in eternity unless one doesn't repent. It also speaks of rewards later and even occasionally…now. Just not like Jesse Duplantis, Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen are telling people about. That is because it is also a propensity for sinful men to gravely sin when it comes to greed also.