Last week, I started a series on lies Christians believe about money. The first post was on the lie that wealth and money are bad things and should be avoided at all cost. If you haven’t read it, you can find it here. This week, I’m addressing a second lie:

 

Lie #2: If I follow Jesus, I’ll become healthy, wealthy and wise.

 

I think there are probably fewer people (at least in the US; I’ve heard this is a bigger deal in Africa) who believe this particular lie than the first and third, but lie number 2 is still around. It even has a fancy name: the prosperity gospel. The idea is this: if you follow God and are obedient, you will be blessed without measure. If you please God, he will make sure you are healthy, wealthy, and wise.

 

That’s the obvious version of the prosperity gospel, but it also shows up in smaller ways. Sometimes we hear that if we tithe (a Christianese word for giving ten percent of our income to the church), we will get what we tithed back in blessings, including financial ones. God is a great investment. He always gives a great return.

 

Prosperity Gospel Proof Text #1: Deuteronomy 11

Of course, there are some proof texts that people use to support this view. One of the biggest ones comes from Deuteronomy 11. In this chapter, God (through Moses) is reminding the people of how He brought them out of Egypt and the promises He made to them and their ancestors.  He swore to give them a land of their own.

 

God promises in this chapter (right before they enter into this Promised Land) that if they obey Him, things will go well with them. Their crops will succeed. They will be blessed. Life will be good. However,  If they don’t follow God or if they follow other gods, He will thwart their crops and they will end up enslaved. Things will not go so well.

 

The problem with using this as a proof text is twofold:

 

1) This promise is made to the nation of Israel in the context of entering the Promised Land. This isn’t a promise that’s repeated in the New Testament. Some things from the Old Testament carry over (like who God is) other things (like the dietary restrictions God gave the Israelites) don’t. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence (as we will see later in this post) that this is something that continues on and is valid for all time.

 

2) The Israelites prove that they aren’t capable of fulfilling this promise, so why should we think we are? The rest of the Old Testament is evidence of this. The book after Joshua (where they actually take the Promised Land) is Judges. It’s a whole book about how many different times the Israelites messed up, the consequences of that, and how God kept trying to set them straight. Things don’t get better in any of the other Old Testament books. The Israelites are constantly turning to other gods. God is constantly sending people to warn them to turn back. It just never works out well.

 

Prosperity Gospel Proof Text #2: Proverbs

The book of Proverbs also has a lot of verses that seem to suggest that if you are wise and follow God, things will go well with you. For example, Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.” This seems to mean that if you’re righteous, you’ll have so much money if will get passed down through the generations. Also, you should expect to receive the money of sinners.

 

However, there are other Proverbs and the whole book of Ecclesiastes (which are both reportedly written by King Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived) showing that righteousness doesn’t always mean success. An example of this is Ecclesiastes 9:11 which says, “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” This seems to be saying that wealth does not necessarily follow righteousness.

 

Prosperity Gospel Proof Text #3: Malachi 3:6-12

Malachi 3:6-12 is another proof text for this way of thinking. In this verse, God (through Malachi) tells the Israelite people to test him on the whole tithing thing (which they haven’t been doing). He says that if they give, God will open up the storehouses for them and their crops will prosper and they will succeed.

 

Now, I think there is truth in that Malachi verse. After all, I think in some ways, the prosperity gospel is true. If we follow God, if we tithe, we will be rewarded. However, those rewards may not always be financial or even on this side of heaven.

 

The Biggest Argument against the Prosperity Gospel: The New Testament

If the New Testament is any indication of what we should expect if we follow God, it’s not prosperity. Rather, we should expect martyrdom and persecution if we follow God, not material rewards.

 

Neither Jesus Nor His Apostles Were Wealthy

Jesus was the most perfect and righteous person that ever lived and he wasn’t wealthy or successful from the world’s point of view. As we saw in last weeks post, he actually had some wealthy women who supported him because (apparently) he didn’t have enough money to support himself on his own. He wasn’t wealthy or popular even. He was crucified after all. If his life is any indication, we shouldn’t necessarily expect that just because we follow God that life will be easy and smooth and we will always have enough money. Jesus didn’t even have his own home, much less tons of extra cash.

 

The same is true of the apostles. While they weren’t desperately poor (we know Paul at least supported himself with his tentmaking), they were far from wealthy or comfortable. They did not live lives of abundance or comfort. Paul was stoned, beaten, imprisoned, and finally executed because he followed Jesus. While I’m sure Paul gave a lot of money, that didn’t mean he was fabulously wealthy or even safe.

 

God’s Blessing Isn’t Always Financial

I do think that God rewards us when we trust Him and we tithe. He also rewards us in some manner when we follow Him. However, I don’t think the rewards are always monetary. In fact, I don’t think they often are. God is not an ATM nor is tithing some kind of contract we make with God. Does He provide us with financial blessings on occasion? Yes, but it isn’t always directly tied to tithing or our own ability to follow Him. As we look at the examples set for us in the Bible, we see that God is more concerned with our holiness and the way we conform to the character of His son than He is about the balance in our bank account.

 

God doesn’t necessarily want us to take a vow of poverty or give all our money away (though I think He does call some people to that). Nor does he promise that if we follow him we will be fabulously wealthy. He simply promises that He will provide for us if we simply trust in Him and His love. As we’ll learn next week, that doesn’t mean we can be careless with our money and possessions, but it does mean we should be content.

 

 

 

Photo by Michael Longmire on Unsplash