Reading through Beyond Greed in the lead-up to Christmas this year has made me think again about ‘prosperity teaching’ and whether I’m as immune to it as I like to think I am.
When it comes dressed in full bling (eg. Brian Houston’s You Need more Money or Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now), I can see it coming a mile off, and I don’t have any difficulty identifying it as crassly unbiblical.
But when it comes without those trappings, I’m not so sure that I’m as good at spotting it and guarding my heart against its temptations. And yet, if Jesus says it is the ‘deceitfulness’ of wealth that makes it so dangerous to my perseverance and fruitfulness as a disciple (Mark 4:19), then I need to be on guard for the subtle half-truths as well as the big lie.
Here are two forms of prosperity teaching that I think I am particularly liable to being deceived by:
1. Prosperity teaching by silent example
What I have in mind here is the power our lifestyle has to reinforce or undermine what we say in our preaching. Often the sermons I hear about money and greed and generosity are couched in vague, abstract generalities. This is for all sorts of reasons: to avoid legalism, to allow room for people to use wisdom in applying the Scripture to their differing circumstances, and perhaps also because preachers get more training in exegesis than in application. Whatever the reason, we usually end up hearing very abstract, general encouragements to ‘generosity’ and ‘contentment’ and so on without a lot of concrete detail on what it looks like in practice.
Into that vacuum rushes the example of the people sitting next to us in church—people whom we silently compare ourselves to set the benchmark of what a lifestyle that goes with an acceptable level of ‘generosity’ and ‘contentment’ might look like: the clothes they dress their kids in, the way they they get their hair done, the cars they drive, the houses they live in and the way they furnish them. And of course, if we love money and desire more possessions, and if we want to justify ourselves, we tend to compare ourselves with people who have more than us, not less!
As a friend of ours wrote in a letter to The Briefing a few years ago:
It seems to me that much evangelical complaining about Pentecostal ‘prosperity doctrine’ has a cheap-shot quality to it. We rail against a teaching about prosperity, while all the while pursuing a lifestyle of prosperity. We’re surely right to oppose such a teaching, but to do so while embracing a prosperity lifestyle seems hypocritical. At least Pentecostal affluence is in keeping with what they teach. Do we pride ourselves on a superior teaching, and yet remain expert at ignoring the implications of that teaching? Would the cars in my church car park look any different to those at Hillsong? I doubt it.
2. Prosperity teaching by neglected emphasis
Along with that silent teaching that we give to each other in the example of our lifestyle, the other form of prosperity teaching that I think I am vulnerable to is the prosperity teaching that comes not so much in what is said, but in what is left out or left under-emphasized.
What I have in mind here is the sort of teaching that goes on at great length about the wisdom of Proverbs and the good gifts that God the Creator has given to us without reminding us that we live in the last days, under ‘wartime’ circumstances that call for us to sacrifice some of these creation blessings for the sake of others and for the work of the gospel.
I’m thankful for books and sermons that encourage me to take my sexual relationship with my husband seriously, but I don’t need someone to help me rationalize the temptation to go shopping for more expensive intimate apparel!
I’m thankful for teaching that encourages me to be faithful to my responsibilities in helping Dave, managing a household and caring for small children, but I don’t need someone to feed my selfish desire to devote my days to beautifying the house and garden.
I’m thankful for every encouragement I get to read good theology and think hard about the things of God, but I don’t need someone to help me feel okay about my craving to buy all the latest publications, shiny and new at the local Christian bookshop.
A message about marriage, family, food, sex or money that just tells me that God is the good creator of all these things (1 Tim 4:1-5) without mentioning that he made all these things for his glory (1 Cor 10:31-11:1), that his glory shines most perfectly in Christ crucified (2 Cor 4:6) and that that is reflected in my life as I live it in the light of the cross (2 Cor 3:18) is, at best, a half-truth and, at worst, a kind of soft prosperity gospel—just without the bling! And I find it so much more tempting.
Hi Nicole,
A good post. It’s one of those areas where you can see the speck in the other person’s eye, but be blind to the log in your own.
This is not directly related to the main theme, but your comment about applying Scripture caught my attention. How can I learn to apply Scripture better, especially in public preaching and teaching?
Hi Nicole, just came across from your blog. I preached on this just last Sunday and did get more specific and hard hitting for the reasons you state above. Now I’ve spent all week since feeling very convicted that I don’t practice what I preach!
A bullseye, Nicole.
Three quick reactions:
1. The ‘silent example’ has always been a problem for me personally. I see a Christian brother I respect with a new X (iPhone, plasma TV, etc.), and it’s amazing how much more easily I start to justify my greed for those very things. “Well, he’s got one after all.” It’s not envy. It’s a sense of validation.
2. Enjoying God’s creation is good, and some of us need encouragement to let a little fun into our lives. All work and no play etc. But your perception of how easily that also turns into a licence for self-centred living and materialism is on the money (so to speak).
3. Practically speaking, I think this is the biggest obstacle to reaching our city for Christ. Faith comes through hearing the Word, and hearing the Word comes through people giving their time to pray, to make contact with others, and to share the Word with them. But we’re all too busy raising our families in paradise to do this.
Thanks again for an excellent post.
TP
Thanks Nicole for a timely reminder!
I find that having on my daily prayer list places for the disadvantaged and poor, the struggling church overseas doing without the human and material resources we take for granted and our brothers and sisters in Christ facing daily persecution we would find unimaginable , a great help in seeking to live out God’s world view and looking out rather than in. With time it also impinges on my use of money and how & where I spend it.
It is all about love,for God and for my neighbour.I need to daily ask my heavenly father to help me to love as he loves and to carefully consider the implications this brings.
Thanks Nicole. I wholeheartedly agree.
I think superficial views of contextualisation can also justify our greed (eg. “I need a certain standard of interior decor so that my neighbours will feel comfortable visiting me”.)
May God give us more of a “pioneering” spirit to set a different example in our Christian (and unbelieving) communities.
Hi Nicole
Do you think part of the problem may stem from a failure to understand the scriptures such as 1 Tim 4:1-5 in its immediate context in the first place and so people are lead to distorted ‘applications’?
As I understand it, these verses are not a case for indulgence. The passage is a rejection to the thinking that abstinence is holy.
I suggest the desire for earthly prosperity focuses around two things:
o our lack of appreciation of the gospel – unwillingness to obey when we hear scripture
o our failure to understand what the scriptures are saying (tendency to distort and legalise)
Therefore we tend to overlook our response to the Gospel of grace and focus on/judge/covet others. When I struggle to be generous it is because I don’t want to be generous – my heart is the problem. So I need to keep hearing the gospel.
Di
Thanks once again Nicole! You tend to put into words my half-formed thoughts on so many things. I am very thankful to have some godly Christian leaders as my example in this; they consistently have a lower standard of living than almost everyone else in church and yet seem quite content with their lot. Not that they go on about it, either, but as you say, you do get to look at the silent example of those around you. I am very inspired by some of our Christian friends too, who do <cite>live simply, so that others may simply live<cite>.
Thanks Nicole
I think Christians might also put blinkers on our definition of ‘prosperity’, leaving some areas for us to indulge ‘guilt-free.’
There’s no direct dollar value cost or credit card expense for aiming at nice middle-class jobs, or formal educational achievement. Most of us wouldn’t look at a person being promoted to a new international location the same way we would look at a guy with an expensive sports car – perhaps we should.