Reading through Beyond Greed in the lead-up to Christmas last year made me think again about ‘prosperity teaching’ and whether I’m as immune to it as I like to think I am. I can spot the Joel Osteen variety a mile off, 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. Yet, if Jesus says it’s 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. (more…)
Category Archives: Materialism and prosperity
Nowism
Up front, Sola Panel
There is an insidious and dangerous teaching that I’ve noticed creeping into my church, threatening my Christian hope, and stifling my evangelistic effectiveness. Up to this point, it hasn’t had a catchy title.1 But I want to correct that. I’m going to call this teaching ‘nowism’, from the English word ‘now’, meaning ‘the present age’. (more…)
Banking everything on God
Life
We are calculating people. We learn to be. The accountants talk about a ‘cost benefit analysis’, and as we weigh the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ we do the same thing in almost every part of life. One of the principles we learn from the financial world is spreading the risk. You never get too deeply committed to any one thing. A range of investments makes sure that if one fails, others will sustain you.