The Prosperity Gospel: When Gain Is Mistaken for Godliness
“Sow a seed and reap a harvest.” “God wants you rich.” “Your breakthrough is one offering away.” The prosperity gospel — the teaching that faith and giving will reliably produce wealth and health — fills arenas, sells books, and funds private jets. It is also, measured against Scripture, very close to the exact thing the apostles told the church to flee.
When gain is mistaken for godliness
Paul described a class of teachers who treat religion as a path to profit, and his instruction about them is unusually sharp:
“…perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself… For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” — 1 Timothy 6:5,10
“Supposing that gain is godliness” is a remarkably precise description of the prosperity message. So is Peter’s warning about teachers who would “with feigned words make merchandise of you” (2 Peter 2:3) — turning the people of God into a revenue stream.
A complaint as old as the prophets
The prophet Micah condemned the religious leaders of his day in terms that could be printed over a modern broadcast:
“The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us?” — Micah 3:11
And when Simon the sorcerer tried to buy spiritual power with cash, Peter’s response left no room for negotiation: “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money” (Acts 8:20).
The Master who had nowhere to lay His head
The deepest problem with the prosperity gospel is that it does not look like Jesus. The One it claims to represent was born in a borrowed stable and buried in a borrowed tomb. He said of Himself, “the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). His warnings about money were constant and pointed:
“No man can serve two masters… Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” — Matthew 6:24
“Take heed, and beware of covetousness,” He said, “for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15). A message that ties God’s favor to your bank balance has inverted His teaching and called the inversion good news.
The harm it leaves behind
The cruelty of the prosperity gospel is felt most by those who give and do not receive — the struggling believer who empties an account on a promised “breakthrough” that never comes, and is then told the failure was a lack of faith. The teacher prospers; the giver is left poorer and ashamed. It is worth saying that not every pastor who speaks of God’s blessing is running this scheme, and many are sincere. But where the love of money has been baptized and sold as faith, the New Testament does not ask us to admire it. It asks us to withdraw from it.
