RESOURCES — SHORT ARTICLES

 

SHORT ARTICLES BY TOM ELSEROAD
	2020-08-18	How To Recognize Those Who Believe The Prosperity Gospel
		What is the Prosperity Gospel? This is sometimes called the “health and wealth gospel” or “word of faith” movement. It is a belief that the Christian life is about receiving the “best” the world has to offer. It is a perversion of the gospel of Jesus that claims that God rewards increases in faith with increases in health and wealth. This teaching became firmly entrenched in the 1980's with the rise of “televangelism.” The Prosperity Gospel (PG hereafter) perverts and “uses” Scripture for its own welfare and purpose. Most everything is taken out of context, and application is designed to appeal to man's sinful nature. In other words, the Prosperity Gospel tells us what we want to hear, NOT what God actually teaches in His Word. For example, the PG uses the Abrahamic covenant as a means for Christians today to claim material entitlement (Ge.12 and 15). So the land promise given to Abraham and his descendants the PG gang would apply to themselves. This is a unilateral promise of God to Abraham. There are no conditions Abraham needs to meet. God will meet the conditions. Yet the PG advocates teach as we grow in faith it will lead to material compensation from God. They turn the unilateral promise into a bilateral promise. So for this to be true we must meet a requirement. This is so far from the truth, it is like mixing apples and oranges and it turns out to be a vegetable! The PG group claims that we give to gain material compensation from God. They say faith is self-generated and it leads to prosperity. Also they teach that prayer is a tool to force God to grant prosperity to us. Notice that all of these place the focus on man and his well being. These are man-centered and not God-centered. God is like an ATM machine ready to serve us. The PG teachers turn the relationship between God and man into a quid pro quo transaction. So in other words, “I do this for God so He must do that for me”. We act a certain way so God must respond a certain way. God serves us instead of the other way around. The Prosperity Gospel has a faulty view of the relationship between God and man. If PG is true then grace is obsolete, and God takes second place to man whom God serves. In the Abrahamic Covenant God will give land, known as Israel, and blessings to his descendants. We know them as the Jews. The church cannot make any claim of the land of Israel. This is solely for Abraham's descendants. This is mostly a theology based question. That is, it relates to our understanding of God. The real discussion is to determine what God is all about. God shows Himself to be glorious. He seeks His own glory. We need to see that God is uppermost in His own affections. God bringing glory to Himself is His plan. How to identify a Prosperity Gospel teacher or church. 1. There is an absence of the teaching of suffering as a believer (2Co.4:8-9, 17-18). 2. There is an absence of the doctrine of self-denial (Mt.16:24; Lk.9:23-24; Ga.2:20). 3. There is an absence of serious exposition of Scripture. 4. There is an absence of dealing with tensions in Scripture. 5. Their leaders tend to live exorbitant lifestyles. 6. They marginalize the greatness of God (Ps.86:8-10). The PG has everything the Bible teaches about our relationship with God backwards. We serve Him joyfully. We do not expect God to serve us and our demands. Pastor Tom Elseroad

 

An Evangelical Free Church of America

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