Prosperity Doctrine...please go away!
Where did the theology come from that if you tithe enough money you will be able to buy a Mercedez Benz? I will tell you how Prosperity Preaching Preachers bank accounts get big...from your bank account! From the money that was "tithed". Of course you have a new house, a new boat, a motorcycle, money to shop with...because we paid you.
"From the external and visible world there comes an old adage: "Only one who works gets bread." Oddly enough, the adage does not fit the world in which it is most at home, for imperfection is the fundamental law of the external world, and here it happens again and again that he who does not work does get bread, and he who sleeps gets it even more abundantly than he who works.
It is different in the world of the spirit. Here an eternal divine order prevails. Here it does not rain on both the just and the unjust; here the sun does not shine on both good and evil. Here it holds true that only the one who works gets bread."
-Soren Kierkegaard
How is it we use a worldly standard to gauge faith? It is absurd that we use what the world uses to exemplify power. Money is to be used, yes, to live; to feed the hungry; to house the homeless; to educate; to give health; to empower; to mobilize; to bless...not to horde.
I have heard preachers talk about the financial blessings God wants to give us if we only pray and read and tithe the right amount. That your financial status and your house size is in proportion to your faith...what in the world??? Does that ring true for the countless martyrs across the world? Are you going to sit down with a believer in India who is about to be killed for their faith, their families infected with starvation, no roof over their head and explain to them that if they only had tithed enough money last offering everything would have been ok?
I tell you, whenever God speaks of "prosperity" it is linked with social justice. God provides so that we are able to give back to those who are in need. God does not give so that you can boast about that new paint job you placed on your H2.
This is my second point...
If God gives us money based on our faith...Donald Trump must have "great faith". Saddam Hussein must have been tithing a lot in order to build that palace. Money does not dictate faith.
Paul leaves the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20 with 2 things before he heads to Jerusalem nearing the end of his life:
1. "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me"
2. "I have shown you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive"
If i knew I was reciting my last words I would make them count.
1 comment:
I want an H2 ... no, jk. All great blogs! Prosperity preachers wouldn't be rich if they followed their own statement - give and God will give you double back - they would stop asking for money and give double and be in debt : ( Instead, preachers should teach giving as God calls us to, to the local church first, and how to be a good steward of our money - for social justice, like you said!
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