About a month ago I woke up at a silly hour of the morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I turned on the tv and Jesse Duplantis was on blabbering on about something I really have no interest in (I'm not too fond of televangelists). Anyway, he brought my attention to the Prosperity gospel.

What do you guys think of it?

what exactly is it?

Basically, and I'm sure someone will correct me with a better definition is that the PG is about how God wants us all to be wealthy, and prosperous, etc.

And my opinion... hate it. Even it's name is wrong, referring to it as the Prosperity Gospel, implying that it's a part of the Good News. In some of it's more "extreme" forms, it tries to convert people on the basis that God doesn't want you to suffer and give it all away to become a Christian, but that He wants to bless and prosper you. Now, I do believe that God blesses people and indeed makes some very wealthy and prosperous and such, but others, He calls to live a "simple" life! God supplies our needs, but not necessarily our wants I don't have anything against the occasional sermon and such on God blessing and prospering us, because it is in there, but I am against it becoming a big ministry and all the books and tools sold for it.

There's also the problem of it causing us to focus on our "worldly goods" rather than on the things of God and on doing the things He's called us to do.

oh, I've never heard of that.

I'll just quote wikipedia coz it explains it pretty good

"Prosperity theology (also known as prosperity doctrine, health and wealth, prosperity gospel) is a religious belief centered around the notion that God provides material prosperity for those he favors.[1] It implies both that people who are favored by God will be materially successful, and also that materially successful people are successful because God favored them. The prosperity gospel is often used by its promoters to elicit donations, on the premise that donations will be materially repaid and rewarded via divine intervention."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_Gospel

What does it mean by favored by God? - Because God dose bless people who follow him but there's no example in the bible ( I dont think? ) of God favoring people for no reason, Other then they were seeking him with all their mite.... The Only "thing" I can recall him favoring was the Devil.. Before he fell of course it said he favored him with jewels and powers and such.

I saw this topic's title from the homepage, and shuddered. Prosperity gospel is just not Biblical. If you look at passages in isolation, particularly Proverbs, it can certainly seem like it is the truth - "if you follow God, he will make you wealthy".

FALSE FALSE FALSE!

I think the prosperity gospel/doctrine is a fine example of taking passages out of context. Especially Proverbs. (I apologise for focusing on Proverbs, but its one of my favourite books, and I hate it when people misuse it. We also recently covered it in my OT lectures, so its fresh in my mind.) Because Proverbs doesn't really have a context - most of the book is simply a collection of sayings - it has to be looked at in the context of the rest of the Bible. So does every passage really - none of them are in isolation.

Good post Larissa.

I very much disagree with the Prosperity Gospel. At its core, it says that if you follow God you'll be healthy and wealthy...which logically means if you're not healthy and wealthy, you're not following God. Look to Christian history and you see how wrong this is! Jesus promised that we would have trials and tribulations, not wealth and health. The righteous are blessed, but it's not always materially.

I agree! The Prosperity Gospel is, in my opinion, heretical. It is not biblical. If you look at the examples of those in the Bible who God favored and blessed, it's a mixed group. You have David and Solomon who were very wealthy and then you have Paul and Peter and John and Jesus Himself who gave up all their material wealth for the sake of the gospel.

It is true that God will bless those who follow Him. It is false that those blessings will be material prosperity.

This was just briefly mentioned in my OT class yesterday...
We were discussing Job and my prof. mentioned how the book of Job completely refutes the "prosperity gospel". If it's true that God wants everyone that loves him to be wealthy, healthy, etc. then Job would have been the richest man alive and had a wonderful life without suffering. Obviously, this was NOT the case.

My professor said something that really stuck out to me about this "Theology matters because bad theology HURTS people." Telling someone who has cancer that the only reason they have cancer is because they've committed a heinous sin and haven't asked for forgiveness is ridiculous. My prof. told us about this woman he knew who was on her deathbed (dying of cancer) and some well-meaning friends came to her and told her that if she would just repent of whatever horrible sin she committed, then God would take away the cancer and she would be well again. When that is not the reason for her cancer, it does nothing but cause immense heartache.

Isn't that like "Delight thyself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" so you do everything possible to "delight yourself in God" so that He will give you what you want.
If you are trying to obey God so that He will make you rich, then you really don't believe in God, you are just selfish and greedy and hoping that the Almighty One will be fooled by your "good works" and heap money on you.
I think it's a lie.

Yeah, if you go around telling people that all they have to do to be happy is "take a little Jesus" then you really aren't sharing the gospel. Jesus isn't a patch to "fix us up" and make everything hunky dory. The Bible even says that Christians will face hardships in life, it doesn't promise great wealth and riches. Look at Job. He was a righteous man and he had nothing at all in life.
If you have a whole bunch of people "doing good" in the hopes of being rich. You don't have Christians, you have a bunch of selfish pigs.

Didn't Paul say somewhere that they who preach a gospel other than Jesus Christ will suffer eternal damnation? Or something like that anyway..

Here in NZ there is a biig church (7000 - thats big for us) called Destiny and yeah its in the news a lot at the moment. It is majorly prosperity gospel - the self-appointed 'Bishop' Brian Tamaki, is on a salary of 100,000 a year, but then because he demands 'firstfruits' from everyone on TOP of the required tithe, he gets around $600,000 a year. And he lives it up to the max. Its really scary. I know people who have gone to the church and had to fill out forms, asking what their salary is etc... there are bouncers stationed by all the church cars (all brand new, gleaming) and Tamaki is getting a whole lot of young men to swear an oath of allegiance to him that means they need to stand up when he and his wife enter the room, shower them with gifts, etc. Its REALLY scary! Especially when that is usually all New Zealand sees of 'the church' here.

On a slightly humorous note, we went to a church at the start of 2008 where the guy was telling us this would be a year of 'unprecedented abundance'.... then comes the recession Bet he is eating his words!