The Gospel?

As most of you should know already I am not a huge fan of the “Prosperity Gospel.”  How far does this gospel go?  To what extent does this “gospel” go from gospel to heresy?  Well this is going to be the topic of this blog.  I have a summary of the gospel

Gospel means “good news,” but what do we mean by good? If by good we mean that we will be healthy, have a lot of money and that nothing bad will happen to us, then do we really understand what the gospel is?  The Prosperity Gospel tells us if we come to Christ we will have all of this and more.  Not only that, but that if something bad does happen to us it’s because we don’t have enough faith in our Father God and because of our lack of faith He is not “giving us the desires of our hearts.”  There are millions of reasons that make this gospel no gospel, rather that make it heresy and something that is not making Christians, but false converts.  With that said the next question that will be asked of me is, “Are you saying that all people brought to the gospel through the prosperity gospel are not saved?”  No, there are some, I believe that are saved that were saved through the prosperity gospel, but not many. 

The first reason that this gospel is not the gospel is because it is based on works.  Initially, the men that proclaim this gospel would reject this, but taking a closer look they would have to agree. If we are not being healed, taking in money hand over hand, or nothing in life is going as it “should be” we have a lack of faith.  If this was based on faith that God gave us why would God “punish” us for a lack of faith He gave us?  And if it’s brought on by faith that we have in God then it is something inside of us that makes this faith in God, so that if we do something wrong and lose faith in God it is because of us that we are being “punished.”  Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9 that it is not by any works that we’ve done that we are saved so that no one could brag about the salvation that we accomplished.  Is it really gospel to tell someone that it is based on something that they do/did in order to have a relationship with God? 

Another argument proving this gospel to be “nongospel” is the thought of trials and persecutions.  The Prosperity Gospel says if not everything is going right something is wrong in your relationship with God then what are their answers to trials and persecutions God causes us to go through in order to grow us?  A verse that continues to stick to my mind with this subject is 2 Timothy 3:12 that says “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”  If when we come to Christ everything is peachy keen why would Paul say that we will be persecuted?  The initial argument could be that that was for those people then.  Paul was one of the closest people to God ever and yet he was persecuted. 

To sum up this post I would like to impose that the Prosperity Gospel is not good news in any sense of the word.  If it were it would be based on our actions towards God and based on us rather than His grace.  If it were based on us we would not have come to God to begin with let alone put the faith we have in Him at all times and the moment we stop He discontinues His works of faith.  Rather the gospel tells us that it is not based on anything we have done/ are doing/ will do that stops God giving us grace.  It is God that gives us the faith that we have in Him and it is only natural that He would want us to put that faith back into Him, but He promises that those that desire to live a godly life will be persecuted.  We aren’t going to receive health, wealth and prosperity because we come to Christ.  Earthly articles should never take the place of heavenly and that is ultimately what the Prosperity Gospel teaches.  The Prosperity Gospel places the gifts above the giver.  We should savor Christ for who He is; not His works.  There is a lot more I could say that I won’t and that I don’t have the time for.  Please post any comments you may have or email me.  I’m always up for discussion on this subject.

Marriage

This semester I have a class and I have to read a book called “In the World: Read and Writing as a Christian” by John Timmerman. Each chapter has between 4 and 6 essays and at the end has 4 to six discussion questions.  This past chapter was about “Living Ethically” and one of the essays I had to read was called “Why Get Married?”  At the end, as I said earlier I had discussion questions and I am going to post tow of them and give my answer.  Feel free to jump in and tell me what you think of my answers or give me your won answers.

The questions are 1) Smedes says elsewhere in the book that we are “forever being married.”  In what ways is his statement true?  2)How do traditional vows suggest this?

a. In what way is his statement true?
The way this makes sense to me is to think of the Christian walk like an arranged marriage. God the Father elects people before He created the world in forever past creating the betrothal. After that we are drawn to Christ, the husband, by the Holy Spirit. When we come to Christ we think we know a lot about Him, but the longer we know Him the more we see that we knew nothing about Him from the beginning and that we know, what seems like, even less about Him since the day we came to Him.

b. How do traditional marriage vows suggest this?
The traditional wedding vows are “I, (name), take you (name), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.”
Jesus said every one of these the day He died on the cross. He has not broken any of these vows to any person that is a genuine Christian. We, as Christians, break these vows each and every day.
We do not hold on to Christ when it is better because we think it’s too good to need Jesus. When we’re on the worse side of things we think that because we haven’t communicated with Jesus for so long he won’t listen. We think we can handle it on our own and show Jesus, and everyone else, that we can handle our situation alone.
When we’re richer our riches become our God and we don’t tell people that our wealth is from Christ. When we’re poorer we don’t take time and give it to Christ and let Him take care of it. Rather, we spend a lot of time trying to find a job to make money, so that we can then give our time to God.
When we’re in sickness, we may pray to God to get better, but in a lot of cases we don’t. We’re too busy trying to go to doctors get the medicine that will make us better, we try to get more sleep or get more exercise or anything so that we don’t have to spend time with God. When we’re in health we don’t even think about Christ because everything is going great. God is taking care of me, so I might give him honorable mention, but nothing like what he deserves.
We definitely don’t love and cherish Jesus and His sacrifice. We don’t show our love for God to other people. Sure, we say “I love Jesus,” but do our actions to those around us remind others of this? Chances are we don’t. We do not cherish Jesus for who He is.