Christ First Forum

Most Christians Infected with Prosperity Gospel
By Lillian Kwon|Christian Post Reporter

Most professing Christians in America are infected with at least some measure of the health and wealth gospel, said one theologian.

John Piper - Why I abominate the prosperity gospel That is, believers have no concept of a love and a joy that does not eliminate hardship and heartache, Sam Storms of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City said at a pastors conference this week.

"For most professing believers if God is love He must promise to minimize my struggles and maximize my pleasure," he lamented. Many believe it's their spiritual birthright to experience comfort and prosperity and that it's God divine obligation to provide it.

It's a disease that's rampant in the culture and in the church. People are inundated with messages from powerbrokers, media, entertainment, TV evangelists and bestselling authors that say joy is inextricably bound up in material prosperity, physical health, relational success and all the comforts and conveniences Western society provides.

For most people, joy and suffering are incompatible, Storms noted.

Thus preachers have a difficult task at hand in communicating to such a culture a genuine joy found in Christ.

The so-called prosperity gospel that teaches wealth and good health is a sign of God's favor and blessing is prevalent in the church, Storm lamented. Underlining the seriousness of the problematic theology many preachers have picked up, the Oklahoma City pastor called it a "corrosive and disintegrative pox" on the church and "a disease far more infectious and ultimately fatal to the soul than the worst bubonic plague and the affects it might have on the human body."

"We have to fight this infection in the body of Christ," he emphatically told pastors at the Desiring God conference in Minneapolis.

But the blame for the rampant "disease" shouldn't fall on the TV evangelists, Storms noted.

"I want to lay it (the blame) at our feet," he said.

"It's the pastors and leaders of the church today who fail to explain from the biblical text how hardship and tribulation are actually used by God to expose the superficiality of all the human material props on which we rely," he explained. "We failed ... to show ... how hardship and persecution and slander compel us to rely on the all-sufficiency of everything God is for us in Jesus."

That failure has left most professing Christians unable to grasp "the simple truth" that "infinitely more important and of immeasurably greater value than our physical comfort in this world is our spiritual conformity to Christ," Storms noted.

And conformity to the image of Christ is orchestrated through trials and hardship.

"If I suffer it is because God values something in me greater than my physical comfort and health that He in His infinite wisdom and kindness knows can only be attained by means of physical affliction and the lessons of submission and dependency and trust in Him that I learn from it," he said.

"That's how suffering serves joy."

Everyday people are hearing about a joy less durable and far inferior than the one offered by God. Yet, Storms asked pastors, when was the last time you expounded on the nature of the fullness of joy, ... the superior beauty of God?

Citing the work of 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards, Storms advised pastors on how a "Christian hedonist" should preach on the pursuit of joy.

Full story here: http://www.christianpost.com/article/20 ... index.html

I've just seen too much to "throw the baby out with the bathwater". There is a realm between not allowing the Holy Spirit to work and rolling on the floor pentecostals, and that's the realm where the Holy Spirit is working today and He's filling up that fold quickly.

Carmela, In the years that I spent as a church planter and home missionary and ministering to the drug addicts, alcoholics and the poor, I saw more miracles then I have seen in a lifetime.

Miracles and healing still happen, Just like salivations still take place but there is less and less of this taken place in the life of the church. I believe it is because the Lord is slowly shutting the door. The reason it happens so much in third world countries and the mission fields is because they are searching and hungering after God. He is the same yesterday and forever.

Men and women have made a mockery of the power of God. Concerning Miracles, Healing, and the gifts and He can not and will not honor that.

Wow! These guys ought to ask those brothers and sisters in the Middle East, North Korea and China how their financial plans are turning out. How their "charmed life" is working out for them--while in prison or being lead off to the firing squad for preaching the Gospel . These folks are the true gutsy heroes of the Church and champions of Christ.

WKUHilltopper wrote:Wow! These guys ought to ask those brothers and sisters in the Middle East, North Korea and China how their financial plans are turning out. How their "charmed life" is working out for them--while in prison or being lead off to the firing squad for preaching the Gospel . These folks are the true gutsy heroes of the Church and champions of Christ.

Amen to that!!