Sermon Central
-
What Prosperity Gospel Preachers Don’t Want You To Know Series
Contributed by Jim Butcher on Apr 22, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: This passage includes the words "you will be made rich." Does that mean the prosperity gospel is true? Or is this passage actually pointing us toward using God's blessings in a way that doesn't further the American Dream?
A SWEET SOUND TO A PROSPERITY GOSPEL PREACHER: “You will be made rich.”
- 2 Corinthians 9:11a – “You will be made rich.”
- As most of you know, there is a heretical teaching that God’s purpose in your life is to shower you with material and financial blessings. Under this teaching, signs of monetary success are proof of closeness to God. They are signs that you are one of God’s anointed and that He is giving you His very best.
- Examples of this. The story of Rod Parsley twisting the passage in James. The recent Twitter feed on famous pastors wearing ridiculously expensive tennis shoes. The incident with the Joel Osteen protégé buying the Lamborghini and then saying don’t judge who I am by what I do.
- I want to note up front here that this teaching is heresy. It is absolutely not consistent with New Testament teaching on a whole host of issues. I’m not going to take the time this morning to chase rabbit trails about all the ways this teaching is absolute theological and exegetical garbage.
- Let me simply summarize my thoughts on this as we start: if you ever hear a pastor preaching this kind of stuff, you should turn him off, never listen to him again, and advise those around you do avoid him.
- Back to these five words for a minute before moving on. We are going to find out in the rest of this sermon what Paul is actually pointing us toward, but let me talk about the NIV translation for a moment.
- I much prefer the NASB rendering here: “you will be enriched.”
- The NIV translation, while technically acceptable, points American minds in a questionable direction. We tend to immediately go to material prosperity and the phrase “made rich” points us there.
AN ALWAYS IMPORTANT POINT: Context is key.
- You have heard me say this many times before and it’s worth reiterating here. You always need to look at the context of the passage.
- If you pull out those five words out and preach on just them, you can obviously pursue a prosperity gospel message. “Hey, the Bible says God promises to make you rich! You can enjoy God’s blessings and live well in His favor!” You can preach that, but it requires you to take Paul’s words out of context.
- So I want to look at three important ideas this passage shares that help put those five words in their proper context.
- So could this passage include material blessing from God? Yes, it can. In fact, I think – understood in the proper context that we’re going to unpack momentarily – that God is generous with those give into His Kingdom.
- I think of the wonderful teaching of Christ in Luke 6:38, where Jesus tells us to “give and it will be given to you.” He then goes on to say that God is generous in those blessings.
- I want to say that Karen and I have experienced this in our lives. We have tried through the years to be faithful to God in our giving. While we are not rich, we have not only experienced God consistently taking care of our needs, we have also seen God perform miracles and open amazing providential doors to provide for our financial needs.
- I focus on Matthew 6:33 and Jesus’ promise to care for our financial needs when we put the Kingdom first.
- So there absolutely are promises God has made to us that relate to our finances. But prosperity gospel preachers have twisted them into something selfish and shallow. Let’s look at the context of this 2 Corinthians 9 passage and see what Paul is actually getting at.
FINDING THE LARGER PICTURE:
1. The “harvest” Paul is hoping for is a harvest of righteousness.
- 2 Corinthians 9:10c – “. . . and you will enlarge your harvest of righteousness.”
- Matthew 6:21.
- Verse 10 sets the stage for our passage. Paul begins by talking about the generosity that God shows to the entire world on an ongoing basis. He mentions the seed and the bread. Let’s just focus on the seed for a moment.
- We take it for granted, but it’s an amazing gift that the world works the way it does. You take a little seed and put it in the ground. Water it and tend it. And a few weeks later, it’s grown corn or something else that you can eat. And then there are more seeds to plant and start the whole process over. Isn’t that an amazing thing, though? Stick a seed in the ground, give it some water, and food grows!
- God was the one who created that impressive system.
