John Piper writing about prosperity theology

The Book of Job has both shaken me and shaped me.

When I first read it, I found it troubling. It didn’t seem fair. Job was a righteous man. But over the years, this story has helped forge my understanding of God and my theology of suffering. It has taught me that God himself — not anything he gives me — is my greatest treasure.

Years ago, a colleague mentioned what he had learned from Job. I was surprised to hear that his study had yielded a markedly different conclusion than mine. In his words, “Job got everything back and more for his suffering. He was blessed with more children and more money than he ever had before. That’s what the story shows us — doing the right thing always brings blessing and prosperity.”

While the first part was true, I disagreed with his conclusion. He subtly was echoing the message of the so-called “health, wealth, and prosperity gospel” — that God’s goal for usin this life is perfect health, total happiness, and financial gain. In this life. “We simply need to name what we want,” it says, “live the right way, and then claim our victory. That is what living for God looks like.”

I contend that this approach is not living for God. Such thinking is idolatry. It is elevating God’s gifts above him, the giver. And that is a great assault on God’s value.

The Truly Abundant Life

Proponents of the prosperity gospel see things differently. They believe their position is biblical, citing Scripture to back up their claims. One such verse is John 10:10: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Jesus does give us abundant life, but his abundant life is independent of circumstances.

A diagnosis of cancer, a stock-market crash, and a child’s rebellion cannot diminish the abundant life we have in Christ. And a miraculous healing, a financial windfall, and a prodigal’s return don’t transform it either. True abundant life rests in the God who is Lord over the good things and the terrible things in our life. As Job says, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10)

When we assert that pain-free lives are God’s reward for the righteous, we insinuate to the wounded that their problems are of their own making. As Randy Alcorn says,

Tragically, the prosperity gospel has poisoned the church and undermined our ability to deal with evil and suffering. Some churches today have no place for pain. Those who say God has healed them get the microphone, while those who continue to suffer are shamed into silence or ushered out the back door.

I personally have been ushered out the back door at healing services, after being publicly chastised. Many other disabled people have experienced similar treatment under the assumption that if you’re not healed, it’s your fault. “Because God’s will is for everyone to be healed. Always. The faithful will never suffer.”

This belief is contrary to the Bible. Jesus says we will have tribulation (John 16:33). Peter says we shouldn’t be surprised by suffering (1 Peter 4:12). James says to expect trials, and to count it all joy (James 1:2). And Paul says afflictions bring endurance and glory (Romans 5:3–5; 2 Corinthians 4:17).

Of course, healing in this life can bring God glory as well. Sometimes God intervenes in our lives in supernatural ways and miraculously heals them from disease. And God is glorified when that happens.

But I have seen God even more glorified when people are not healed yet continue to praise him in the midst of deep suffering — when everything they have is stripped away and all that is left is God alone. And he is found sufficient.

God is most glorified when we declare him sufficient in the midst of great loss. Just as Job did.

Giver More Than Gifts

The prosperity gospel teaches that we live for God’s material blessing now. Job teaches that we live for God’s eternal glory. At the heart of the prosperity gospel is our value. At the heart of Job, and all of Scripture, is God’s value.

Satan is a proponent of the prosperity gospel, as he tells God that Job’s faithfulness is predicated on God’s blessings. And if those blessings are taken away, he believes Job will curse God to his face. Satan is implying that God is valuable only for what he gives Job.

But God contends just the opposite. God asserts that Job loves him for who he is, not for what he gives.

And when Job is able to say, after losing everything, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21), he declares the surpassing worth of God. God himself, not his gifts, is Job’s true treasure.

As the Psalmist declares:

     Whom have I in heaven but you?
          And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
     My flesh and my heart may fail,
          but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25–26)

May we all, like Job, find our treasure in God, who is our portion forever.

How to Help Friends Escape the Prosperity Gospel

Pastor John, we have an email from a listener named Kai Tham: “Pastor John, how do you practically and lovingly lead your loved ones who are steeped in the prosperity gospel all their lives back to the true gospel? I come from Malaysia and Singapore, places immersed in prosperity gospel theology. I understand that in 2 Timothy 4:3, Paul says there will come such days as these, where people will gather themselves teachers that suit their own passions.

But what if these are your close friends and family whom you love so much? How do you teach or love or rebuke or reprove them? I’m training for ministry in Melbourne. One day I will go back to Singapore, God willing, to preach and pastor there. I know as Paul advised I should preach in every season, being ready to rebuke, reprove, and exhort. What does this look like in a culture so steeped in the prosperity gospel?”

Just yesterday I was writing an article about these days being the best of times and the worst of times. And one of the evidences of it being the worst of times that I mentioned has to do with the so-called prosperity gospel.

I wrote, “I have watched the rise of enormous churches and ministries who preach and export to poor nations a prosperity ‘gospel’ that mutes the Bible teaching on suffering and reduces the glorious gospel to earthly betterment rooted in human attitudes and not the glory of Calvary.” That was my sentence that I wrote down. And there are three criticisms. And I want to just mention these so that they can inform the counsel that I give to Kai.

Prosperity Gospel Problem Number One

Downplaying the vast scriptural theology of suffering expected of Christians, the suffering that is expected of Christians and promised to Christians, like 1 Peter 4:19: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” So the prosperity gospel downplays this vast pervasive teaching in the Bible that we are called upon to suffer. And it is not just persecution suffering, but body-wasting-away disease-type suffering in Romans 8:23 and 2 Corinthians 4:16.

So Christians in prosperity churches are often profoundly unprepared for what life under God’s providence is going to deal them — and that is a tragedy. And so it is right for Kai to feel jealous about his family that he can figure out a way to help them see these things.

And here’s just one little sidebar: My wife is going to Africa this fall. And she is going for the third time as part of a ministry to give wheelchairs to the disabled who can only crawl around or stay in their simple houses, and a wheelchair changes the life of many. And she made the point to me as I was talking to her about this the other day that as they are looking for partners there to help, the big prosperity ministries usually give little help, because disabled people in a wheelchair are an embarrassment to their ministry. They don’t have a biblical theology of suffering and the fruit is not pretty. So that is my first concern: the downplaying of a biblical theology of suffering that would help people so much prepare for what necessarily must come in this life.

Prosperity Gospel Problem Number Two

And the second thing is the prosperity gospel reduces the glorious gospel to earthly betterment. The dominant gift of the gospel in the New Testament is not earthly betterment. The dominant gift is the joy of reconciliation with God and eternal joys at his right hand forever through Jesus Christ (Psalm 16:11). Whether life in this age goes better here on earth is quite secondary to the New Testament way of looking at things.

There is going to be a great day on a new earth where everything is made glorious, but that is not the immediate payoff of the gospel in front of everything else in the New Testament. The biggest problem in the world is that God is angry at his creatures for rebelling against him and the central good of the good news is that in Christ God took the initiative to satisfy that anger and make himself our treasure and not our terror. So prosperity preaching skews all that so badly by turning possible and secondary effects of the gospel into primary, certain outcomes, which they are not.

Prosperity Gospel Problem Number Three

And the third problem that I see is that prosperity teachers distort the ground of our salvation by putting the emphasis on whether we can produce the kind of faith that gets hailed and gets rich rather than putting it on the glorious work of Christ in dying and rising to bear the guilt of our sin and propitiate the wrath of God.

Loving Our Loved Ones

So what I would suggest to Kai as he considers talking to his family about this is:

First: Concede and celebrate that they are right to believe that God aims at the health and the wealth of his children — eventually. God did not send Jesus into the world to make them eternally miserable, but eternally happy — and to remove all tears from their eyes (Revelation 21:4).

But raise the question with your family about timing. Prosperity preachers get the timing of this all wrong. Is all of that wonderful promise intended for now in this age in full, or does the Bible teach that God saves us in stages or phases and that this earthly walk between conversion and glorification is one of much suffering in the hope of glory? So my suggestion to Kai is that if he can tackle this with them, make it an emphasis on timing, not whether we will be eventually healthy, wealthy, and happy in God.

Second: Talk to them about God himself being our greatest treasure, not his gifts. For example, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26). And the text that Noel and I used in our wedding: “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17–18). That is so foreign to the mindset of prosperity preachers because of what is taken away in that verse and how joy abounds in that verse.

Third: Raise with your family the issue of how they can love those with permanent disabilities. Are they embarrassed by them in their community? Or is it a sign of Christ’s love that they care for them? And it is a sign of great faith that these people, while not healed, are rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God rather than being miserable and angry at God. Isn’t that glorious faith?

Fourth: Ask the family what they think of the promises of suffering in the Bible. If they say, “Well, it is all persecution. We are not promised to suffer from sickness,” then point them to those texts which show that it includes the body’s wasting away. Ask them about those texts. My sense is that the necessity of all suffering is minimized in prosperity preaching, not just the necessity of persecution suffering.

Fifth: Share stories of great saints in history whom God used mightily and who suffered enormously.

Sixth: As a means to these kinds of conversations, ask your parents or brothers and sisters — whoever you are having to deal with — ask them for permission to talk about these things, and set up a time when they are expecting it rather than being rushed or surprised by it and needing to be defensive. I just think a lot of times we try to sow the seeds of our ideas on the spur of the moment and it is never quite the right time. So we just need to ask them permission to set up the right time.

Seventh: The last thing I would say to Kai is pray that God would give them eyes to see that there is great joy in suffering now and there will be great joy in prosperity at Christ’s coming. 1 Peter 4:13, “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

Prosperity Preaching: Deceitful and Deadly

When I read about prosperity-preaching churches, my response is: “If I were not on the inside of Christianity, I wouldn’t want in.” In other words, if this is the message of Jesus, no thank you.

Luring people to Christ to get rich is both deceitful and deadly. It’s deceitful because when Jesus himself called us, he said things like: “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). And it’s deadly because the desire to be rich plunges “people into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9). So here is my plea to preachers of the gospel.

1. Don’t develop a philosophy of ministry that makes it harder for people to get into heaven.

Jesus said, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” His disciples were astonished, as many in the “prosperity” movement should be. So Jesus went on to raise their astonishment even higher by saying, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” They respond in disbelief: “Then who can be saved?” Jesus says, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:23-27).

My question for prosperity preachers is: Why would you want to develop a ministry focus that makes it harder for people to enter heaven?

2. Do not develop a philosophy of ministry that kindles suicidal desires in people.

Paul said, “There is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” But then he warned against the desire to be rich. And by implication, he warned against preachers who stir up the desire to be rich instead of helping people get rid of it. He warned, “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:6-10).

So my question for prosperity preachers is: Why would you want to develop a ministry that encourages people to pierce themselves with many pangs and plunge themselves into ruin and destruction?

3. Do not develop a philosophy of ministry that encourages vulnerability to moth and rust.

Jesus warns against the effort to lay up treasures on earth. That is, he tells us to be givers, not keepers. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19).

Yes, we all keep something. But given the built-in tendency toward greed in all of us, why would we take the focus off Jesus and turn it upside down?

4. Don’t develop a philosophy of ministry that makes hard work a means of amassing wealth.

Paul said we should not steal. The alternative was hard work with our own hands. But the main purpose was not merely to hoard or even to have. The purpose was “to have to give.” “Let him labor, working with his hands, that he may have to give to him who is in need” (Ephesians 4:28). This is not a justification for being rich in order to give more. It is a call to make more and keep less so you can give more. There is no reason why a person who makes $200,000 should live any differently from the way a person who makes $80,000 lives. Find a wartime lifestyle; cap your expenditures; then give the rest away.

Why would you want to encourage people to think that they should possess wealth in order to be a lavish giver? Why not encourage them to keep their lives more simple and be an even more lavish giver? Would that not add to their generosity a strong testimony that Christ, and not possessions, is their treasure?

5. Don’t develop a philosophy of ministry that promotes less faith in the promises of God to be for us what money can’t be.

The reason the writer to the Hebrews tells us to be content with what we have is that the opposite implies less faith in the promises of God. He says, “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5-6).

If the Bible tells us that being content with what we have honors the promise of God never to forsake us, why would we want to teach people to want to be rich?

6. Don’t develop a philosophy of ministry that contributes to your people being choked to death.

Jesus warns that the word of God, which is meant to give us life, can be choked off from any effectiveness by riches. He says it is like a seed that grows up among thorns that choke it to death: “They are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the . . . riches . . . of life, and their fruit does not mature” (Luke 8:14).

Why would we want to encourage people to pursue the very thing that Jesus warns will choke us to death?

7. Don’t develop a philosophy of ministry that takes the seasoning out of the salt and puts the light under a basket.

What is it about Christians that makes them the salt of the earth and the light of the world? It is not wealth. The desire for wealth and the pursuit of wealth tastes and looks just like the world. It does not offer the world anything different from what it already believes in. The great tragedy of prosperity-preaching is that a person does not have to be spiritually awakened in order to embrace it; one needs only to be greedy. Getting rich in the name of Jesus is not the salt of the earth or the light of the world. In this, the world simply sees a reflection of itself. And if it works, they will buy it.

The context of Jesus’ saying shows us what the salt and light are. They are the joyful willingness to suffering for Christ. Here is what Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth. . . . You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:11-14).

What will make the world taste (the salt) and see (the light) of Christ in us is not that we love wealth the same way they do. Rather, it will be the willingness and the ability of Christians to love others through suffering, all the while rejoicing because their reward is in heaven with Jesus. This is inexplicable on human terms. This is supernatural. But to attract people with promises of prosperity is simply natural. It is not the message of Jesus. It is not what he died to achieve.

Six Keys to Detecting the ‘Prosperity Gospel’

The following is a transcript of the audio.

Pastor John, you are an outspoken opponent of the prosperity gospel, and you have been for many years. Episode #231 of this podcast series it’s aptly titled: “Why I Abominate the Prosperity Gospel.” That sums up your position pretty well, and your words there are very strong. Podcast listener Derek recently wrote in to ask a follow-up: “Pastor John, how do you recognize prosperity theology when it’s not blatantly obvious? What are some key indicators to discern a ‘soft’ prosperity theology?”

I really appreciate this question. I am eager to give some things to look for and I don’t think it is all that difficult. Anybody could probably sit down and come up with these. So I thought of at least six that I jotted down, six things to look for and if you see them, the likelihood is that you may be dealing with insipient prosperity theology or soft or beginning prosperity theology.

Number one, the absence of a serious doctrine of the biblical necessity and normalcy of suffering, the absence of a doctrine of suffering. Acts 14:21 said that basic discipleship as Paul went through the churches was to teach them through many tribulations you must enter the kingdom. Is this basic doctrinal teaching in the Church? Tribulations are necessary and there are many and you must walk through them. Is Romans 8:23 essential in dealing with sickness and calamity? We, we who have the Holy Spirit groan waiting for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Is there a strong note that Christians full of the Holy Spirit get cancer and groan under the calamities and the miseries of the fall? John 15:20. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. Is there a strong note that a faithful Christian will be persecuted? Hebrews 12 and 2 Corinthians one. God is sovereign over all of our pain and ordains it for our holiness. So that is the first one. Is there a serious doctrine of the necessity and normalcy of suffering?

Number two, the absence of a clear and prominent doctrine of self denial is a tip off that something is amiss, an absence of a clear and prominent doctrine of self denial. Jesus said: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Paul said, Romans 8:13, if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Philippians 3:8. I count everything as loss, because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. In other words, normal progress in the Christian life comes by saying no to lesser values and yes to Christ and many of those lesser values are the kinds of pleasures that prosperity preachers don’t like to say no to. So is there a good doctrine of self denial?

Number three. Look out for the absence of serious exposition of Scripture. Does the preaching take the Bible seriously by explaining what is really there in texts? Does it work through passages of Scripture, explaining the flow of the thought? Or does it feel like the pastor has his favorite topics, he circles around to them over and over making a few texts serve his purpose? So watch for careful and continuous handling of the Scriptures in an expository way and be suspicious if all you ever get is topical preaching with a few pastors’ favorite topics that lean towards prosperity, the mark.

Number four. Watch out for the absence of dealing with tensions in Scripture. That is, does the preacher bring up passages that seem like problems with the ones he is dealing with and then give careful explanations to show how they really fit together? Or is he content just to say what seems to be in one text and never even raise the question. There may be 10 other texts that seem to say something else. I think that is a bad sign if week after week you get the impression: Doesn’t he realize what he just said from this text is contradicted in a few other places in the Bible? And he doesn’t seem to know that or care about that. That is a serious problem.

Number five. Do the church leaders have exorbitant lifestyles? Do they drive cars, live in houses, wear clothes, travel to places that only the very wealthy can go or only the very wealthy can possess? Is the pastor living above the average person in his parish? Now why might that be? And I know that there might be cultural and traditional reasons for it, but are there biblical reasons for it? Try to sniff out. What makes this pastor tick. Why is he so concerned with the clothes he wears and the car he drives and the neighborhood he lives in and the way he travels and the accommodations he gets on his traveling. This doesn’t smell like the Jesus who had no place to lay his heads.

Number six. Last one. Is there a prominent of self and a marginalization of the greatness of God? Does the preacher seem to parade himself? Does he figure into the talk too much? Is the greatness and majesty and glory of God the centerpiece of all he says and does? Is the preacher in love with the glory of God in the gospel? Is he broken hearted for his sin? Is he contrite and humble? Is he publicly self effacing? Does he repent of the sins and model how to appropriate daily the sweetness of what Jesus did for us on the cross? Or is the majesty of grace marginalized while he exalts himself?

So those would be some of the things I would watch out for in trying to discern where a church may be going off in relationship to the prosperity gospel.