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Why It’s Hard for a Rich Person to Enter the Kingdom of Heaven: A Biblical View of Wealth
Billy Epperhart August 2, 2021 Original Article Here
There is an undeniable tension between faith and money. People hold a number of strong beliefs on how the two should interact. As with anything, it is important to identify the extremes. The truth of what it means to have a biblical view of wealth is usually somewhere in the middle.
On one side of the pendulum, there’s a poverty mindset that believes Christians should be poor. When people have a poverty mindset, they typically end up with too few resources to make a difference on a grand scale. They’re consumers, not producers. On the other end, you have a prosperity gospel. The main motivation behind this gospel is to advance an individual’s own will and wellbeing. It preaches that health and wealth are God-given rights—not blessings.
Any way you slice it, money and religion are delicate subjects on their own. So, it makes sense how touchy people can get when the two are combined. Reflecting on how we view money is so important for our spiritual well-being. Jesus encouraged people to do so often in His teachings. In particular, I want to focus on what Jesus mean when He said that it’s hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Parable of The Rich Young Ruler
In Matthew19:16-24, a young man comes up to Jesus with a simple question. He asks, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
Jesus simply responds, “If you want to enter life keep the commandments.” The young man confirmed that he kept the commandments, but he felt like there was something that he lacked. So, Jesus elaborated.
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Notice that Jesus said if you want to be perfect. They were in more intricate territory than just eternal life here. The young ruler presumably had a ticket to heaven, but he knew there was more. Unfortunately, he wasn’t willing to meet the requirement to receive more. He walked away sorrowful because he had great wealth and wasn’t willing to give away his possessions.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
You Have a Choice
The Kingdom of God isn’t just a place we go to after we die. It’s a culture we create while we’re living on the earth (Related: Kingdom Mindset: What it is and Why You Need One). I think that it is hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of heaven because there is a heightened temptation to value earthly treasure instead of heavenly treasure.
Like the young ruler, we are given a choice over which treasure we value. Money isn’t bad in and of itself—it’s just a tool. Being rich can get tricky when we value money more than our relationship with God. This scripture gives us two ways to ensure that we think rightly about money as we build wealth:
1. Generosity
Someone with a biblical view of wealth must be generous. The Kingdom of Heaven is a place where greed and any self-centered gain do not exist. Therefore, if someone chooses to be selfish with their possessions, they are choosing to crowd their space with earthly treasure rather than heavenly treasure. Jesus adjures the young man to sell his possessions and follow him. Every person must discern with God how much they should give.
It is not just that it’s better to give than receive—generosity also serves as a spiritual safeguard. It protects our heart from the all-consuming power of greed. The pastor of Bethel Church, Kris Vallotton, was once asked how much money was too much money for a Christian to have. He wisely responded, “Any amount that keeps you from trusting God. For some, this is a few hundred dollars. For others, it’s billions.” I think that keeping this in mind is a great practice, and it leads right into the next point!
2. Dependency
The crowd of people that approaches Jesus right before the rich young man is poignant–it’s an onslaught of kids. When the disciples try to rebuke them, Jesus kindly says, “let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of Heaven,” (Matthew 19:13-15). And then, as we just read, a rich guy comes up to them and unknowingly asks how he can get the same reward. The children had something the rich guy didn’t—dependency. They were still innocent and trusting.
One of my favorite verses in the whole Bible is Deuteronomy 8:17-18. In this chapter, the Lord has just led a new generation of Israelites into the Promised Land. After a gruelling journey that took several decades, God says, “then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ And you shall remember the Lord your God for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”
Though the Israelites had been wandering through the wilderness, God knew that the moment they had provision they’d be prone to forget that He was the one who provided in the first place! It’s important to know that we can be prideful without outwardly boasting. The verse warns the Israelites not to “say in your heart.” We need to be mindful of our mindset and heart posture toward wealth.
I admittedly went through this process myself. I was born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, and knew the Word of God. However, the motives of my heart were not right when I started to build wealth. I got to a point in my life where I thought I reached my goals from my own strength and smarts. That is a dangerous place to be. When that kind of pride creeps in, it becomes exceedingly difficult to serve God. [Related: Renew Your Money Mindset]
Even though I have been renewed in my money mindset, I continually have to surrender my finances to the Lord. If you’re having difficulty determining where your heart is when it comes to wealth, here are a few questions you can ask yourself:
6 Questions to Determine if You Have a Biblical View of Wealth
1. Do I feel entitled, or do I feel grateful?
2. How do I give with the resources I have now?
3. Why do I give? What’s my motivation?
4. Why do I want to build wealth? What are my reasons?
5. How many times a week do I get stressed about money?
6. What about my lifestyle do I value most? Why? Is a certain level of comfort keeping me from acting in God’s will for my life?
If you were less than thrilled with some of your honest answers to the questions above, that’s okay. We are all a work in progress, and in the presence of Jesus, there is no shame—only grace and continual growth! Having wealth is not a bad thing–especially when it is in the hands of someone with a Kingdom mindset and a generous heart. I hope this blog post helped you think more critically about what it means to have a biblical view of wealth!
Tuesday, July 4, 2023
5 Errors of the Prosperity Gospel
Editors’
note:
Previously
in this series: “Prosperity Gospel Born in the USA” (Russell
Woodbridge). The following is an edited version of an article that originally
appeared in the 9Marks Journal on the prosperity gospel.
More than a
century ago, speaking to the then-largest congregation in all Christendom,
Charles Spurgeon said, “I believe that it is anti-Christian and unholy for any
Christian to live with the object of accumulating wealth. You will say,
‘Are we not to strive all we can to get all the money we can?’ You may do
so. I cannot doubt but what, in so doing, you may do service to the cause of
God. But what I said was that to live with the object of
accumulating wealth is anti-Christian.”
Over the
years, however, the message being preached in some of the largest churches in
the world has changed—indeed, a new gospel is being taught to many
congregations today. This message has been ascribed many name, such as the
“name it and claim it” gospel, the “blab it and grab it” gospel, the “health
and wealth” gospel, the “prosperity gospel,” and “positive confession
theology.”
No matter
what name is used, the essence of this message is the same. Simply put, this
“prosperity gospel” teaches that God wants believers to be physically healthy, materially
wealthy, and personally happy. Listen to the words of Robert Tilton, one of
its best-known spokesmen: “I believe that it is the will of God for all to
prosper because I see it in the Word, not because it has worked mightily for
someone else. I do not put my eyes on men, but on God who gives me the power to
get wealth.” Teachers of the prosperity gospel encourage their followers
to pray for and even demand material flourishing from God.
Five Theological Errors
Russell
Woodbridge and I wrote a book titled Health, Wealth, and Happiness: Has the Prosperity Gospel
Overshadowed the Gospel of Christ? (Kregel, 2010) to
examine the claims of prosperity gospel advocates. While the book is too
wide-ranging to summarize here, in this article I’d like to review five
doctrines we cover in it—doctrines on which prosperity gospel advocates err. By
discerning these errors regarding key doctrines, I hope you will plainly see
the dangers of the prosperity gospel.
1. The
Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement.
The
Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 12, 15, 17, 22) is
one of the theological bases of the prosperity gospel. It’s good that
prosperity theologians recognize much of Scripture is the record of the
fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, but it’s bad that they don’t maintain an
orthodox view of this covenant. They incorrectly view the inception of the
covenant; more significantly, they erroneously view the application of the
covenant.
In his
book Spreading the Flame (Zondervan, 1992), Edward
Pousson stated the prosperity view on the application of the Abrahamic
covenant: “Christians are Abraham’s spiritual children and heirs to the
blessings of faith. . . . This Abrahamic inheritance is unpacked primarily
in terms of material entitlements.” In other words, the prosperity
gospel teaches that the primary purpose of the Abrahamic covenant was for God
to bless Abraham materially. Since believers are now Abraham’s spiritual
children, we have inherited these financial blessings. As
Kenneth Copeland wrote in his 1974 book The Laws of Prosperity,
“Since God’s covenant has been established and prosperity is a provision of
this covenant, you need to realize that prosperity belongs to you now!”
To support
this claim, prosperity teachers appeal to Galatians 3:14, which refers to “the blessings
of Abraham [that] come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus.” It’s interesting,
however, that in their appeals to Galatians 3:14 these teachers ignore the
second half of the verse: “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith.” Paul is clearly reminding the Galatians of the spiritual
blessing of salvation, not the material blessing of wealth.
2. Jesus’s atonement
extends to the “sin” of material poverty.
In
his Bibliotheca Sacra article “A Theological Evaluation of the
Prosperity Gospel,” theologian Ken Sarles observes how the prosperity
gospel claims that “both physical healing and financial prosperity have
been provided for in the atonement.” This seems to be an accurate
observation in light of Copeland’s statement that “the basic principle of the
Christian life is to know that God put our sin, sickness, disease, sorrow,
grief, and poverty on Jesus at Calvary.” This
misunderstanding of the scope of the atonement stems from two errors prosperity
gospel proponents make.
First, many
who espouse prosperity theology have a fundamental misconception of the
life of Jesus. For example, teacher John Avanzini proclaimed on a TBN program,
Jesus had “a nice house,” “a big house,” “Jesus was handling big
money,” and he even “wore designer clothes.” It’s easy to see how such a
warped view of the life of Christ could lead to an equally warped misconception
of the death of Christ.
A second
error that leads to a faulty view of the atonement is misinterpreting 2 Corinthians 8:9, which reads, “For you know
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.” While a
shallow reading of this verse may lead one to believe Paul was teaching about
an increase in material wealth, a contextual reading reveals he was
actually teaching the exact opposite principle. Indeed, Paul was teaching the
Corinthians that since Christ accomplished so much for them through the
atonement, they should empty themselves of their riches in service of the
Savior. This is why just five short verses later Paul would urge the
Corinthians to give their wealth away to their needy brothers, writing “that
now at this time your abundance may supply their lack” (2 Cor. 8:14).
3. Christians
give in order to gain material compensation from God.
One of the
most striking characteristics of the prosperity theologians is their seeming
fixation on the act of giving. We are urged to give generously and are
confronted with pious statements like, “True prosperity is the ability to use
God’s power to meet the needs of mankind in any realm of life” and, “We
have been called to finance the gospel to the world.” While such
statements may appear praiseworthy, this emphasis on giving is built on
motives that are anything but philanthropic. The driving force behind this
teaching on giving is what prosperity teacher Robert Tilton referred to as the
“Law of Compensation.” According to this law—purportedly based on Mark 10:30—Christians should give
generously to others because when they do, God gives back more in return. This,
in turn, leads to a cycle of ever-increasing prosperity.
As Gloria
Copeland put it in her 2012 book, God’s Will is Prosperity, “Give
$10 and receive $1,000; give $1,000 and receive $100,000. . . . In short, Mark 10:30 is a very good
deal.” It’s evident, then, that the prosperity gospel’s doctrine of
giving is built on faulty motives. Whereas Jesus taught his disciples to “give,
hoping for nothing in return” (Luke 6:35), prosperity theologians teach their
disciples to give because they will get a great return.
4. Faith
is a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity.
Whereas
orthodox Christianity understands faith to be trust in the person of Jesus
Christ, prosperity teachers espouse something quite different. “Faith is a
spiritual force, a spiritual energy, a spiritual power. It is this force of
faith which makes the laws of the spirit world function,” Copeland writes
in The Laws of Prosperity. “There are certain laws governing
prosperity revealed in God’s Word. Faith causes them to function.” This is
obviously a faulty, perhaps even heretical, understanding of faith.
According
to prosperity theology, faith is not a God-granted, God-centered act of the
will. Rather, it is a humanly wrought spiritual force, directed at
God. Indeed, any theology that views faith chiefly as a means to material
gain rather than justification before God must be judged inadequate at best.
5. Prayer
is a tool to force God to grant prosperity.
Prosperity
gospel preachers often note we “have not because we ask not” (James 4:2).
They encourage us to pray for personal success in all areas of life. As Creflo Dollar writes, “When we pray, believing
that we have already received what we are praying, God has no choice but to
make our prayers come to pass. . . . It is a key to getting results as a
Christian.”
Prayers for
personal blessing aren’t inherently wrong, of course, but the prosperity
gospel’s overemphasis on man turns prayer into a tool believers can use to
force God to grant their desires. Within prosperity theology, man—not
God—becomes the focal point of prayer. Curiously, prosperity preachers often
ignore the second half of James’s teaching on prayer: “You ask and do not
receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James. 4:3). God does not answer selfish
requests that do not honor his name.
Certainly
all our requests should be made known to God (e.g., Phil. 4:6), but the prosperity gospel focuses
so much on man’s desires that it may lead people to pray selfish, shallow,
superficial prayers that don’t bring God glory. Further, when coupled with the
prosperity doctrine of faith, this teaching may lead people to attempt to
manipulate God to get what they want—a futile task. This is far removed from
praying “Your will be done.”
False Gospel
In light of
Scripture, the prosperity gospel is fundamentally flawed. At bottom, it is
a false gospel because of its faulty view of the relationship between God and
man. Simply put, if the prosperity gospel is true, grace is obsolete, God is
irrelevant, and man is the measure of all things. Whether they’re talking about
the Abrahamic covenant, the atonement, giving, faith, or prayer, prosperity
teachers turn the relationship between God and man into a quid pro
quo transaction. As James Goff noted in a 1990 Christianity
Today article, God is “reduced to a kind of ‘cosmic bellhop’ attending
to the needs and desires of his creation.”
This is a
wholly inadequate and unbiblical view of the relationship between God and man.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-errors-of-the-prosperity-gospel/
Sunday, July 2, 2023
What is Wrong with the Prosperity Gospel?
DEBUNKING THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL
There is a belief in our culture that many people are deceived by what is called the “prosperity gospel.” It is a false teaching that in essence says, "If I am a Christian, God promises to bless me with great health, wealth, and prosperity." This teaching is a great danger to those who believe it. What happens is people place their hope in what God gives even over and above God himself. The problem is God never promises a life of riches, comfort, and abundant prosperity, so when a person experiences suffering they feel as though God has lied to them.
Read 2
Timothy 3:12
Discuss: Why should followers of Jesus not expect that they will never
experience struggle?
What is a
false teacher?
Read 2
Peter 2:1-19
False teachers introduce heresy about God that sounds like the truth but
is not completely true. (2 Pet. 2:1-4, Jude 4)
False teachers are motivated by financial gain, and they prey on the
people who follow them. (2 Pet. 2:14-16, Jude 11, 1 Tim 6:9-10)
False teachers aim to please the ears of their listeners rather than
share truths that may be hard to hear, yet are needed for freedom. (2 Pet.
2:17-20, 2 Tim 4:3-4)
Read 1 John
4:1
Discuss: Why it is important to recognize that not everyone who says
they are speaking for God are true teachers?
What are
some common false promises and what do they lead to?
The prosperity gospel promises entitlement to material and physical
blessing. False teachers will take passages like Gen. 12, 15, and 17, which are
about spiritual blessing, and say that they are about material blessing. This
leads to people coming to God for what He can give them. (John 6:25-27)
Scripture says that belief in Jesus means we receive the spirit and every
spiritual blessing.
The prosperity gospel promises that the atonement of Jesus covers
illness and poverty. False teachers will say that at the cross, Jesus died for
our iniquities, sorrows, illnesses, sicknesses, and poverty. (Dennis Edwards - Scripture does say that Jesus died for our sins, and “by
His stripes we are healed.” God promises healing and He promises to supply all
our needs. He asks us to seek Him first, and then all these other things will
be added unto to us. Many times in our prayers we are seeking the blessing and not He who blesses.) This leads to believing that true Christians
should never be sick, or struggle financially. Scripture says that there are
very godly “saved” people who get sick and live by humble means. Our freedom
from sickness and death is in the New Heavens and New Earth.
The prosperity gospel promises that Christian giving leads to
compensation from God. False teachers will use passages like 2 Cor. 9:6-9 to
say that the more you give to God, the more He will give to you. For example,
if I give $10, He will give me $1000. This leads to wrong motives in giving.
Scripture says that we give with a cheerful heart believing that God will
supply our needs.
The prosperity gospel promises that prayer/faith is a tool to force God
to grant blessings. False teachers will use passages like James 4:2 or Matt.
21:21 to say if you have enough faith, God is bound to act on your behalf. Or
if you can claim it before it happens, God is bound to give it to you. This
leads to a wrong view of prayer and a misunderstanding of biblical faith.
Scripture says that we should pray for God’s will to be done, and faith is
reliance on what God has said, that we cannot see.
Dennis Edwards: I think we should use Matthew 21:21 when we pray. God wants us to pray and ask for help in removing the obstacles the enemy puts in our way. Through prayer we draw nigh to God and He in turn draws nigh to us. We should be careful what we pray for because if we insist on something that is really not what is best for us, God may let us have it, even though it ends up sending leanness to our souls. We should be seeking the will of God in our lives, not our own will. If we seek Him first, He promises to give us all the other things we need. "Not my will, but Thy will be done." Jesus prayed in the garden. That should be our prayer also.
Discuss: How do these common promises lead to a “man-focused” gospel
instead of a “Jesus-focused” gospel?
Building
our hope on Christ and eternity
As followers of Jesus, we should see Him as our greatest blessing in
this life. Our hope should not be to live for this life, but for the one to
come. (Lamentations 3:24-26, Romans 8:16-18)
Personal
Application
Consider if you have ever been exposed to the prosperity gospel, are
there any common promises that you have believed that are not from God?
How can you depend on Jesus to have less of a “man-focused” view of the gospel?
Article found here. https://www.highview.org/discipleship/resources/1734/debunking-the-prosperity-gospel
