The understanding of prosperity I work with, and one which I see taught by the WOF teachers I give ear to, is that prosperity is doing well. As I have repeatedly pointed out, it is not at all limited to finances (nor does it exclude finances).

So, having all needs met according to Gods riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:19) — that is doing well. (I might point out that Paul wrote that, not only in a financial context, but to a group of people who were supporting his ministry. See verse 15-18, and note also the language of “giving and receiving” in verse 15; the Greek words are terms of accounting).

And always having all sufficiency in all things (2 Cor 9:8) — that is doing well. And having plenty more besides for every good work — that is doing well.

Having all sins forgiven, having all diseases healed, being redeemed from destruction, crowned with lovingkindness and tender mercies, having one’s “mouth” (desires) satisfied with good things (Psalm 103:1-5) — that is doing well.

Experiencing the blessings named in Psalm 112: 1-9 and Psalm 128:1-6 — that is doing well. Again, I think it does damage to the text to try to reduce it merely to spiritual metaphor as if it had nothing to do with material blessings. What do you think the blessed man in Psalm 112 lends in verse 5 and disperses abroad and gives to the poor in verse 12? Surely it is some of the material blessing he has received, the wealth and riches in his house, the overflow of his prosperity so that it becomes a blessing to others.

The blessings and provisions of God are not just limited to the spiritual dimension but reach into the physical realm as well, because we are not just disembodied spirits, but also flesh and blood.

Have a Merry Christmas.

It took me a while to get back here. Well, feels like I’m late and the party’s over. Alright, here are my final comments on the passages you listed and then I’ll have to sign off.

The Apostles, including St. Paul, did not seek prosperity as a primary goal or encourage desire for prosperity. Preaching the Gospel was the primary focus of their ministry. You have expressed the idea that God promises to overcome troubles, which is true. When sin affects a Christian’s life, and it will do so every day, it is overcome first through the promise of the Gospel. The promises of prosperity for those who fear, love and obey God are secondary to the promise of the Gospel. Paul, Elijah, and Elisha were the opposite of financially wealthy but Paul could say, “. . . yet possessing everything.” 2 Cor 6:10

Phil 4:19 applies to all believers but it does not say anything about prosperity. God promises to meet our “needs”. The first focus is on eternal needs but God is the one who determines what each individual’s bodily “needs” are. In Phil 4:11, St. Paul described the faith God produced in him that was able to be content in any situation. Faith is a gift from God and produces fruit but the fruit varies from one to another. Love, forgiveness, peace, joy grow as faith grows but no matter how much they grow, they will be imperfect.

The theme of 2 Cor 9:6-8 is generosity in giving. It follows that if God supplies all of our needs (sufficiency), there will always be opportunities to do some good work with whatever we have been given. St. Paul was exhorting these people to resist the temptation to store up treasures for themselves. God promises earthly rewards for obeying His commandments but we only keep them imperfectly. For example, if gaining or keeping any earthly reward becomes more valuable to you than God’s promise of the forgiveness in Christ that brings future glory in heaven, then you may reap consequences of that sin instead of the earthly rewards you sought. Same thing goes for any desire to glorify yourself more than God with the prosperity he gives you.

“Prosperity” in Psalm 1 refers to the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer to faithfully serve the Lord. In Psalm 103:1-5, we are reminded to thank and praise God for the benefits He has given us and verses 3-5 are David’s thanks for his own personal blessings. Psalms 112 and 128 are poetic images of a person who fears God and who God blesses through His graciousness.

The tragedy of Oral Roberts is that he caused terrible harm to a great many people in the way he distorted God’s Word and His promises of prosperity. WOF teachings that leave people with false impressions and expose followers to the same risks are unworthy of support.

Thanks for the discussion and I wish you the best in Christ Jesus.

I believe the spectacular miracles of Christ and the first Apostles were signs pointing to Christ’s authority as the Son of God and signs affirming the authority of the Apostolic witness, which remains for all times, the authoritative revelation of the Gospel. I have heard stories of spectacular miracles from the mission field, where a sign would be a powerful way to establish the authority of the preaching of the Gospel among unreached people.

I remain firmly skeptical, however, of the WOF emphasis here in this country, which, by your description, throws so much on to the individual, and, in my view does not put Christ and the Gospel, front and center. When “healing” becomes the main focus and “prosperity” as you have described it, I do not find this to be a Biblical approach to the Gospel.

I affirm and say a loud “Amen!” to your remarks about how you have been redeemed and declared righteous, justified in Jesus Christ! Praise God for His mercy.

A blessed and happy Christmas to you, and yours, too!

You have me rolling on the floor laughing with your comment that I have embraced a dreary and legalistic religion. Far from it, Paul. I embrace a God who saves, heals, delivers, and restores His people through faith in Jesus Christ. I see that God is still a God of miracles, not just theoretically, but truly and actually. And I embrace His Word, which is full of life and joy for those who believe.

Once I was a sinner, now I have been redeemed and declared righteous — justified in Jesus Christ, who carried my sin in His body and put it on the Cross. God no longer counts me a sinner but as righteous.

Don’t wish me luck — I don’t believe in it. Rather, I believe in the blessing God has for all His people.

I think I am done trying to discuss anything with you, Paul. I have tried to be pleasant, patient and respectful, but all I have met in you is condescension (and I am not the only one who has noticed that).

So I will simply say, Peace be with you, and Have a blessed Christmas.

What a legalistic and dreary religion you have embraced. It is not Biblical Christianity, that much is sure.

Good luck pursuing that “perfect life” you strive for. You either have to ignore your sinful condition, or make believe it is not there, to have this nirvana like experience of which you speak.

But that’s WOF for you. Pick what is preferred, discard what is not.

The passages I have brought up above, I have dealt with in context, particularly the financial contexts of both 2 Cor 9:6-8 and Phil 4:19. Is it your contention that the promises given there are only for the Corinthians and the Philippians, respectively? Rather, I think they are for all believers, for God is no “respecter of persons.” He is also the same today as He was yesterday. So when Paul says that those who sow bountifully will also reap bountifully (bear in mind the financial context), that is not just a promise for the Corinthians, it is for us also. And when he tells the Philippian believers, who have supported his ministry, that God will supply all theirs needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus, that promise applies also to us — God will meet ALL our needs.

According to the WOF teaching on prosperity that I have received, prosperity is when you are living with a vibrant faith and hope in God, bearing the fruit of the Spirit in your life, walking in love toward God and others, holding no unforgiveness against those who have wronged you, experiencing peace and joy in your life. Prosperity is having a healthy, strong marriage, healthy relationship with your children, your children walking with the Lord. It is being out of debt, being able to take care of your bills and having resources besides to give to every good work the Lord leads you. It is being able give graciously and lend generously. When one begins to do well in those areas, one begins to know the prosperity God has for us, the abundance of life Jesus brings.

Good WOF teaching is well aware that prosperity is very much more than just financial; it is about doing well in every aspect of life. But just as prosperity is not by any means limited to finances, neither are finances excluded from prosperity.

Psalm 1 gives us a good idea of what prosperity looks like. Also Psalm 103:1-5, Psalm 112 and Psalm 128, among others.

It does not mean that there are never any problems, that there are no tribulations, no persecutions. Indeed, Jesus promised us we would have persecution in this world, and WOF often points this out. Just as the children of Israel had to overcome enemies in the Promised Land, so we also have situations and circumstances to overcome.

What WOF teaches is that God has given us everything we need to overcome. That in Jesus Christ we are more than conquerors. That faith is the victory that overcomes the world. So of course there are problems and persecutions. If there were nothing to overcome, we would not be overcomers. So while WOF recognizes that there will be problems we must face, we do not have to be overcome by them; rather, we can overcome them by faith and the provision of God.

Peace be with you.

Jeff

Thanks for visiting my blog (click on my name at the top of this post for the blog address), and thanks for your comments. I welcome anyone to come and see whether your comments are well-placed.

As a Bible teacher, I teach on a variety of passages and I seek the emphasis of those individual passages. For example, you might notice, if you look extensively in my blog, that I deal quite a lot with the psalms (this arises quite naturally for me as I pray through the Book of Psalms each month). Consequently, I deal with the many themes of those psalms, some of which have a more direct gospel trajectory than others. And I also deal with a lot of other Scriptures about various issues of faith. I have been writing this blog for five years now, and if you go through, I think you will find many places where I deal with the work of Christ on the cross on our behalf and what that means for our redemption, salvation, forgiveness of sins, reconciliation.

IF you believe that God still works healing miracles through His people, what evidence would you require before you would be willing to believe it had occurred in a particular instance through the ministry of a particular individual?

I’m still waiting for the WOF chap to pony up the proof that Roberts and his fellow “healers” actually have raised the dead, restored an amputated limb, gave sight to a clinically blind person, or even just changed a few loaves of bread into enough food to feed thousands. That’s all I’m asking for. You’d think with all the talk of how their hearts are aligned with God’s heart, God would at least let them do a few signs like this.

Drew, it amuses me that you write a paragraph of emotional opinions (+ one Proverb) and then label logical arguments that are on point as “emotional”. Curious perspective but I guess if these issues reach your emotions, that’s not such a bad thing. Actually, the issue isn’t one of a rich/poor dichotomy at all, it is one of faith/works (i.e. saving faith/work righteousness termed “faith”). That is honestly the heart of the matter here if you take a closer look.

If, by any chance, you are referring to my previous comment, I think it’s quite a stretch to take my words and equate them to Gnosticism. I did not “spiritualize all the references in Scripture to healing, prosperity and provision” or “limit application only to the spiritual” all of God’s blessings recorded in Scripture. I mentioned in my last comment, and will restate it here that there are plenty of God’s physical and material blessings recorded in Scripture but my point is, what does that prove? What I said about that is that the citations you listed do not prove your point and I explained why. You have commented on another post, “The reason WOF believe God wants His people to be in health and have prosperity, even financial prosperity, is because they find these things expressed in many places throughout the Scriptures.” So because God records accounts of physical and material blessings in His Word, that means He wants everyone to have those particular blessings? Clearly, not. Interesting that Scripture contains many more accounts of faithful suffering than faithful “well-being”. You have used the term “well-being” to define prosperity this way, “in WOF teaching, prosperity is about much more than financial well-being; it is about well-being in all aspects of life: soul prosperity, family, relationships, ministry, etc.” For those who are not experts on the WOF movement, I think it would be helpful if you could describe the precise distinction between the person who gains prosperity and the person who does not, according to WOF.

You say, “WOF teachers recognize the truth of Jesus’ words in John 16:33, ‘In the world you will have tribulation.’” I do not doubt this. However, you also say, “I hear them point this out pretty regularly…” This I can’t relate to. The problem is not in claiming there are material as well as spiritual aspects to scripture’s references to “healing, prosperity and provision,” but the vast overemphasis of this, to the detriment of acknowledging believers’ experience of suffering and tribulation, and most gravely to the detriment of acknowledging the heart of the gospel. To use a well-worn tactic from the young Reformed handbook, I’ll quote Spurgeon:

The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. They who preach this truth preach the gospel in whatever else they may be mistaken; but they who preach not the atonement, whatever else they declare, have missed the soul and substance of the divine message.

I’m not accusing anyone of denying or ignoring entirely the atonement. However I do not see it receiving the attention it is due. That there be no confusion: I offer these criticisms respectfully.

Yes, I think Prov 30:8-9 (they go together) bring out something important: “Give me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny You, and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of the LORD.”

It highlights the truth that true prosperity must begin in the heart, or as 3 John 2 puts it, “Even as your soul prospers.” Without a heart properly aligned with the heart of God, any other success or prosperity would just tear us up. We would be consuming it for our own lusts and forgetting the gracious God who made us. That would be tragedy indeed.

So, if our heart is in such a state that prosperity and success would cause us to forget God and ruin our lives, then that is certainly a big problem — bigger than questions about prosperity and success. It signals that we need our hearts put right with God.

But when our hearts come into alignment with the heart of God and His purposes, then He can entrust us with resources for His kingdom. For then we are in a position to embrace the abounding grace God has for us so that we, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have abundance for every good work (2 Cor 9:8).