I had lunch about a week ago with a man from our church. During the course of lunch, we discussed some theology. I am Reformed and Calvinist. He leans toward a prosperity theology. He quoted a verse in Corinthians to support his thoughts (I wish I had written it down) and also stated, "That's always been my experience, when I am closer to God He blesses me more and more." The context of our conversation made it plain that this was in regard to material things.
But what about the Bible? Taken as a whole, we cannot find this theology to be supported. The Apostles died horrible deaths, and suffered along the way. I think of Stephen, John the Baptist, Jesus' mother just as a few other examples. I just finished reading Trevin Wax's Blog and see all that he had endured this month. Either this theology is wrong, or Trevin has been a very bad boy. I don't know him personally, but I am going to go with the former.
God is a God of comfort. To know comfort, we must know pain. There have been times in this life He has been all I have had to cling to. While I do not like pain, those times have brought a bond that gets stronger every time.
Has God blessed me materially? Yes. But that is not the only kind of comfort He intends for me to have. Because God loves me, he will allow me to walk through the valley of death too. The place where His rod of correction and his staff of leadership will give me what I need. At least, that's always been my experience.
Here is a video Trevin had posted at the end of his post. I have always loved Bebo Normen, and this is powerful.
1 comment:
My friend says that the prosperity message is a part of the BS gospel and I tend to agree. In my thinking it is just a religious version of narcissism. I mentioned it a while back in a post titled Made in Our Image.
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