What is the prosperity gospel?
A "
prosperity gospel" is the belief faith prospers. By believing in prosperity a person gains prosperity. Having faith that God will recompense a person simply because they have faith something will happen and then acting in accordance with that faith in that belief a person will gain material blessing, whether that be fiscal, or some other material and temporal consequence (good health, healing, favor in a relationship, etc.). This belief in prosperity is typically couched in believing some positive or affirmative statement in the Bible such as Jesus came to bring abundant life, consistently and diligently praying for that particular verse or "promise" to apply in the person's life. Advocates argue faith and trust in God is necessarily implicit because both the Bible and the affirmative statements found therein are from God. A person praying for something said in the Bible is, therefore, implicitly acknowledging and worshiping the God of that promise. In practical application, however, believing something good will happen just because it is stated in the Bible is problematic on all occasions when the promise usurps the Promise-Maker in thought, word, deed, or reason.
For example, I once had a neighbor whose car was stolen. A fellow Christian loaned her a car until she was able to replace the stolen one and a few days later she happened to drive by my place while I was out front washing my car. We stopped to chat, and I asked her if she'd gotten a new car and she replied by explaining the car she was driving was a loaner, but she was going to get a new car because God had told her so.
God told you he was going to give you a new car?
Yes, it's right there in His word. All I have to do is believe. I see. How is that going to happen? Have you spoken with XYZ (a local ministry that provides used vehicles to those in need) or did the insurance money come through?
Oh no, God's going to give me a new car. All I have to do is believe God and trust Him. So.... Is that like maybe one morning you'll wake up and a new car will be at the curb with a bow on it?
Yep. Maybe. It could happen exactly like that!
That is, admittedly, a simplified example. It does, however, demonstrate the division in thought, word, and practice between scripture and reality held by its adherent. The expected gift is not coming through any normal, temporal means; it will magically, possibly spontaneously appear.
This is not, properly speaking,
a gospel at all, much less
the gospel. The word "gospel" was a term appropriated by the gospel writers from Roman and Greek culture. Inherent in the word "gospel" is the necessity of a great accomplishment or victory (in the case of Christianity that is the victory Christ won over the grave). There is no gospel apart from Christ resurrected.
And, How can we share the gospel with those who hold to the prosperity gospel beliefs?
While I understand and affirm the potential benefit of a well-made case evangelizing a person to persuasion and submission to Christ, I am a greater advocate of the best apologetic is a life well lived. When people see the life well lived, they introduce themselves into the conversation how and why that life is lived that way. I also believe preaching the gospel comes with risk because the exact same words that save also condemn. A person who has heard the gospel is without excuse and will not be able to use denial as justification to escape destruction. We, the preachers of the one true gospel of Christ dead, resurrected and ascended, must therefore rely on the Spirit and be discerning accordingly for our words to bear the fruit God wants them to bear. If we measure success by whether or not
we persuaded a person then that's very ego-centric and probably fleshly. God, in His infinite omniscient wisdom knows exactly what the hearer of the gospel needs and needs to hear. If we're not listening to the other person we won't hear their need, and if, in turn, we're not listening to what God says about that moment in which that need can be met we are, again, operating in the flesh. That does not preclude words from being persuasive, but intellectual assent alone is not salvific.
There are reasons followers of the prosperity gospel like and follow that teaching. Getting to the presuppositional need is difficult when working with the Spirit, impossible working in the flesh alone. Getting to the presuppositional need without replacing it with God can be damning. Trading one worldly need with another is not salvific.
There is, therefore, no one single, solitary, fixed or simple answer to the question how we can share the gospel with those who hold to prosperity non-gospel beliefs. But pointing a person to Jesus will usually bring up the idol or stronghold if we're listening for it. I spoke with a waitress yesterday who eventually confided she likes the demons and they are real
. A few weeks ago I spoke to a pair of young LDS women who'd never heard the history of Christianity and LDSism as I'd explained it, promising to
not just go back to their elder (who would undoubtedly provide a rational for my apostacy and point them back to "orthodoxy") but to investigate what I'd said for themselves. Who knows whether or not they'll do it but in both cases a
rapport has been established where each was willing to let down some of the entrenched defenses.
Life functions on relationship.
Establish rapport because the best sharing of the true gospel comes accompanied with a life demonstrably affected by that gospel for the better.
Matthew 16:26
What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
