The Health and Wealth Gospel

      Just turn on your television to any number of religious programs and you will hear some preacher and his wife telling you if you send a donation as a seed of your faith to them, God will bless you one hundredfold.

      Perhaps the best response I ever heard to that was a friend who called a televangelist’s hotline and said, “If you really believe it works that way, why don’t you send me a donation as a seed of your faith and wait for the Lord to bless you one hundredfold?”

      Yet, we have passages like II Corinthians 9:6-15 which seem to suggest if we give, God will bless us. After all, it does say, “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” Then there is Proverbs 11:24-25, which says, “There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, and there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want. The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered.” Don’t these passages teach if we give, God will bless us?

      No and yes. Sadly, those televangelists encourage us to give as if it were some kind of paying investment. They are not actually asking us to give out of generosity, but out of greed. In their system, we only give in the hope to receive more. We are not giving as a sacrifice to serve the Lord or His children. We are giving because we want a return that we can spend selfishly on ourselves. God has not promised to bless that kind of giving.

      Notice how Paul followed up his sowing statement in II Corinthians 9:8. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.”

      God promises to bless the sacrificially generous with sufficiency, not obscene wealth. Further, He does not bless with abundance so we can merely spend it on ourselves. He blesses with abundance so we may abound in every good deed.

      Do not misunderstand. There will be some wealthy among the Lord’s people. Yes, they are allowed to enjoy the fruit of their labor (Ecclesiastes 5:18). However, as I Timothy 6:17-19 says, those who are blessed with wealth are to be generous and share, not putting their faith in their riches.

      If God blesses us with material goods, He expects us to be a blessing to others. When we fulfill that role faithfully, God is willing to bless us further that we may be a further blessing to others. No, this is not a one way ticket to health and wealth. But it is a one way ticket to heaven.

      Let us praise God from whom all blessings flow. And let us honor Him from the first of our wealth (Proverbs 3:9).

Edwin L. Crozier