Thursday Read: The Heresy of Health and Wealth

Job's friends were certain they understood his suffering. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar operated from a simple equation: righteousness equals prosperity, sin equals suffering. If Job was experiencing loss, disease, and tragedy, he must have committed some hidden sin. Their theology was neat, predictable, and completely wrong. When God finally spoke from the whirlwind, he didn't vindicate their prosperity theology—he condemned it: "My anger burns against you... for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has" (Job 42:7).

The health and wealth gospel teaches that God's primary desire is your temporal happiness, that faith is a formula for financial success, that sickness indicates spiritual failure. Prosperity preachers promise that the right prayers, sufficient faith, and generous giving will unlock God's material blessings. But this theology would have been foreign to the apostles, most of whom died in poverty, persecution, and martyrdom. Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, described himself as "unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything" (2 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Jesus himself embodied the opposite of prosperity theology. Born in a stable, raised in a working-class family, conducting ministry without permanent residence, dying naked on a cross—the Son of God experienced material poverty while possessing spiritual riches beyond measure. He warned that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24), suggesting that wealth often hinders rather than helps spiritual development.

The prosperity gospel is cruel because it adds guilt to suffering, transforming tragedy into shame. Cancer patients are told they lack faith. Unemployed believers are accused of insufficient giving. Poor Christians are blamed for their poverty while wealthy televangelists live in mansions purchased with their donations. This theology makes God a cosmic vending machine—insert faith, receive blessings—rather than a sovereign Father who uses both abundance and need to shape his children's character.

True biblical prosperity isn't measured by bank accounts but by spiritual contentment. Paul learned to be "content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want" (Philippians 4:12). The early Christians were often materially poor but spiritually rich, while the church at Laodicea was materially rich but spiritually bankrupt (Revelation 3:17). Which category describes your understanding of God's blessings?