Wealth as Blessing

You have probably heard some version of it. God wants you to prosper. Give faithfully and he will give back more. It is preached on television and said sincerely in churches every Sunday. Jesus talked about money as often as almost anything, so it is easy to measure against the center.

Did Jesus ever treat wealth as a sign of God's approval? You may have heard that he did from a pulpit you trust. Read what he actually said. You don't need any institution's approval to read it plainly, or to live it. The answer is plain.

Read it3 min

Start with the man who walked away sad. He had kept every commandment since he was young. Mark adds a detail the other Gospels leave out: Jesus looked at him and loved him.

Luke records a sermon in which Jesus pairs every blessing with a woe. Read the two halves side by side.

He said plainly that money is a rival master.

And he told a story about a farmer whose fields did so well that he ran out of room.

The world behind the words4 min

Most of the people listening to Jesus in Galilee were farmers, fishermen and day laborers. Many worked land they didn't own and carried debts they couldn't pay. And they had grown up with a common idea: if you were rich, God must be pleased with you.

Their own Scriptures seemed to say so. Deuteronomy promised that if Israel obeyed, "all these blessings will come upon you, and overtake you" Deuteronomy 28:1-2, and the blessings listed include full barns and fertile herds. Proverbs says, "The LORD's blessing brings wealth" Proverbs 10:22. At the end of the book of Job, God gives Job "twice as much as he had before" Job 42:10. It was natural to read the rich as the blessed.

That is why the disciples were so shaken by the man who walked away. Jesus didn't condemn him; Mark says he loved him. He simply asked the man to let go of the thing holding him, and the man couldn't. When Jesus said a camel would sooner go through a needle's eye, the disciples were "exceedingly astonished" and asked, "Then who can be saved?" Mark 10:26 If even a rich, obedient man was in danger, who was safe?

The pattern runs through the Gospels. Jesus praised a poor widow's two small coins over the gifts of the rich Mark 12:41-44. In his story of the rich man and Lazarus, a man "clothed in purple and fine linen" ignores a beggar at his gate, and after death the two trade places Luke 16:19-25. And when the rich tax collector Zacchaeus gave half his goods to the poor, Jesus said, "Today, salvation has come to this house" Luke 19:8-9.

In every one of these stories, Jesus treats wealth the same way: as a danger to the person holding it, and generosity as the way out. Not once does he point to someone's money as proof that God approves of them.

How it drifted5 min

The first Christians took these words at face value. Luke writes that the believers in Jerusalem "had all things in common" and sold property to give "according as anyone had need" Acts 2:44-45, so that "neither was there among them any who lacked" Acts 4:34.

The Didache, a short handbook of Christian teaching written around 100 AD, told believers: "Do not turn away from someone in need; share everything with your brother, and do not say it is your own." Around 388, the preacher John Chrysostom, later archbishop of Constantinople, gave a series of sermons on the rich man and Lazarus in Antioch. He didn't soften the story.

As the church grew rich in the Middle Ages, some believers chose poverty instead. Around 1206, Francis of Assisi, a wealthy cloth merchant's son, gave up his inheritance in public and lived among the poor. His order made poverty a way of following Jesus.

In 1905 the sociologist Max Weber proposed that some Protestant groups came to treat hard work and success as signs that God had chosen them. Historians still argue about his theory, but the idea it describes, that success may show God's favor, took deep root in America.

The modern prosperity gospel took that idea much further. Its roots are usually traced to E. W. Kenyon, an evangelist of the early 1900s who taught that believers could claim God's promises by speaking them in faith. From the 1950s, the healing evangelist Oral Roberts preached "seed faith": give to God as a seed, and expect a harvest in return. Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland spread the "Word of Faith" teaching through Bible schools and television from the 1960s and 70s, and Christian television carried it worldwide.

The verses used to support it mostly come from outside the Gospels: Malachi's promise to "open you the windows of heaven" for those who bring the tithe Malachi 3:10, or a letter's friendly greeting, "I pray that you may prosper in all things and be healthy" 3 John 1:2. The one saying of Jesus often quoted is "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" John 10:10. Read the next verse: "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" John 10:11. The chapter is about a shepherd giving everything up, not gaining.

Honest objections3 min

"The Old Testament promises blessing to the faithful." It does, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. But the same Scriptures also include Job, a righteous man who loses everything, and prophets who condemn the rich for oppressing the poor. And Jesus, who knew those Scriptures better than anyone, never repeated the promise of wealth. He reversed it. If he is the center, his reading comes first.

"It's about your attitude toward money, not the money itself." There is truth here: Jesus warned against "covetousness" Luke 12:15, which is about the heart. But look at what happens in his stories. He told the rich man to actually sell. Zacchaeus actually gave half away. The widow actually gave everything. In each one, the money moves.

"Jesus had wealthy friends." He did. Women of means "served them from their possessions" Luke 8:1-3, and Zacchaeus kept half of what he had. Jesus didn't ask every follower to give up everything. That makes the point sharper: he let people keep wealth, but he never praised anyone for having it, only for giving it.

Measured against the center2 min

Measured against the center, this is not a small difference of emphasis. It is a contradiction, not an add-on. Jesus said "woe to you who are rich," called money a rival master, told a rich man to sell what he had, and praised a widow for giving her last coins. The prosperity gospel tells people that God rewards faith with money and that giving is an investment that pays back. Those two messages cannot both be his.

This may be hard if you have been taught, even gently, that your comfort shows God's approval, or that your giving will come back to you. It doesn't mean God doesn't care about your needs; Jesus said he does Matthew 6:31-33. It means he never promised wealth, and warned that it can own you. Following him here looks like holding money loosely, giving where it costs you, and no longer reading anyone's bank account as a sign of God's favor, including your own.

A keeper1 min

Whatever you believe about who Jesus was, his teaching on money holds up on its own. Your life is not the sum of what you own. Hold possessions loosely. Give where it costs you something, and give quietly.

Modern research agrees with him. In a set of studies published in the journal Science in 2008, psychologists found that people who spent money on others reported more happiness than people who spent the same amount on themselves.

For you as a believer, generosity is not an extra for the especially devout. It is how Jesus said you would know where your heart is.

Reflect2 min

1. When something good happens to you financially, what is your first explanation for it?
2. Who in your life has been more generous than you, with less? What did you notice about them?
3. If Jesus looked at your bank statement, which line would he ask you about first?

Take your time with each one. There is space to write your answers in the book and the PDF.

Practice this week1 min

Choose one generous act this week that costs you something you will notice, an amount or an hour you would rather keep. Give it quietly, to a person or cause you will not hear back from. Then write two sentences: what it cost, and how it felt a day later.

Talk it over1 min

• Have you heard prosperity teaching in a church you've attended, even in a quieter form? How did it sound?
• Why do you think the disciples were so shocked by the camel saying?
• What would it look like for you and the people closest to you to handle money the way the believers in Acts 4 did?

A quiet moment1 min

Remember it

One master. Luke 6:24: "Woe to you who are rich." Matthew 6:24: "You can't serve both God and Mammon." The two verses share a number, so they are easy to find together.

Too wide for the slit: a gold disc far wider than the thin slit beside it. The camel and the needle's eye.

1. Which two verses share the number 6:24?
   Luke 6:24 and Matthew 6:24.
2. What did the rich man do when Jesus told him to sell what he had?
   He went away sorrowful (Mark 10:22).
3. What is John 10:10 really about, if you read the next verse?
   A good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.

Show the answers