Tag: gospel

Posted in david platt, missional, prosperity gospel, radical

Do I have to live uncomfortably to be a real Christian?

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

EPrata photo. The Andes of Ecuador

The Prosperity Gospel

The prosperity gospel has sunk in deep and permeated every corner of the US. The American church has a lot to answer for when we all meet Jesus. Now it’s exported abroad, and polluting churches in India and Africa and elsewhere. The prosperity gospel is no gospel. It teaches congregants to indulge their flesh, seek worldly things, and keep their eyes focused laterally instead of vertically. Joel Osteen is a master of this kind of gospel.

Joel Osteen flatly laid out the main precepts of Prosperity gospel out in a 2005 letter to his flock. “God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us,” Osteen wrote.

No, that’s not what God wants us to do. God wants us to live holy lives, pick up our cross, obey Him, be witnesses for His name, worship Him, make disciples, be wise, and share the true Gospel all over the world, among other things. (1 Peter 1:15, John 4:24, Matthew 16:24, 1 John 5:2-3, Matthew 10:16, Matthew 28:19). The destiny he laid out for us includes trouble, persecution, hatred, and hardships, (John 16:33, John 15:18, Acts 14:22, 2 Corinthians 6:4).

The “prosperity gospel,” an insipid heresy whose popularity among American Christians has boomed in recent years, teaches that God blesses those God favors most with material wealth.
Cathleen Falsani

The Prosperity gospel was preached so heavily on televangelist TV channels throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, that the 2010 David Platt book “Radical” touched a nerve and swept the pendulum rapidly in the other direction.

The Uncomfortable Gospel

The book blurb for Radical states:

It’s easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily…But who do you know who lives like that? Do you?

The book challenged Americans to reassess their commitment to the Gospel and make changes if necessary. Making sure that we are living biblically in submissive commitment to Christ is a worthy reassessment, but many people feel (me included) that the book made it sound like if you were living a normal life that happened to include comforts, you were somehow less committed Christian. Tim Challies reviewed Radical in 2011, saying,

First, I think our attempts to live radically can ignore the Bible’s concern that we be radically godly in character. There is no doubt that I am called by God to live sacrificially and generously. My first calling, though, is to know God, to be shaped by him and on that basis to preach the gospel and to live as if it is true. I am called to do all of this right where the Lord has placed me. This means that there is great dignity and great value in doing whatever it is that I want to do, like to do, and can honor God doing. We do not all need to be foreign missionaries and evangelists; we do not all need to move to faraway lands. We can (and must!) primarily honor God in whatever it is he has given us to do. I am concerned that it is difficult to read this book and believe its message and not feel that normal life is dishonoring to God.

However despite book reviews of Radical stating these same concerns, and a subtle rebuttal by John MacArthur titled An Unremarkable Faith, the pendulum swung hard toward ditching everything and running off to Bali barefoot to evangelize whoever happened to be along the way. The collateral damage of this pendulum swing included a backlash against Suburban Christians and suburbia in general.

I agree with Challies. I have not been called to be a missionary in Tonga. I am not called to be a preacher’s wife in the 10/40 belt. I am not a Bible smuggler living dangerously in China or North Korea. I am a white, older Christian woman living in rural Georgia. I go to a boring ole Baptist church with regular people who have a variety of jobs; some are farmers, some work in professional settings, some are blue collar. I drive 1 mile to school every day, assist children in the lower elementary grades, and drive home. I enjoy covered dish suppers, grocery shopping at the same place where I know all the checkout ladies, and banking at a small town bank where they know my name when I come in.

I live where there are rural farms all around including my own rental property where the lambs are about to be born any day! But horror of horrors, there are also ‘suburban’ subdivisions nearby, malls a half hour away, and a McDonald’s within a few minutes. Suburbia for sure.

I don’t make a lot of money and in fact have to watch every penny, but I know by global standards I’m rich. I am comfortable in every aspect of my life, from what I drive, to what I wear, to where I worship, to where I work. Suburbia has gotten a very bad rep. I live in suburban-ish America, and according to many liberal and hipster Christians, I’m doing Christianity wrong.

Hipsters: It’s cool to Hate the ‘Burbs

In his piece “Why Do We Hate The Suburbs?” author Keith Miller pointed out the flaw in ‘burb-hate.

Here are a few of the most prominent Christian objections to living in the suburbs. How many of them hold up to even a slight bit of scrutiny?

Suburbs are inauthentic: I confess to not quite understanding what this means. Yes, suburban things are often newer and feature less exposed brick, but how is that a moral argument?
Suburbs are consumeristic: No more than large cities.
Suburbs are morally repressive: Wait, overt exhibition of immorality is a good thing?
Suburbs lack diversity: The most diverse places in the country are suburbs.
Suburbs are full of a lot of Evangelicals who vote Republican: Oh, wait, now we are getting somewhere…

Obviously, each of these charges deserves a post of its own to address these issues with the requisite nuance, but even the one-liner responses should cause us to think. Why are we down on suburbs? Do we have a biblically grounded objection rooted in our personal experiences, or have we merely baptized a secular prejudice and called it Christian ethics?

I think the second question is the answer: we’ve ‘baptized a secular prejudice and called it Christian ethics.’ I reject that notion because of one important factor. This is where God put me.

Justin Bullington said on Twitter today, I continually find comfort in this truth: I am where I am in life because God has sovereignly and wisely placed me here.

Amen, brother!

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, (Acts 17:26).

When you sprinkle salt into your dish the salt crystals go everywhere. With God, though, He sprinkles His elect all over the world and directs each one of us specifically to where He wants us to go. And when we land, here we are, doing the Lord’s work. One place isn’t holier than another. And definitely not holier because it’s rougher than other places in terms of living status.

God made the nations and all the peoples in the nations. He placed each one of us where He wants us, whether it be India or Canada, suburban Ohio or metropolitan Paris or the Faroes. He is sovereign and in His will and plan it pleased Him to give me this life. Who am I to speak back to God? Or worse, who am I to disparage His plan for me and many others He has set forth?

Yes- it would be sin if I lived in a comfortable environment and felt the call to become a missionary in Burma and refused Him because I was comfortable. Yes, I understand the original intent of the book Radical was to get us to reject sinking into a mealy mouthed Christianity because we’re surrounded by comfort. It was intended, I think, to jolt us out of The Prosperity Gospel’s insidious tentacles.

The true fact is, no matter where a person lives, if they are doing Christianity ‘right’, it is not comfortable. It takes commitment, energy, a proactive stance, and diligence. Christians can easily be just as hated in the suburbs than in the impoverished Third World countries.

The essence of Christianity is loving your neighbor. Suburbia needs loving neighbors reaching out in quiet ways just as much as the poor need help in Calcutta or the lost need help in Afghanistan. The daily grind of being a faithful witness for Jesus occurs all over the world, in jungles, mountain villages, cities, farming communities, and suburban plats. I reject the Prosperity gospel, and I also reject the radical ‘Uncomfortable gospel’. I accept and live by the only Gospel.

Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve…( 1 Corinthians 15:1-5)

Posted in theology

Some crowns are imperishable, but if put on perishable heads…

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I saw this arresting photo on Twitter. It’s from History Defined:

Hellenistic period: 323 B.C.E. and the rise of Augustus in Rome in 31 B.C.E

The first thing I thought was, man that guy had good teeth! The next thing that struck me were the verses about crowns in scripture:

Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable. (1 Corinthians 9:25)

in the future there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2 Timothy 4:8)

We are flesh, and flesh is but grass. Within 3 generations a person’s name is forgotten. No one remembers what that Greek man’s achievement was, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Was he fast? Strong? Agile? Who knows? Who cares?

Peter, quoting Isaiah 40:6, For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, (1 Peter 1:24).

EPrata photo

And never was that verse brought more to life than the dead Greek’s skull with the gold leaf still sticking to it.

What matters is God’s glory! That is the ONLY thing that matters in this fleshly life and after resurrection for eternal life. How do we give God glory? By obeying Him, proclaiming Jesus’ name everywhere, being salt and light in submission to His calling us out of our perishable darkness into everlasting light, and so on.

Even if the crown the Greek received was the high point of his life, the skull it was placed on was perishable. Perhaps the Greek was a believer and if so, his skull will be remade new on resurrection Day. Probably wasn’t a believer though. For a few decades he enjoyed his crown, apparently was attached to it enough so that when his family buried him, they buried it with him. And that was the end of that!

What is not the end is that after our resurrection on the Day of Judgment, people will be divided into two groups, the sheep (Believers) and the Goats (non-believers). According to the Bible, this is what will happen:

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33and He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.

34“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’

41“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not [i]take care of You?’ 45Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.’ 46These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46).

There are only two things that will happen to a crown: it will either be burned up in when the earth is remade new, or it will be cast onto Jesus’ feet in joy for His enabling us to achieve a crown of glory in the first place. Everything always goes back to Him, including all achievements.

To become a sheep instead of a goat, means to believe on the Christ and repent of your sins.

For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3–4)

Now after John was taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel. (Mark 1:14-15)

Repent and believe today. Your trophies won’t save you. Only Jesus saves.

The End Time Blog Podcast Season 2, Episode 271

Posted in theology

The Worst Gospel Presentation Ever

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

At least the worst one I ever heard… The Gospel presentation I transcribed is from a thirty-plus year Bible teacher, a famous celebrity that makes her living authoring Bible studies and speaking at events where she teaches the Bible. OK, OK, it’s Beth Moore.

Asked on a recent podcast to give the gospel, Beth Moore said she would be glad to:

Continue reading “The Worst Gospel Presentation Ever” →
Posted in theology

The Gospel preached to the whole world

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

PODCAST HERE

“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. ” (Matthew 24:14).

Twelve years ago the Gideons organization marked their 100th year of giving out Bibles.

Gideons mark 100th year giving Bibles: "Nearly 76.9 million Gideon Bibles were given out in nearly 85 languages in 187 countries last year [2008]. Close to 1.5 billion Bibles have been distributed since 1908, when the Gideons first began to place Bibles in hotel rooms.

Did you know that when you make an order of any kind from Amazon, a portion of that can be dedicated through Amazon Smile to an organization of your choice?

Continue reading “The Gospel preached to the whole world” →
Posted in theology

There’s ‘probably’ not a poisonous snake in this box

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

PODCAST HERE

EPrata painting

Spiritual war is real and it manifests as either good or evil fruit in today’s society. The war front is invisible, and it’s not against people but “against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12).

Lately we see more societal interest toward the occult, people are particularly fascinated with ‘beings’ from the other side. I believe this is a direct deception from the fallen angels and demons who influence our thinking into areas the Bible expressly forbids. There are no ‘helpful’ ghosts wandering about trying to bring “messages” to the living. And there are no UFOs, or aliens. “UFOs” and “Aliens” are just fallen (demonic) angels deceiving the unwary.

Continue reading “There’s ‘probably’ not a poisonous snake in this box” →
Posted in theology

Gospel-Prophecy week #5: More important than ever- Am I Saved?

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

When you go to the bank, or grocery store and you see the lines, you wonder which line to pick. If I go in this line will it go faster? Or will that line end up being faster? I always pick the wrong line. If I see that it was moving faster, the moment I get in it, suddenly the cashier runs out of receipt paper and has to reload…or the customer starts writing a check…or the clerks end their shift and swap over. Something, lol.

Being in the wrong line is part of the daily condition and sometimes makes us chuckle with the absurdity of life. Ending up in the wrong checkout line doesn’t have eternal consequences.

Continue reading “Gospel-Prophecy week #5: More important than ever- Am I Saved?” →
Posted in theology

Gospel-Prophecy Week #4: Has America been destroyed by moth and worm? Are we ‘ripened for ruin’?

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The verse in Hosea is a promise from the Lord to Israel, also called Ephraim and Judah (northern and southern kingdom)

Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, for he is determined to follow worthless idols. Therefore I am like a moth to Ephraim, And like rottenness to the house of Judah. (Hosea 5:11-12)

If God would crush his elect, blessed, and beloved nation, would He do less to America when we do the same as Israel- reject Him and rebelliously pursue idols and revel in widespread sin?

Matthew Henry’s Compete Commentary on the Bible explains just what is happening in the Hosea verse:

Note, An easy compliance with the commandments of men that thwart the commandments of God ripens a people for ruin as much as any thing. And the punishment of the sequacious disobedience (lacking independence or originality of thought) answers to the sin; for it is for this that Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, has all his civil rights and liberties broken in upon and trodden down; 
He would begin with less judgments, which should sometimes work silently and insensibly (v. 12): I will be (that is, my providences shall be) unto Ephraim as a moth; for it is such a sickness as Ephraim now sees, v. 13.
Note, The judgments of God are sometimes to a sinful people as a moth, and as rottenness, or as a worm. The former signifies the little animals that breed in clothes, the latter those that breed in wood; as these consume the clothes and the wood, so shall the judgments of God consume them.

(1.) Silently, so as not to make any noise in the world, so as they themselves shall not be sensible of it. They shall think themselves safe and thriving, but when they come to look more narrowly into their state, shall find themselves wasting and decaying.

(2.) Slowly, and with long delays and intervals, that he may give them space to repent. Many a nation, as well as many a person in the prime of its time, dies of a consumption.

(3.) Gradually, God comes upon sinners with less judgments, so to prevent greater, if they will be wise and take warning; he comes upon them step by step, to show he is not willing that they should perish. 

(4.) The moth breeds in the clothes, and the worm or rottenness in the wood; thus sinners are consumed by a fire of their own kindling.

End Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (pp. 1474–1475).

It seems as though there has been a fast disintegration in some western nations. Australia and Canada are filled with draconian measures against a 99.7% survivable flu, ravaging its people to a frustrating degree. The people are crying out against the tyrants but the worm and moth have done their work. The tyrants are standing firm on their tyranny.

In the United States there are still some bright spots, but many low spots. The darkness in the US seems to be spreading and the nation’s vaunted civil liberties and staunch foundation of freedom and law & order seem to be eking away day by day. This has also been the worm and the moth. God has wrought His work in judgment, silently, steadily, until when exposed to the light, the garment is shredded with moth holes and will not stand.

When we read of judgment in the Bible, we focus on ‘big’ obvious judgments; the invading armies, the Babylonian captivity, the brimstone falling on Sodom and Gomorrah, or the Tribulation judgments- all of which are obvious signs of God’s displeasure.

But there are silent judgments too. The worm and the moth judgments are silent. Another silent judgment is the wrath of abandonment, as I wrote yesterday and is explained in Romans 1:18-32. When “God gave them over” to their sin. He lets go His divine restraint on whole societies and allows a people to pursue headlong into deeper sin as they had desired.

It’s obvious the United States is under judgment. Things will get worse, not better. Sin always gets worse, and without the Lord’s restraining hand upon it, a society will devolve into “all manner of wickedness” as Romans 1:29 shows.

Australia is building at Wellcamp “a regional quarantine facility” in order to “keep the Delta variant out of Queensland”. Can you keep a germ out of a land 2 and a half times bigger than Texas? No. Where there are people there are germs, viruses, and sickness. It’s insane to try and obstruct a virus, but tyrants are trying to do it anyway.

A CAMP.

It is reported that any US military personnel objecting to taking the mandated sh.ot will need to be “re-educated” via “counseling“.

BRAINWASHING.

Camps, brainwashing, pressure, shrinking civil liberties, darkness. Could the news get any worse? Yes, and it will. Sin makes it so and the Bible shows it so.

But we have GOOD NEWS. Here is where the Gospel comes in. Will we be cheerful only when we are prosperous? Will we shine the light of Jesus only when we are free? Will we be joyful only when we enjoy life the way we want it? Will we concentrate on Jesus only when it is easy and not when it is hard?

On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy made a speech at Rice University about why he set a goal of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth before the decade was out. Here is a 2 minute clip of that speech,

If JFK urged Americans to do the hard things because we are willing to accept challenges, because we are unwilling to postpone, because the hard things are the best measure of our energies and skills, then what are we to be like as Christians?

We have ALL energy- in the Holy Spirit who never tires and never wanes. We can surmount hard challenges because we have Christ who gives us the strength to do all things. The best measure of our salvation is our perseverance, the best hope is our future home, the best truth is that we are eternally loved.

I know it’s a tall order, having to adjust to the new normal quickly. Our hearts and minds may be slow to catch up to what our eyes see and read.

One way I like to maintain perspective besides bathing in the Bible, is to read of others in the faith who had it worse than I do. And there is always someone who had it worse, no matter how bad things are where you are now. Betsy ten Boom found joy and gratitude for the fleas in her Nazi barracks (because the plethora of fleas plaguing the internees kept the guards away- so she could share the Bible more freely with her bunkmates). Am I dipped in tar and lofted above a garden and put alight for a tyrant’s illumination as the 1st century Christians were in Nero’s garden? Am I tortured for Christ? Am I jailed, or being martyred? No. And when it’s not, I can tap into Christ through prayer and His word and remember His promises.

Everything we do is FOR HIS GLORY.

Focus on the joy in meeting with the saints, if you are doing that. Focus on the fact that in the US we still have access to Bibles and can share the Gospel with anyone.

JFK said:

John F. Kennedy

But believers say: Christ already did the hard thing. He did it all. He did it for us. The only thing we must do is be faithful, persevere, give Him glory, and be patient for our moment to be called home.

Posted in theology

Don’t “help” the Gospel

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The Gospel is simple. Repent and believe in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose again, ascended to heaven and will return in judgment. That’s it. Repent and believe. It’s simple, but profound. It’s eternally life saving. It’s countercultural. It’s offensive. It’s foolish to those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 1:18)

Because it is too simple for some people, or too offensive for others to hear, well-intentioned Christians, even pastors, sometimes tweak the Gospel, change the Gospel, soften the Gospel, in order to “help.”

The Gospel comes out looking like this:

Continue reading “Don’t “help” the Gospel” →
Posted in david platt, missional, prosperity gospel, radical

If you have to put a qualifier in front of “Gospel” it isn’t the Gospel…

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The American church has a lot to answer for when we all meet Jesus. The “prosperity” gospel has sunk in deep and permeated every corner of the US. Now it’s exported abroad, and polluting churches in India and Africa and elsewhere. The prosperity gospel is no gospel. It teaches congregants to indulge their flesh, seek worldly things, and keep their eyes focused laterally instead of vertically. Joel Osteen is a master of this kind of gospel.

Joel Osteen flatly laid out the main precepts of Prosperity gospel out in a 2005 letter to his flock. “God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us,” Osteen wrote.

No, that’s not what God wants us to do. God wants us to live holy lives, pick up our cross, obey Him, be witnesses for His name, worship Him, be wise, and share the true Gospel all over the world, among other things. (1 Peter 1:15, John 4:24, Matthew 16:24, 1 John 5:2-3, Matthew 10:16, Matthew 28:19). The destiny he laid out for us includes trouble, persecution, hatred, and hardships, (John 16:33, John 15:18, Acts 14:22, 2 Corinthians 6:4).

Continue reading “If you have to put a qualifier in front of “Gospel” it isn’t the Gospel…” →