This reflection warns against misinterpreting Scripture to promote an “if-then” theology—doing good to get good. Citing Job, Psalms, and New Testament examples, it emphasizes that we cannot fully know God’s mind or assign specific blessings or trials to specific actions. God’s purposes are sovereign, mysterious, and beyond human judgment. We should be cautious not to claim such insight ourselves.
Seeing recently that David Platt, though exposed for malfeasance and deception in the documentary The Real David Platt, is still a sought-out speaker on the Conference Circuit, it got me thinking again about his book Radical. Radical was published in 2010, but like many Christian books, started an ongoing cottage industry of related merchandise, podcast, and so on.
Platt’s stance was that particularly American Christians, have had their holy senses dulled by comfort and prosperity. That our call is sometimes to be uncomfortable and abandon all to God and go on mission. A gross simplification, but that is essentially Platt’s stance.
Except! the book heavily intimates that UNLESS you are doing the hard thing and abandoning all for the cause of the Gospel, you’re not a real Christian. That was the overtone.
The Prosperity Gospel
I agree that 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).
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 Wikipedia gives a quick overview of how this insidious gospel came to the fore:
It was during the Healing Revivals of the 1950s that prosperity theology first came to prominence in the United States, although commentators have linked the origins of its theology to the New Thought movement which began in the 1800s. The prosperity teaching later figured prominently in the Word of Faith movement and 1980s televangelism. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was adopted by influential leaders in the Charismatic Movement and promoted by Christian missionaries throughout the world, sometimes leading to the establishment of mega-churches. Prominent leaders in the development of prosperity theology include E. W. Kenyon, Oral Roberts, A. A. Allen, Robert Tilton, T. L. Osborn, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, David O. Oyedepo and Kenneth Hagin. Source
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 in the way. The collateral damage of this pendulum swing included a backlash against Suburban Christians and suburbia in general. This is where it gets personal.
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, middle aged Christian woman living in rural/suburban Georgia. I go to a boring ole Baptistic church with regular people who have a variety of blue collar jobs, or are farmers, or work in professional settings. I drive the 2 miles to school every day, assist children in Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd 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 birds flit about the tall pines. But horror of horrors, there are also ‘suburban’ subdivisions nearby, malls a half hour away, and a Burger King within a mile.
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.
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?
Why do Christians hate the suburbs? Or if hate is too strong a word, why do so many disparage it? The question was asked by Matthew Lee Anderson in his 2013 article “Is Radical Christianity Radical Enough?“
David Platt, Francis Chan, Shane Claiborne, and now Kyle Idleman are dominating the Christian best-seller lists by attacking our comfortable Christianity. But is ‘radical faith’ enough? … Really. If there’s a word that sums up the radical movement, that’s it. Platt’s Radical opens with it, by describing what “radical abandonment to Jesus really means.” Idleman says he’s going to tell us “what it really means to follow Jesus.” Furtick says that “if we really believe God is an abundant God … we ought to be digging all kinds of ditches [for when he sends the rain, as Elisha did in 2 Kings 3:16-20].” Do those who lead mediocre, nonradical lives for Jesus really believe at all?
Working in day to day jobs, raising children, Coaching Little League, and living holy where God places us IS the great Commission! One thing absent from all the talk against comfort, is that this is where the Lord placed us. Others heed the call to go to the hard places. And some heed the call to dwell in places without discomfort. Like Lydia, Abraham, and others one could name from the Bible.
And there is exposed the subtle two-tiered system that books like Radical instituted. Therein lay the insidious mindset by these holier than thous, that the millions of people living and worshiping and witnessing in suburbia are ‘lesser-than.’
living in suburbia. EPrata photo
I reject that notion because of one important factor. This is where God put me.
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)
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. 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.
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. Matthew Lee Anderson concluded his piece this way-
The Good Samaritan wasn’t a good neighbor because he moved to a poor part of town or put a pile of trash in his living room. He came across the helpless victim “as he traveled.” We begin to fulfill the command not when we do something radical, extreme, over the top, not when we’re really spiritual or really committed or really faithful, but when in the daily ebb and flow of life, in our corporate jobs, in our middle-class neighborhoods, on our trips to Yellowstone and Disney World—and yes, even short-term mission trips—we stop to help those whom we meet in everyday life, reaching out in quiet, practical, and loving ways.
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 Uncomfortable gospel. I accept and live by the only Gospel.
The Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia summarizes the gospel message this way: The central truth of the gospel is that God has provided a way of salvation for men through the gift of His son to the world. He suffered as a sacrifice for sin, overcame death, and now offers a share in His triumph to all who will accept it. The gospel is good news because it is a gift of God, not something that must be earned by penance or by self-improvement (Jn 3:16; Rom 5:8–11; II Cor 5:14–19; Titus 2:11–14).
The Uncomfortable Gospel is a pendulum swing from rejection of the Prosperity Gospel. A knee-jerk reaction to the crass consumerism and dulled senses of prosperity. Lot was lulled by prosperity of Sodom, Abraham wasn’t. It is not inevitable that living a quiet life in the suburbs, and doing the day to ay mundanities isn’t real Christianity. It is. So is death by martyrdom in the New Hebrides. Real Christianity is obeying to the best of our ability (and beyond) whatever the Lord has set before us.
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)
Here is an exchange on Twitter that occurred, one of many like these.
The Prosperity gospel/Word of Faith that the Osteens and their kind promote is a deathly error. It drags away the unwary, it devastates the witness of the true Christians, and it condemns the Osteens to hell.
However the “Good” that Jesus plans for us may or may not include any of the above. Peter was told by Jesus that Peter will stretch out his hands and go where he will not want to go (crucifixion. John 21:18). Paul was told he will be tormented in every city will he ever travel to.
“And now, behold, bound in spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.” (Acts 20:22-23)
Stephen was bashed in the head with rocks, dying a martyr’s death. This does not sound like “a good plan for your life.”
Victoria Osteen
What satan offered Eve was a temptation involving the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes and the pride of life. (1 John 2:16). In other words, the world. And the Osteens offer the world, too, wrapped in a veneer of prosperity and ‘happiness’.
Was Stephen happy when he was being stoned? No but yes. He was in pain but also saw Jesus in glory standing at the right hand of the Father. Was Paul “happy” when he was beaten and left for dead? Or put in chains in jail? No but yes. He wrote in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.“ I have a feeling if Victoria Osteen was beaten and left for dead she would not have the wherewithal nor the capacity to shout Rejoice! That is because the Osteens attach happiness to their worldly circumstances. Paul did no such thing. He rejoiced with friends at supper, while teaching in the synagogue making disciples, sewing a tent, or while sitting in chains in the sewer sludge. That’s because his ‘happiness’, prosperity, joy, came from above, not the world. The ‘good’ in God’s plan is Good not because we receive pleasant things from the world. It is good because:
God made the plan and everything God does is good. We proclaim this by faith, and
All things work together for the good of those who love Him, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28, and
God receives glory from the perfect outworking of His plan. The good is the glory He gains when saints acknowledge Him as good, no matter their circumstances. The ‘good’ in our lives is Jesus, not the world nor the things in it.
We do not seek the things the world calls good, but the things that God calls good.
We do not say in our greetings and our letters and our prayers, “I want a mansion, perfect health, and a fat checkbook for myself” but we say –
May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you (Jude 1:2) because it was multiplied to us. Now that’s good!
We know from Revelation what the very last days will be like; the people respond uniformly to the Antichrist (except for the Christians) and allow him to coalesce the world’s broken economy into a one-world economy around his mark. (Revelation 13). All of chapter 18 in Revelation gives the Christian what s/he needs to know about the world economic system run by the Antichrist just prior to Christ’s return. It is one that still has a healthy trade in luxuries, despite the desperately impoverished condition in which most of the world’s population dwells, and despite the people knowing that it is God sending the judgments! (Revelation 16:9).
For all the politically liberal people’s talk of social justice, sharing equally, and helping the poor, we see the stark opposite when push comes to shove during the Tribulation. The poor cry for bread and the rich buy and sell fine flour and wheat, ignoring their cries even as they die in the street.
It’s partly why the Tribulation will occur, to allow sin to run its full course, revealing the depths of man’s depravity.
We as humans are greedy. Greed defines us. It’s a besetting sin that the sinful person lives with every day. The Christian must guard against and slay the remnants of greed still within us. How many Bible verses warn against greed!
Then he said to them, Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. (Luke 12:15 )
The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, (1 Timothy 6:9-10)
Do not put your trust in wealth (1 Timothy 17-18)
Greed is listed among the sins which will prevent one from attaining heaven:
For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Ephesians 5:5).
It’s interesting that the verse connects greed and idolatry. See here in the Tribulation, when money is in short supply and supplies are in short supply, at least for the common person, they still create idols out of gold and silver in order to worship!
The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, (Revelation 9:20)
The movie Wall Street came out in 1987. The 80s were a heady time of pell-mell stock surges, whirling real estate flips, dizzying income heights…it seemed that nothing was impossible and money would last forever. In that atmosphere came the movie Wall Street, in which financier and stock raider Michael Douglas’s character Gordon Gecko famously gave his ‘greed is good’ speech. Here it is in part:
I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.
It’s easy for us to look back on the 80s and point fingers at the excesses which were fueled by greed. But are the times so different now? We are still greedy, and at least the fictional character Gordon Gecko and the men he was based on were true to their sin. In today’s time we have an unhealthy attraction to the Prosperity Gospel, which is just anther ‘greed is good’ speech cloaked in Jesus’ name. Which is worse. Way worse. Yet if the remnants of greed are present in a Christian’s heart, the Prosperity Gospel will be attractive to him.
Sadly, in spite of the Scriptures’ clear warnings, the prosperity gospel has a large and growing group of followers. This isn’t hard to understand, since the message appeals so directly to our native greed. Yet it is sad and bewildering that many people remain in the movement for a long time, even their whole life, since its preachers cannot fulfill their promises.
‘Our native greed’. Greed is not good, ladies and gentlemen. Greed is bad.
The author continues in his interesting essay to briefly present the psychology of the Prosperity Gospel, its effects, and at the end he offers ‘immunization instructions.’ In America we’re plagued with the likes of prosperity theologists Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Hagin, but other continents have their plagues too. Africa and Latin America also are rife with prosperity gospel preachers deluding the unwary.
The 9Marks article ends with this:
Above all, present Christ as the pearl of great price, who infinitely surpasses in value anything that this fleeting world may offer (Mt. 13:44-46; Phil. 3:7-8)
When you have Jesus, you already have everything. When you have Jesus, there’s no need for greed. Or a prosperity gospel, which is no gospel at all.
the-end-time.org 