The Gospel We Believe Creates a Picture of God
Every Christian teaching answers a question about God.
Teaching about prayer tells us something about God’s relationship
with His people. Teaching about suffering tells us something about
His sovereignty and purposes. Teaching about money tells us something
about His provision. Teaching about healing tells us something about
His compassion and power. Teaching about faith tells us something
about how human beings relate to Him.
So theology isn’t merely information about God.
It shapes our relationship with God.
That is why the prosperity gospel deserves to be examined at the
level of theology rather than merely economics.
The question isn’t simply whether Christians can become wealthy.
Of course they can.
Nor is the question whether God can heal. Of course He can.
Nor is the question whether God provides for His people.
Scripture repeatedly teaches that He does.
The question is what happens when these truths are assembled into
a system.
What picture emerges? What becomes central? What becomes secondary?
And perhaps most importantly:
What becomes difficult to say about God?
Start With God, Not With What God Can Give You
There is a subtle shift that can happen in Christian thinking.
We begin with God. Then we discover His blessings. Then, gradually,
the blessings can become the centre of our attention.
God becomes the source. The blessing becomes the destination.
Prayer becomes the means. Faith becomes the mechanism.
Giving becomes the investment. Confession becomes the activation point.
And the Christian life can quietly become organised around a single
question:
How can I get God to improve my circumstances?
But Scripture begins somewhere else.
Who is God?
He is holy. He is sovereign. He is righteous. He is merciful.
He is just. He is wise. He is faithful. He is loving. He is gracious.
He is patient. He is Creator. He is Lord. He is Father.
These attributes cannot be separated into whichever ones make us
most comfortable.
God’s love does not cancel His holiness. His generosity does not
cancel His sovereignty. His power does not cancel His wisdom.
His fatherhood does not eliminate His discipline.
His goodness does not mean He must give us everything we consider good.
His faithfulness does not mean He has promised every earthly outcome
we desire.
The Name of God Matters
In Scripture, God’s name is deeply connected with His identity,
character and reputation.
When God reveals Himself as I AM to Moses, He isn’t
introducing Himself as a means to an improved Israelite lifestyle.
He is revealing something about who He is.
Again and again, Scripture calls God’s people to trust His name
because His character is trustworthy.
That creates an important contrast with a consumer approach to faith.
There is a difference between:
“What can God do for me?”
and:
“Who is the God I am trusting?”
The first question isn’t inherently wrong. God invites us to bring
our needs to Him. Jesus teaches His followers to pray for daily bread.
The problem begins when receiving from God becomes more important
than knowing God.
Then the gifts can quietly become more valuable than the Giver.
Money. Health. Influence. Success. Security. Comfort. Promotion.
The danger isn’t that these things are inherently evil.
The danger is that good gifts can become ultimate goods.
The First Test: God’s Sovereignty
Here is one of the simplest questions you can ask when evaluating
prosperity teaching:
Can God say no?
Not theoretically. Actually.
Can a Christian pray sincerely, believe passionately, give generously
and still receive a different answer from the one requested?
If the answer is yes, then God’s sovereignty remains intact.
But if a theological system requires the correct amount of faith,
confession, giving or spiritual technique to produce a guaranteed
result, something has changed.
God begins to look less like the sovereign Lord of Scripture and
more like a spiritual law that can be activated.
But God is not an impersonal force.
He is Lord.
Biblical prayer therefore contains both confidence
and submission.
Jesus prayed in Gethsemane for the cup to pass from Him, while
submitting Himself to the Father’s will.
Faith says: “God can.”
Presumption says: “Therefore God must.”
Christian faith is confidence in God’s character, not control over
God’s decisions.
The Second Test: God’s Wisdom
Prosperity theology can also make a subtle assumption:
We know what God’s blessing must look like.
More money must be better. Immediate healing must be better.
Success must be better. Promotion must be better.
Sometimes those things really are good.
But Christians believe something far more radical:
God knows more than we do.
God’s wisdom cannot therefore be measured by how closely His decisions
conform to our preferences.
Sometimes He gives. Sometimes He withholds. Sometimes He delays.
Sometimes He redirects.
Disappointment cannot become the final judge of God’s character.
We trust God’s decisions because we first trust
God’s character.
The Third Test: God’s Goodness
This may be the most emotionally important test.
How do we know God is good?
If prosperity becomes our primary evidence, the logic is easy:
The business succeeds: God is good.
The healing comes: God is good.
The promotion arrives: God is good.
The financial breakthrough happens: God is good.
But reverse the circumstances.
The business collapses.
The disease remains.
The promotion goes to someone else.
The financial crisis deepens.
Is God still good?
Christian theology must be able to answer yes
without pretending that suffering is pleasant.
God’s goodness does not become dependent upon our circumstances.
God does good because God is good.
The Fourth Test: God’s Fatherhood
Jesus teaches His disciples to approach God as Father.
A father provides. A father protects. A father cares.
A father gives good gifts.
But Scripture also presents fatherhood as involving
discipline and formation.
That means God’s purpose for His children cannot be reduced to
making their lives comfortable.
God’s purpose also includes holiness, maturity, perseverance,
faithfulness and transformation.
The Christian life isn’t simply about becoming more comfortable.
It is about becoming more like Christ.
The Fifth Test: Grace
Grace creates another difficult question:
Can grace remain grace if it becomes a transaction?
Biblical generosity is real. Scripture teaches believers to give.
It teaches that God sees generosity. It teaches that generosity
produces fruit.
But there is a significant difference between:
“God has given me, therefore I can give.”
and:
“If I give this amount, God owes me this outcome.”
The first begins with grace.
The second can turn grace into exchange.
Give a seed. Expect a harvest. Increase the seed. Expect a greater
harvest.
Suddenly the question is no longer:
“How can I use what God has entrusted to me?”
It becomes:
“What must I give to unlock what God owes me?”
That is a profound theological shift.
The Sixth Test: Suffering
Every theology eventually has to answer the hardest question:
What happens when nothing works?
The New Testament does not hide suffering. Jesus tells His disciples
that they will experience trouble in the world. Paul describes
believers sharing in Christ’s sufferings.
That doesn’t mean Christians should pursue suffering. Nor does it
mean every tragedy has a simple spiritual explanation.
It means something more basic:
Faithful Christians can suffer.
If favourable circumstances are treated as evidence of strong faith,
persistent suffering eventually becomes evidence of weak faith.
The suffering person can then receive two wounds: the suffering
itself and the suspicion that their suffering proves something is
wrong with their relationship with God.
But Scripture does not give us permission to reduce every instance
of suffering to deficient faith.
The cross itself makes that impossible.
Jesus was perfectly faithful.
And He suffered.
The Seventh Test: Christ
Eventually, every Christian theology has to answer one question:
What is Jesus worth if He doesn’t give you what you want?
Is Christ the treasure?
Or is Christ primarily the route to treasure?
A person can speak constantly about Jesus while still treating Him
principally as the means to health, wealth, influence and personal
fulfilment.
But Jesus doesn’t simply say, “Follow Me and I will improve your
circumstances.”
He says:
“Follow Me.”
And following Him involves self-denial.
The cross therefore challenges every version of Christianity that
defines success primarily through upward mobility.
Christianity’s central pattern isn’t:
It is:
This doesn’t glorify poverty or condemn wealth.
It means earthly prosperity cannot be made the definitive measure
of God’s favour.
The Eighth Test: Covenant Faithfulness
God is a covenant-keeping God.
But covenant faithfulness does not mean God has promised every
desirable earthly outcome to every believer.
Jeremiah 29:11 is a good example. The promise was spoken to Israelites
living in exile. God told them that after seventy years He would fulfil
His promise and bring them back.
The promise therefore cannot simply be detached from its historical
and covenant context and transformed into:
“God guarantees my personal prosperity.”
The New Testament presents Jesus as the mediator of the New Covenant.
Its promises ultimately centre on reconciliation with God, forgiveness,
transformation, the work of the Spirit, resurrection and eternal life.
The Christian’s confidence therefore isn’t:
“God promised that my circumstances will always become favourable.”
It is:
“God has committed Himself to His people in Christ.”
That is a much deeper form of security.
The Theology Must Survive Your Worst Day
Don’t test a theology only on your best day.
Test it on your worst.
What does it say when you are healthy?
Good.
What does it say when you are sick?
What does it say when you are employed?
Good.
What does it say when you lose your job?
What does it say when the prayer is answered?
Good.
What does it say when God says no?
What does it say when the breakthrough comes?
Good.
What does it say when you wait ten years?
A theology worthy of the name must be able to speak truthfully
in both places.
Because Christianity was never designed only for people standing
on victory stages.
It was also built for people sitting in hospital rooms.
At gravesides. In prisons. In poverty. In persecution.
In unanswered prayer.
The Question We Should Have Been Asking
Perhaps we’ve been asking the prosperity-gospel question backwards.
We’ve asked:
Does God prosper people? Yes, sometimes.
Can Christians be wealthy? Yes.
Does God heal? Yes.
Does God provide? Yes.
Does God bless generosity? Yes.
But none of those answers settles the deeper theological question.
The real question is:
What happens when these truths are assembled into a system?
What picture of God emerges?
Can He say no? Can He delay? Can He redirect? Can He discipline?
Can He allow suffering? Can He remain good when our circumstances
become terrible?
Can He remain faithful when the breakthrough never comes?
Can grace remain grace when giving becomes a mechanism for obtaining?
Can Christ remain the ultimate treasure when following Him costs us
something?
Those questions take us beyond prosperity.
They take us to worship.
The God Who Is Enough
Imagine that the money never comes.
The healing doesn’t happen.
The business fails.
The opportunity disappears.
The prayer receives an answer you would never have chosen.
And following Christ costs you more than you expected.
What remains?
If everything else is stripped away, can you still say:
God is good.
Not because life is good.
Not because the outcome is good.
Not because you got what you wanted.
But because He is good.
That is the question prosperity theology ultimately forces us
to confront.
And perhaps that is why the most important question isn’t:
“What does God want to give me?”
It is:
“If God gave me nothing I wanted, would I still know why
He is worthy of worship?”
That question is not an argument against blessing.
It is an argument for something greater than blessing.
God can give wealth.
God can give healing.
God can open doors.
God can provide.
God can restore.
And when He does, we give thanks.
But His gifts cannot become the foundation of His goodness.
His gifts flow from His character.
His character does not depend upon His gifts.
So before you ask whether a preacher has interpreted a promise
correctly, ask what that interpretation says about the God behind
the promise.
Before you ask whether a doctrine can make you prosperous, ask
whether it makes you know God more truly.
Before you ask what faith can get from God, ask what faith is
teaching you about God.
And before you make God’s gifts the measure of His faithfulness,
remember the centre of the Christian faith:
The greatest promise was never merely that God would improve
your circumstances.
It was that God would reconcile you to Himself.
And ultimately, the greatest gift was never simply what God
could give you.
It was God Himself.