how to live – blogwoods

The Prosperity Gospel in Proverbs

I was listening recently to a series of “courts of heaven” videos by Robert Henderson, and I came across one where he laid out how God wants us to be rich. He has his Bible verses to support it, and it struck me that he’s using what I call the “serpentine Bible reading” approach.

Here’s what I mean: when we snake through the Bible, weaving around to touch on certain passages and avoid others, choosing a verse here and a verse there, we can develop whatever doctrine we want. But instead if we just read straight through, collecting all the verses on any particular issue, we most often develop quite a different picture.

First, I’ll quote from Henderson on the subject of wealth. In this video (I’ve timestamped it), he says this about Jesus:

On the cross he took upon himself poverty, the Bible says, so we could be rich…Rich means “rich!” It means to have an abundance; it means to have a lot of money; it means to be absolutely self-sufficient.

— Robert Henderson

This was the first real “prosperity gospel” message I’ve heard, so I was surprised at how unfiltered this was. Jesus died so that I could have a lot of money, among other things. It’s hard to be more straightforward than this, and I appreciate Henderson’s clarity.

Be filled with the Spirit

Here’s a transcript of a sermon I gave a few years ago.

I’m going to talk about a special day today. Besides being Mother’s Day, it’s Pentecost in the Christian calendar. Pentecost is a Greek word that means “fiftieth day.” It’s the fiftieth day after Easter, which begins a new season in the Christian calendar, and it lines up with the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. There are three big Jewish pilgrimage festivals in the Old Testament, and they are times when all the Jews who can come to Jerusalem and have a big party.

The Message of the Wise Men

A lot has been made of the wise men who visited Jesus very early in his life, and it seems that most folks are interested in knowing who they are or where they came from, why they brought gifts, what the star they followed actually was, etc. These are all interesting questions, but I want to look at something else. (By the way, fast facts on the wise men: we don’t know how many, we don’t know from where, and there’s nothing which says they were kings.)

I want to focus on the fact that they were not Israelites. What in the world were they doing there? Why did Matthew include them in his gospel? Most of Jesus’ interactions in this gospel were with other Jews, so it seems important when these foreigners are mentioned so prominently.