Prosperity Gospel Shmosperity Shmospel

By Matt

I read: Hosea 9-10

If you don't know, I hate the idea of "Prosperity Gospel." If you're not familiar with PG, it's the idea that your bank account is a determiner of how much God is blessing you. So, if you are poor and have nothing, it's because you either haven't asked for money or you do not have God's favor. While there is some biblical basis for asking in faith and receiving, PGers miss the concept of what we should be asking for. So, it makes me mad because of the missing-the-point and also because the implication here is that poor Christians across the world are just not praying correctly.

Why am I harping on PG in the middle of Hosea, a book that up to this point focused much more on our relationship with God than anything else? Because of a choice set of verses in chapter 10 that I discovered that speak directly to PGers, at least in my mind:

The more lavish the harvest,
the more promiscuous the worship.
The more money they got,
the more they squandered on gods-in-their-own-image.
Their sweet smiles are sheer lies.
They're as guilty as sin.
God will smash their worship shrines,
puliverize their God images. (10:1-2)

Money isn't evil, nor are Christians who have money. It's money becoming a god that's dangerous, money being the goal, the be-all and end-all. And there is an inverse relationship that is very clear between having money and controlling money. The more you have, the more it controls you. I see this in my own life, not because I have a lot of money, I still am in youth ministry after all, but because I have expendable income, I have more coming in than necessities that I have to pay for. Trying to control my spending to what I need and not what I want is a very difficult thing for me and the more expendable income you have, the harder it is to control, or at least spend in unselfish ways. And when you buy expensive stuff, expensive accessories go along with it. It's an unending circle in that respect.

That's why I think this verse speaks to the PG. It makes a clear connection between having a lot of stuff and slipping in your devotion to God. This is God saying it, not anyone else. And when he speaks, it's generally a good idea to listen. But this passage also speaks hope to the distortions of Christianity, not just PG, that abound and that are present within all of us, including and especially me: God wins in the end. The useless stuff will be brought to light and burned. And it's going to hurt, but God puts the tools in front of us that we need to determine the truth, it's our own fault if we don't know it.