John Piper on “Prosperity Gospel”

Transcript:

I don’t know what you feel about the prosperty gospel; the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. But I’ll tell you what I feel about it; hatred.

It is not the gospel. It is being exported from this country to Africa and Asia. Selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor, “Believe this message, your pigs won’t die. Your wife won’t have miscarriages. You’ll have rings on your fingers and coats on your back.” That’s comin’ out of America!

The people that out to be giving our money and our time and our lives, instead selling them a bunch of crap called “gospel.” And here’s the reason that it is so horrible. When was the last time that any American, African, Asian ever said, “Jesus is all-satisfying because you drove a BMW?” Never!

They’ll say, “Did Jesus give you that?” Yeah, “Well I’ll take Jesus!” That’s idolatry, that’s not the gospel. That’s elevating gifts above giver.

I’ll tell you what makes Jesus look beautiful. It’s when you smash your car and your little girl goes flying through the windshield and lands, like I was with a little girl on 11th Ave two weeks ago; dead on the street for three hours before the police could let her go. And you say, through the deepest possible pain…

“God is enough, God is enough.”

“He is good. He will take care of us. He will satisfy us. He will get us through this. He is our treasure”

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And on Earth there is nothing that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart and my little girl may fail, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

THAT makes God look glorious, as GOD, not as giver of cars or safety or health.

Oh how I pray that Birmingham would be purged of the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, indeed America would be purged and that the Christian church…would be marked by suffering for Christ.

God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him in the midst of loss, not prosperity.

So here you have it, 10 Ways to Insult and Disrespect Churchgoers:

1. Imply I’m Stupid : So far I’ve kept from writing about the foolishness of church signs. However, there is one local example I want to share. “Pastor Ken Doesn’t Use Big Words Like Mayonnaise So I Can Understand“. Everyone I’ve mentioned this sign to, both Christian and pagan, found it insulting. Dear pastors, just a tidbit of advice; insulting people’s intelligence is a very poor evangelism technique. Unless of course your goal is an ignorant congregation with a shallow theology, who doesn’t understand words like propitiation or Christology or mayonnaise. In which case, nevermind.
2. Demean Singlehood : I know, single Christian church-going men are a rare breed. Being a relatively young one, who intends to marry, have a whole soccer team of kids and a wife unburdened by a job means surely somewhere there is an endangered species poster with my picture on it. When I tell you I’m single, please stop saying things like “oh I’m sorry to hear that” or “we’ll have to change that.” Please, search the Word on singlehood, listen to what Paul Matthies has to say and stop trying to be Chuck Woolery.
3. Slander Other Churches : It really does amaze me how often a pastor I just met will name and completely slander another church. If you spoke to me out of love and laid out scripturally your concerns, I’d be eager to hear you out. However, it always seems to be the bigger, more contemporary church you rail against. That or just any and every church outside of your denomination. It’s bad leadership, it’s divisive, and you come across petty & angry.
4. Disrespect My Boundaries : Let me set the scene for a moment; I’m a first-time visitor, I’m a guy, I have 20 other things I could be doing. What this means to you; I don’t really know any of you, so I’m a bit suspicious of all of you, a solid hand-shake is the only necessary and acceptable form of greeting, any reason to not be here is reason enough. This ludicrous forced meet and greet thing that churches have decided is necessary, isn’t. In fact it’s awkward and annoying. Additionally, if at any point you tell me to hug someone or hold someone’s hand, I’m probably leaving and never coming back.
5. Attack Our City : I love my city. God chose for me to be here. Unless He says otherwise, I have no plans to go anywhere. In fact I already have a burial plot here. By the way, it’s your city too. It should be out of love for this city and its residents that your heart breaks and gets you out of bed in the morning. If you hate it, its residents, and its culture as much as you say, you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Seriously man, you missed a turn somewhere.
6. Belittle My Depravity : I’m a mess. But more than that I’m depraved. In fact I’m so depraved I don’t even know how depraved I am, because in my depravity I think I’m doing okay on my own apart from God. So when you’re talking to me about how to get my life right, it would be great if you didn’t morph into Tony Robbins, give me 5 easy steps to a better life and tell me I just need to try harder. I’m pretty sure the whole point is that no matter how hard I try, I can’t make it happen on my own. So take my sin seriously, tell me about Jesus and what it means to be alive in Him. Because that would be awesome.
7. Try and Guilt Me : Say it with me…”God loves a cheerful giver.” If every week you have to “lay down the law” and use compulsion to fill the coffers or the volunteer sign-up sheet, there are deeper issues at play. Tell me about Godly finances, I really want to know; but not when you are doing a building campaign and need to work me over. Please teach me about true Christian community and doing for one another. Just not when you feel under pressure and have to buckshot it to the whole room hoping you’ll bag a new volunteer.
8. Pretend You’re Perfect : Not only am I a mess, but you’re also a mess. Yes you are. SERIOUSLY, you are. One of the most needed characteristics of a pastor is transparency and humility. I’m not saying share everything, but if you are more concerned with people knowing you sin, than setting the example of how you’re broken by sin or your story of continual repentance, than you’re too fearful for anyone’s good. If nothing else, do it for your wife. She is probably being crushed under the expectation of perfection that is presented from the pulpit. She’ll thank you and your congregation will be better off.
9. Lie To Me Some More : Yes, this was on the first list, but it’s worth revisiting because it’s so prevalent. I continue to discover instances where pastors are simply lying to me about their church. Honestly I think they are lying to themselves as well. Perhaps they really do think their church is outward-focused. Maybe they are blind to the discontinuity of teaching something counter to their own statement of faith. Do they not think when they tell me their weekend attendance is 100 and I show up and it’s 30, that I won’t notice? I know, it’s tough out there guys. But lying to newcomers is definitely high on the list of ways to not grow a church.
10. Steer Me Towards Hell : I’ve saved the worst for last; two words, “False Teaching.” This isn’t the typical doctrinal disputes I’m talking about, but freaky counter-biblical stuff. Things like how someone in one part of a room can receive healing, but not someone on the other side, because the first guy was standing in the angel portal that gave him a healing connection to heaven. Oh it gets worse…Did you know it’s called the “second coming” because ever since Jesus ascended he has been traveling from Heaven, on the other side of the universe, through space “coming” towards Earth? Those are extremes, but frequently I’ve heard how it’s all about me. Oh, the name of Jesus is tossed about occasionally, but no, it’s all about me. It’s about me having an easy suburban life, singing erotic love songs to Jesus, and staying as far away as I can from non-christians cause they’re worldy. Unless they’re in Africa; they’re too poor to be worldy. Otherwise, it’s all me…me, me, me. So..teaching me a false gospel..worst..insult..ever.

Drop a comment and let me know what you think.

• It doesn’t tell them much about the regular pastor
• The service flow and timing can be quite different than normal
• There may also be a guest worship team
• The visit may not benefit them in determining much about the church

The bottom line is that visitors usually need to attend a 2nd week to really learn anything useful about what a normal Sunday is like. Most people just won’t even bother to try again; first impressions and all that.

However, I believe that guest speakers can be very beneficial for church visitors (and even regular attenders). They have certainly been helpful to me. This past week, for the 2nd time in as many years, I walked out on a church service because of the guest speaker. Each time I was a relatively new visitor to the church. Both times were my last visit to that church. These speakers saved me a lot of time. Here’s why…

Guest Speakers Often Express Leadership’s Unspoken Beliefs

Most churches don’t dictate to their guest speakers what they can or cannot talk about. But leaders usually have a pretty good idea what the guest speaker will discuss. By inviting a particular speaker and allowing them to speak freely, the church is sanctioning the teaching taking place from their pulpit. This has been key for me. In both instances mentioned above, the guest speaker dished out ridiculous counter-biblical teaching to the congregation that I had not heard a pastor or elder previously mention. For as long as I could, I stayed, stomach churning, waiting for a pastor/elder to step up and end the heresy that was being spewed forth. Both times, the leadership did nothing, except clap and encourage them on. This quickly confirmed for me I would not be attending that church again.

Friends have said “but it wasn’t the pastor”, “you can’t judge them by a guest speaker”, “what were they suppose to do about it”. However, on both occasions eldership was present, encouraging the teachings. If they did in fact not condone the teaching and instead believe as I did, that the speaker was feeding poison to the sheep, then by their inaction they were complicit in that poisoning and grossly delinquent in the responsibility God has given them for that congregation. Either way, it was not a church whose authority I was willing to be under.

So what should a leader do if his guest speaker is doing violence to the scripture in his church? End It! It doesn’t have to be a production, he just needs to simply walk up to the speaker, thank them for their time and take over the teaching. I’ve never seen it happen, but have heard of a few situations where responsible pastors have done just that.

Let us not overreact

Of course, not every word out of a guest speaker’s mouth is accepted by the local church as “the way”. Nor should we go overboard and not allow guest speakers. Guest speakers can be quite beneficial in providing unique perspectives and bringing needed relief to a teaching pastor’s schedule. Talking about non-essential differences in ministry and method are not cause for calamity. The issue arises exclusively when a guest speaker teaches falsehood. For we must “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” and not allow anyone to teach different doctrine within the church.

This latest situation just further reinforces for me the absolute necessity of diligence in determining a local church’s doctrine and ministry practices. I am so thankful to God for these two occasions because it brought awareness to me about hidden beliefs within each church and likely saved me from weeks of ignorant and harmful attendance.