“Many will follow their depraved ways, and the way of truth will be maligned because of them. They will exploit you in their greed with made-up stories. Their condemnation, pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.”
I wanted to do one last post on this first section to cover another false teaching that is prevalent in the church today. The Word of Faith or Prosperity Gospel is making its way around the world. In 2015, The Gospel Coalition did a series of articles on the aberrant teaching. One of the articles is titled “Prosperity Teaching Has Replaced the True Gospel in Africa.” In another article, the author writes about encountering the Prosperity Gospel in South America. He writes that it is very popular there and is the only form of Protestantism most people know. In America, it is still popular but has been overtaken by the New Apostolic Reformation, which has many Word of Faith teachings. Many of the NAR churches endorse the Word of Faith teachers and pastors and have them speak at their services.
So what is Word of Faith? I am only going to briefly cover some of the main beliefs. The movement traces its roots to the positive confession teachings of E.W. Kenyon, a 19th century minister. Kenneth Hagin took these teachings and popularized them. He is said to be the “father” of the Word Faith movement. The main idea is that faith is a force that is controlled by the words you speak. This is the idea of “positive confession.” They claim that your words have the power to create. This idea comes from another belief of the Word of Faith teachers. They teach that we are “little gods.” Because God has created us in His image, then we can do what He does. Because God used words to create the world, we can use words to create. A third teaching is that God wants us to be healthy and wealthy. Jesus’s death bought our healing as well as our salvation. God also want us to obtain material wealth. This leads to the last belief that I am going to cover in this post. Many of these teachers teach a concept called seed-faith offerings. If you give a seed- an amount of money (specifically to one of these teachers) than God is obligated to multiply that money back to you. There are many more teachings, but these are some of the main ones.
Some of the main Word of Faith teachers/pastors that you will recognize include Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Oral Roberts, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, and Jesse Duplantis. All these people have (or had) net worths in the millions. Joyce Meyer is the lowest at 8 million and Kenneth Copeland the highest at 300 million. These are conservative estimates. Mike Winger just did a 4-hour video exposing Benny Hinn and his false teaching. Link: https://youtu.be/X2Ip_3A32W0?si=aKIeBQ9FU3GnVqlN
The part that shocks and saddens me is that Benny Hinn encourages his poor (as in little to no money) followers to send him what little money they have so that God will bless them. All these teachers have millions of dollars. Yet they ask their followers to send them more. As Peter says, “They will exploit you in their greed with made up stories.” Paul warns of false teachers in his letter to Timothy. This is what he says. “But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:9-10).
Let’s look at the “made up stories” of the Word of Faith teachers. First, where does the “faith is a force” idea originate? I mentioned E.W. Kenyon, but it goes back a little farther. New Thought (not to be confused with New Age) can be traced to Phinneas Quinby (1802-1866). He was a 19th century mystic, faith-healer, and hypnotist. He taught that people and their thoughts are made from “pure energy” and the process of like energy attracting like energy exists through which a person can improve their health, wealth, and personal relationships. This made its way into the Word of Faith teaching. It is in no way biblical, and yet it forms the basis of most of the teaching.
Another false teaching is that God always wants us to be healed and that He wants us prosperous. This goes against all the teachings of the New Testament. 1 Peter, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Hebrews were all written to suffering Christians. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and 2 Timothy were all written while Paul was in prison. Greg Koukl asks this in his #STRAsk podcast. “If the Word Faith approach for understanding the Christian life is accurate, why is it that so much of it was written to encourage Christians that are suffering?” Prosperity teachers take verses out of context and make them say what they were never meant to say.
The biggest lie in the Word of Faith teaching is the first lie ever told. In Genesis 3:4-5, we read, “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” These teachers teach that we are “little gods.” They also teach that because God lost his legal right to interfere on earth after the fall, He needs permission from believers in order for His will to be done on earth. Doesn’t this sound like the lie that Satan told Eve in the Garden?
The Word of Faith doctrines take the power from God and place it in the hands of man. This is a human-centered gospel, and it isn’t good news at all. Paul writes in Galatians, “I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him!” (1:6-8). These teachers make a mockery of the gospel of Christ. Peter puts it this way. “…the way of truth will be maligned because of them.” You only have to do a Google search to see how many people have been harmed by Prosperity teachers. And many more make fun of them through videos, posts, and memes. When this becomes the face of Christianity, the true Gospel suffers.
The biggest danger is far more subtle. The false teachings make their way into mainstream churches. We “decree and declare” someone’s healing, not understanding that this is a false Word of Faith teaching. We are commanding God to do something, which is not biblical. This is just one example. I remember as a child finding the book The Power of Positive Thinking in our library. I didn’t realize back then that it was a New Thought book. I thought it was based on Scripture. This is another example of how these ideas infiltrate the church.
So what should we do to protect ourselves? We need to be in our Bibles. We need to know it. We need to study it. Read it in context. The only way that we are going to know if teaching is false is to know the truth. Beware of any teacher who tells you that the Bible isn’t as important as their teaching. Or that they have new revelation or a new interpretation of verses. Here are some examples of that. Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding says this. “God will never violate His Word, but He doesn’t seem to mind violating our understanding of His Word.” What does he even mean by that? God’s Word is clear. He is not a God of confusion, and He is not putting secret messages there. Another quote from Johnson: “To value the Scriptures above the Holy Spirit is idolatry. It’s not ‘Father, Son, and Holy Bible.’” Bethel values experience over the Bible. The way that we learn about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is by reading the Bible. We are to be like the Bereans. In the Book of Acts, Paul was preaching to them, and this is how they are described. “As soon as it was night, the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. Upon arrival, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. The people here were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, since they received the word with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:10-11). It says they were of noble character because they examined the Scriptures! Let us be believers of noble character.
These false teachers, whether they are Word of Faith or NAR, are charismatic, dynamic speakers. They are going to have many followers. They are likely to have churches with thousands of members. And now, with the internet, they have new influence. They may reach millions of people. They sound good. They talk about Jesus. They tickle our ears. (See 2 Timothy 4). But there is just enough untruth to make it no gospel at all. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Jesus warned us to be on guard.
I am going to leave you with this quote from Charles Spurgeon.
“Discernment isn’t knowing the difference between right and wrong. It’s knowing the difference between right and almost right.”
Grace be with you!
Abundant Joy 