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Volume. XXXV, No. 31 Did the Bible Teach the Prosperity Gospel? (Final Part) 2 Corinthians 8:9 - “Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich”. This is another verse that claims that Jesus became poor so that we can become rich. Prosperity Gospel teachers even came to the point of saying that being poor, or sick is a blasphemy to Christ. Kenneth Copeland in his book “The Troublemaker” claims that “God put our sin, sickness, disease, sorrow, grief, and poverty on Jesus at Calvary. For God to put any of this on us now to teach us or to strengthen our faith would be a miscarriage of justice. To believe that God has a purpose for your sickness would mean that Jesus bore your sicknesses in vain.” If being sick is a miscarriage of justice, what about Paul’s thorn in the flesh that God refused to heal (2 Cor 12:7-9) and what about all the poor Jerusalem Christians for whom Paul had asked for a collection from the Gentile churches (1 Cor 16:1 and Rom 15:26)? Is Paul a blasphemer for being ill with the thorn? Are the saints in Jerusalem blasphemers for being poor? Paul was teaching the Corinthians not about prosperity in Christ but about sharing their riches with other believers as he urged them to give charitably to the saints in Jerusalem who were in need while they could do so. This was so that in their own time of need, others who have would also share their resources with them. Kenneth Copeland’s wife, Gloria, in her book “God’s will is prosperity” laid claim to the hundredfold return of Mark 10:29,30 to the point of putting her faith to the test during a convention in Hawaii when she put $10 into the offering and believed in an immediate return of $1000 to pay for some expenses of their trip. Claiming that this hundredfold return already belongs to those who have given, but due to lack of diligence to claim these returns, they lie in an “accounts receivable” waiting to be collected. Believers just need to apply their faith pressure to collect on these accounts and this hundredfold return is retroactive. Nowhere in Mark did the Scriptures say that this hundredfold return is retroactive, and neither was riches mentioned as a compensation for believers’ giving. If we read the two verses together and in context, we would realise that the subject Christ is talking about is about believers losing their home and their families when they convert to Christianity, when they chose to follow Christ. This actually happened to Paul. When he gave his life to Christ the door of his home was slammed in his face and his family disowned him. What he had in return was homes being opened to him all over Europe and Asia Minor, families in Christ welcoming him into their homes, brothers and sisters in Christ too numerous to number, children (spiritual descendants of Paul, like Timothy and Titus) even when Paul himself never married nor had children. This was the reward and compensation that Christ was referring to and it must not be applied to things that are not referred to by Christ. We must not read our own wants into a passage and claim it from God, as if He had promised it when He did not. By Dn Kevin Low
________________________________________________________________ 9 Kenneth Copeland, The Troublemaker (Fort Worth, Tex: Kenneth Copeland Publications, 1996). Pp 2 10 Gloria Copeland, God’s Will Is Prosperity (Fort Worth, Tex.: Harrison House Publishers, 2012). Pp 67 11 Ibid. Pp 71 12 William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark, The New Daily Study Bible (Saint Andrew Press, 2001). Pp 290
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