So What’s Biblical Prosperity then?

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21, NASB)

“And why are you worried about clothing? Notice how the lilies of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin thread for cloth, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.” (Matthew 6:28-33, NASB)

In 2019, I left the church I attended my whole life. As a child, teenager, and young adult, it was a wonderful place to learn about and develop a relationship with God. The leadership was amenable to allowing youth to serve and be heard, and in turn, that made me and my friends excited to be a part of that body of believers for many, many years. But at the age of 25, I felt the Lord leading me into a new direction.

In a lot of ways, that transition out of everything I knew was scary. I was comfortable in that church and it had a large hand in shaping me into who I was. I loved my pastor and the community that I’d trusted and gotten so used to. But once I left, I realized that up until that point, I didn’t really know my Bible. I had taken everything that was preached from the pulpit as gospel. And that’s not to say that my pastor was a false teacher or anything, but it is to say that I never really tested the full measure of scripture for myself, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself in the Word to me on a personal level.

In the years since, it’s been a long road of reading God’s Word for myself and deconstructing a lot of the things I accepted as gospel just because someone told me it was, and finding out what the Bible actually said about those things. Through that process, God allowed me to see the pitfalls of the American Church, and where Truth was being distorted. There are a lot of things people get lost in, but to me, I think this whole prosperity theology is where most get tripped up. 

Why? Because over the last 50 or so years, the idea that God prospers me to make me feel comfortable as a reward for believing in Him has become so ingrained in the culture that it gets mistaken for actual scripture. And the sick thing is, there are cornerstone verses in the Bible constantly taken out of context in order to back up a counterfeit theology.

That is why I keep imploring you week by week: Ask the Holy Spirit to convict you of the things you think are God, but are not. If you’re offended or uncertain by something I say, pray over it and weigh it out in your private time with Jesus. Ask yourself: Is this something that is rooted in scripture and Truth, or is this something distorted that I have accepted over time as God?

The trick is, most of these false gospels will hyperfocus on an out-of-context scripture, discounting any other verse that doesn’t support their claim as out of date, antiquated, or ignoring it entirely. If God’s Word is God-breathed and we truly believe that, then why would the unchanging, steadfast God we know change His mind down the line and allow His Word to be contradictory. 

The honest truth is, He wouldn’t. The hard truth is, we would.

Jeremiah 29:11 is the most widely used verse to support the prosperity gospel, but the fact is, because we rely on English translations of the original Greek, we misunderstand what the Bible is telling us. The verse says that God knows the plans He has for His people– and if we’re looking at the context of the verse, He’s talking about Israel– and that His plans won’t harm them. They will give them hope for a future. In its most famous translation, the NIV, the verse literally reads, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you.”

First thing to note is that the word the NIV uses as prosper is originally “shalom,” which more accurately translates to completeness, welfare, soundness, and peace. So when God says He has a plan, the plan is not exactly to prosper us, but to support or provide for us rather than to harm us. Like I stated a few devotions ago: God is not the Prosperer; he is Jehovah Jireh the Provider. There is a difference.

So no, God has never promised us riches or even stability– remember those Israelites that only got enough manna for one day in the wilderness?– but He has promised to take care of the needs of those that rely on and live in relationship with Him. Biblical prosperity is more so what Jesus talks about in Matthew 6– a loss of material or financial gain in exchange for eternal gain which is Jesus Himself. 

So Biblical prosperity isn’t health, wealth, and material success. Biblical prosperity isn’t even necessarily having your bills paid with a little bit extra to save up or bless someone else. The truth is, God doesn’t need your excess to bless someone else. If He happens to use you to do that for someone else, then that’s great. But God can provide for that same person whether you respond as a helper or not. If He takes care of the sparrow out of the palm of His own hand, then He can do the same for His people. If He adorns the lilies of the valley with more splendor than a king, He can provide for His people even better and do it without depending on us to do it.

In truth, Biblical prosperity is allowing God to be who He’s told us He is. The mistake the American church makes is assuming that God’s provision is measured on a scale we set. We assume Godly provision and prosperity is the American dream. If that were true, wouldn’t Paul the Apostle have had the early church version of a fancy house with 2 or 3 fast cars, a hot wife, and impressive clothes? Or at the very least, wouldn’t he have been comfortable, with more to his name than the clothes on his back and a few possessions? 

If our version of prosperity and God’s version were so similar, then what about people in underground churches in third world countries? People who are persecuted and worship God even without a thought to their own comfortability and prosperity?

The truth is, Biblical prosperity– God’s view of the word, evidenced by scripture– doesn’t really have to do with material prosperity at all. It completely entails relying on Jesus, allowing Him to provide the tools we need to run the race before us, spreading the good news of what God has already finished for us on the cross and the empty grave. And as we live out that God-given purpose, eyes fixed on glorifying God as the only goal, we store up more of what Matthew 6 calls “heavenly treasure,” something that cannot rust, be destroyed, stolen, or broken– more of Jesus Himself. 

Prosperity gospel doesn’t count that as riches. It can’t, not when temporal gain is valued as so much higher than God Himself. And we may not agree with the extreme view of this ideology, but in many ways, it creeps into our hearts in small ways; because our flesh wants the safety of comfortability in excess. That’s why challenging and weighing out even our deepest ideologies against scripture is so crucial. Trust me, I’ve been there. It’s hard to realize that something you thought you knew about God wasn’t really Him, but you’ll be glad you challenged yourself to look deeper when you see how incredible He really is.