Gospel Of Wealth Quotes

Especially among Christians in positions of wealth and power, the idea of reading the Gospels and keeping Jesus' commandments as stated therein has been replaced by a curious process of logic. According to this process, people first declare themselves to be followers of Christ, and then they assume that whatever they say or do merits the adjective "Christian".

Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs. - St John Chrysostom

It is now thirteen years since I ceased to accumulate wealth and began to distribute it. I could never have succeeded in either had I stopped with having enough to retire upon, but nothing to retire to.

Productivity is Godly. Growth is Godly. And waste is Ungodly - both the waste of present resources and the waste of potential gains.

... work is an act of worship. When people seek to fulfill their callings by glorifying God in their work, praising Him for their gifts and abilities, and seeing both their efforts and its products as an offering to Him, then work is an act of worship to God. On the other hand, when work is done to glorify oneself or merely to achieve more wealth, it becomes worship of false gods. How we work and for whom we work really matters.

God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield, so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so that he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached people can be reached with the gospel. He prospers the business so that 12 percent of the world's population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.

Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper His people? Indeed! God increases our yield so that by giving we can prove that our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man’s business so he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that thousands of unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel.

If we truly care for others we need not be anxious about their feelings for us. Like draws to like.

Certainly the man who makes his own wealth eclipses those who inherit rank from others.” I

Judas became the spokesman of all those who through the centuries would protest the ornamentation of the Christian cult and would feel that, when the best of gold and jewels were given to the God Who made them, there was some slight made to the poor - not because they were interested in the poor, but because they were envious of that wealth.

But this new class seeks to reduce the American working class to the levels of this global serfdom. After all, anything that drains corporate coffers is a loss of freedom--the God-given American freedom to exploit other human beings to make money. The marriage of this gospel of prosperity with raw, global capitalism, and the flaunting of the wealth and privilege it brings, are supposedly blessed and championed by Jesus Christ. Compassion is regulated to private, individual acts of charity or left to the churches. The callousness of the ideology, the notion that it in any way reflects the message of the gospels, which were preoccupied with the poor and the outcasts, illustrates how the new class has twisted Christian scripture to serve America's god of capitalism and discredited the Enlightenment values we once prized.

Among the conditions of life or the laws of Nature, some of which seem to us faulty, some apparently unjust and merciless, there are many that amaze us by their beauty and sweetness. Love of home, regardless of its character or location, certainly is one of these.

I believe that higher wages to men who respect their employers and are happy and contented are a good investment, yielding, indeed, big dividends. The

the problem of life was as simple as it was classic. Politics offered no difficulties, for there the moral law was a sure guide. Social perfection was also sure, because human nature worked for Good, and three instruments were all she asked — Suffrage, Common Schools, and Press. On these points doubt was forbidden. Education was divine, and man needed only a correct knowledge of facts to reach perfection: "Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts.

Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it.

tall oaks from little acorns grow.

People were here because they believed in this gospel of wealth. Earn a lot first. Give a lot later. But who is to say that the process of earning won’t compromise the person doing the giving?

The Gospel shows people their wounds and bestows on them love. It shows them their bondage and supplies the hammer to knock away their chains. It shows them their nakedness and provides them the garments of purity. It shows them their poverty and pours into their lives the wealth of heaven. It shows them their sins and points them to the Savior.

The original American dream wasn’t about wealth, but freedom—freedom to worship and freedom from tyranny. It was also about partnering with God to release the light of His word to all nations, and exporting His glorious gospel to the ends of the earth.

This is typical of defectors. They look at Jesus as the one who’s going to solve their daily dilemmas, fix their lives, meet their needs and desires, and make them rich. Try to sell the gospel on that basis, and people will come to you for all the wrong reasons. You cannot call people to Christ because it’s the thing to do and everybody’s doing it. You can’t call people to Christ to get swell miracles or have their lives straightened out. This is the lie of the health-wealth-prosperity gospel and the felt-needs gospel, and all it does is draw people in who soon become disillusioned. As Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world.

is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances

The purpose of the gospel of prosperity is not to enrich the man of God, not at all. It is to enrich the people, to open their eyes on how to make money and prosper in order

The apostles never described themselves as wealthy; instead, they warned those who were rich that their wealth could indeed threaten their perspective on eternal matters. Like

So then, the virgin birth is not proof of the deity of Jesus, but rather, evidence of the humanity of God.

It was in fact during the month of May 1889 that Carnegie was finishing up a magazine article to become known as 'The Gospel of Wealth,' in which he said, and much to the consternation of his Pittsburgh associates, 'The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.' The gist of the article was that the rich, like the poor, would always be with us. The present system had its inequalities, certainly, and many of them were disgraceful. But the system was a good deal better than any other so far. The thing for the rich man to do was to divide his life into two parts. The first part should be for acquisition, the second for distribution. At this stage the gentlemen of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club were attending strictly to the first part.

You preach to me constantly the gospel of ‘saving’ and ‘abstinence’. Good! I will, like a sensible saving owner, husband my sole wealth, labour-power, and abstain from all foolish waste of it.

Jesus came into the world with good news, not bad news. He does not call us to a willpower religion that feels only duty and no delight. He calls us to himself and to his Father. Therefore, he calls us to joy. Of course, it is not joy in things. Jesus is not preaching a health, wealth, and prosperity gospel—one of America’s most lamentable exports to the world. It is joy in God and in his Son.

Rags-to-riches story? I've heard that gospel before, no thanks. I find no greater inspiration than the riches-to-rags story of redemption, the story of God leaving His golden throne to pursue a wretch like me.

A homeless guy lifts a bread out of hunger, it's called burglary, but a cool-looking guy rips off an entire population, while spreading disparities wider than ever, it's called entrepreneurship. What a world! What a pathetic world!

Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty.

the gospel is good news for losers, that in fact we are all losers if we measure ourselves by God’s interpretation of reality rather than our own. The demand for glory, power, comfort, autonomy, health, and wealth creates a vicious cycle of craving and disillusionment. It even creates its own industry of therapists and exercise, style, and self-esteem gurus—and churches—to massage the egos wounded by this hedonism. When crisis hits, the soul is too effete to respond appropriately. We become prisoners of our own felt needs, which were inculcated in us in the first place by the very marketplace that promises a “fix.” We become victims of our own shallow hopes. We are too easily disappointed because we are too easily persuaded that the marketplace always has something that can make us happy.

No follower of Christ knew the shape of the earth. For many centuries this great Peasant of Palestine has been worshiped as God. Millions and millions have given their lives to his service. The wealth of the world was lavished on his shrines. His name carried consolation to the diseased and dying. His name dispelled the darkness of death, and filled the dungeon with light. His name gave courage to the martyr, and in the midst of fire, with shriveling lips the sufferer uttered it again and again. The outcasts, the deserted, the fallen, felt that Christ was their friend, felt that he knew their sorrows and pitied their sufferings. All this is true, and if it were all, how beautiful, how touching, how glorious it would be. But it is not all. There is another side. In his name millions and millions of men and women have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. In his name millions and millions have been enslaved. In his name the thinkers, the investigators, have been branded as criminals, and his followers have shed the blood of the wisest and best. In his name the progress of many nations was stayed for a thousand years. In his gospel was found the dogma of eternal pain, and his words added an infinite horror to death. His gospel filled the world with hatred and revenge; made intellectual honesty a crime; made happiness here the road to hell, denounced love as base and bestial, canonized credulity, crowned bigotry and destroyed the liberty of man. It would have been far better had the New Testament never been written – far better had the theological Christ never lived. Had the writers of the Testament been regarded as uninspired, had Christ been thought of only as a man, had the good been accepted and the absurd, the impossible, and the revengeful thrown away, mankind would have escaped the wars, the tortures, the scaffolds, the dungeons, the agony and tears, the crimes and sorrows of a thousand years.

their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good. Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire

I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of the fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be a matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality.

There are two kinds of prosperity gospels. One promises personal health, wealth, and happiness. Another promises social transformation. In both versions, the results are up to us. We bring God’s kingdom to earth, either to ourselves or to society, by following certain spiritual laws or moral and political agendas. Both forget that salvation comes from above, as a gift of God. Both forget that because we are baptized into Christ, the pattern of our lives is suffering leading to glory in that cataclysmic revolution that Christ will bring when he returns. Both miss the point that our lives and the world as they are now are not as good as it gets. We do not have our best life or world now.

People who are starving and dressed in rags don’t want to hear someone read a list of propositional “good news.” They want to see the good news in action. The church doesn’t hold revival meetings and call it a day — we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, dig wells, and staff medical clinics. Social action isn’t an optional part of evangelism; it is evangelism. This is an important correction to the overspirituality that dominated evangelical Christianity just a generation ago. But the both/and of holistic mission still misses the heart of Jesus if we don’t see that the church needs the poor as much as the poor need the church. Jesus didn’t embrace the poor only because he pitied them or because he knew he had the resources to help them. Jesus embraced the poor because they were rushing into the kingdom ahead of the scribes and Pharisees — those who called themselves God’s people. Jesus welcomed people who knew poverty because they were ready to receive what he had to offer. Religious people, he said, could learn something from them. Our spiritual lives are linked to the material conditions of our life. When we feel like we don’t need much materially, we often have trouble remembering why we need God. We comfortable Americans can go through an entire day without thinking of God. But Jesus gave the poor more than food to eat and relief from their sickness. He restored them to God’s beloved community.

I'm afraid that just as wealth and privilege can be a stumbling block on the path to the gospel, theological expertise and piety can also get in the way of the kingdom. Like wealth, these are not inherently bad things. However, they are easily idolized. The longer our lists of rules and regulations, the more likely it is that God himself will break one.

The real aim of colonialism was to control the people’s wealth, what they produced, how they produced it,” Ngūgī wa Thiong’o sees the way that control was introduced and managed was to deconstruct the people’s sense of self and replace it with that of the colonizer. This would occur when a people’s perception of themselves and their world was overthrown.

I realized that no one can ever take anything from the Lord for granted, not the prosperity of the Church, not its vast army of missionaries, not its beautiful meeting houses and temples, nor the wealth and comfort he may enjoy. If apathy or complacency or unrighteousness reigns in the heart of a Saint, the gospel will be stripped away and given to another, more responsible steward.

The opportunities for using our financial resources to spread the gospel and strengthen the church all over the world are greater than they've ever been. As God raised up Esther for just such a time as hers, I'm convinced he's raise us up, with all our wealth, to help fulfill the great commission. The question is, what are we doing with that money? Our job is to make sure it gets to his intended recipients.

THE INCARNATION AND THE “UPSIDE-DOWN” ASPECT OF THE GOSPEL Because Jesus was the king who became a servant, we see a reversal of values in his kingdom administration (Luke 6:20 – 26). In Jesus’ kingdom, the poor, sorrowful, and persecuted are above the rich, recognized, and satisfied. The first shall be last (Matt 19:30). Why would this be? This reversal is a way of imitating the pattern of Christ’s salvation (Phil 2:1–11). Though Jesus was rich, he became poor. Though he was a king, he served. Though he was the greatest, he made himself the servant of all. He triumphed over sin not by taking up power but by serving sacrificially. He “won” through losing everything. This is a complete reversal of the world’s way of thinking, which values power, recognition, wealth, and status. The gospel, then, creates a new kind of servant community, with people who live out an entirely alternate way of being human.

The gospel is more radical, more countercultural, more confronting than anything the Bible has to say about men and women, or wealth, or sex, or whatever! And so it is entirely worng-footed to think we can silence a 'dificult part of God's word in order to win souls for Christ. Christ is the stumbling block (Romans 9:33) and the miracle of faith is that once we trust in Christ, God enables us by his Spirit to see the truth and wisdom and goodness of all his word and his ways.

That is why the rich young ruler went away sorrowful, if you ask me; he understood all at once that he was not free. His wealth was supposed to make him free, but kneeling in front of Jesus he understood that it was not so. Invited to follow, he went away sorrowful instead, for he had great possessions that he lugged behind him like a ball and chain. He is the only person in the whole gospel of Mark who walks away from an invitation to follow; he is the only wounded one who declines to be healed.

You’re right. It’s not right to condemn this child because she was not born a Brahman?” “Of course not.” “Then is it right to condemn her because she is not born a Jew?” “What do you mean?” “A man who is born a gentile may not see the kingdom of God. Are we, as Hebrews, any different from them? The lambs at the temple on Passover? The wealth and power of the Sadducees while others go hungry? At least the Untouchables can reach their reward eventually, through karma and rebirth. We don’t allow any gentile to do so.

Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons, a fierce opponent of the Gnostics, attacked them for their spiritual and literary creativity, accusing them of producing a new gospel every day. Implicit in his statements was the view that where such a wealth of diverse imagery, myth, and teaching exists there can be no coherent doctrine equivalent to the dogma and canon of the mainstream Christian church. What critics from Irenaeus to contemporary scholars lose sight of is that Gnostic teaching is the direct result of the experience of gnosis.

This is the apotheosis of capitalism, the divine sanction of the free market, of unhindered profit and the most rapacious cruelties of globalization. Corporations, rapidly turning America into an oligarchy, have little interest in Christian ethics, or anybody’s ethics. They know what they have to do, as the titans of the industry remind us, for their stockholders. They are content to increase profit at the expense of those who demand fair wages, health benefits, safe working conditions and pensions. This new oligarchic class is creating a global marketplace where all workers, to compete, will have to become like workers in dictatorships such as China: denied rights, their wages dictated to them by the state, and forbidden from organizing or striking. America once attempted to pull workers abroad up to American levels, to foster the building of foreign labor unions, to challenge the abuse of workers in factories that flood the American market with cheap goods. But this new class seeks to reduce the American working class to the levels of this global serfdom. After all, anything that drains corporate coffers is a loss of freedom—the God-given American freedom to exploit other human beings to make money. The marriage of this gospel of prosperity with raw, global capitalism, and the flaunting of the wealth and privilege it brings, are supposedly blessed and championed by Jesus Christ. Compassion is relegated to private, individual acts of charity or left to churches. The callousness of the ideology, the notion that it in any way reflects the message of the gospels, which were preoccupied with the poor and the outcasts, illustrates how the new class has twisted Christian scripture to serve America’s god of capitalism and discredited the Enlightenment values we once prized. The

The dangerously clear logic of the Negro's position will more and more loudly assert itself in that day when increasing wealth and more intricate social organization preclude the South from being, as it so largely is, simply an armed camp for intimidating black folk. Such waste of energy cannot be spared if the South is to catch up with civilization. And as the black third of the land grows in thrift and skill, unless skilfully guided in its larger philosophy, it must more and more brood over the red past and the creeping, crooked present, until it grasps a gospel of revolt and revenge and throws its new-found energies athwart the current of advance. Even to-day the masses of the Negroes see all too clearly the anomalies of their position and the moral crookedness of yours. You may marshal strong indictments against them, but their counter-cries, lacking though they be in formal logic, have burning truths within them which you may not wholly ignore, O Southern Gentlemen! If you deplore their presence here, they ask, Who brought us? When you cry, Deliver us from the vision of intermarriage, they answer that legal marriage is infinitely better than systematic concubinage and prostitution. And if in just fury you accuse their vagabonds of violating women, they also in fury quite as just may reply: The rape which your gentlemen have done against helpless black women in defiance of your own laws is written on the foreheads of two millions of mulattoes, and written in ineffaceable blood. And finally, when you fasten crime upon this race as its peculiar trait, they answer that slavery was the arch-crime, and lynching and lawlessness its twin abortions; that color and race are not crimes, and yet it is they which in this land receive most unceasing condemnation, North, East, South, and West.

This is what Paul was saying. Jesus gave up all his treasure in heaven, in order to make you his treasure—for you are a treasured people (1 Peter 2:9-10). When you see him dying to make you his treasure, that will make him yours. Money will cease to be the currency of your significance and security, and you will want to bless others with what you have. To the degree that you grasp the gospel, money will have no dominion over you. Think on his costly grace until it changes you into a generous people. The solution to stinginess is a reorientation to the generosity of Christ in the gospel, how he poured out his wealth for you.

The Gospels are the canon within the canon. The Bible, as martin Luther said, is the cradle that holds Christ. The point of gravity is the story of Jesus, the Gospel. The closer a text of the Bible is to that story or to the heart of that story's message, the more authority it has. The father away it is, the less its authority. It's a story of how the God who spoke through prophets and poets was the same God who showed up later in a human body and walked around like he didn't understand the rules. Jesus said God's would is like a father running into the road to meet his no-good child as if the child's no-goodness was no matter. Jesus' stories seemed like nonsense, but then they also seemed like absolute truth at the same time. He just kept saying that the things we think are so important rarely are: things like holding grudges and making judgments and hoarding wealth and being first. Then one night, this Jesus got all weird at dinner and said a loaf of bread was his body and a cup of wine was his blood, and all of it is for forgiveness. All of it means our no-goodness is no matter. Then he went and got himself killed in a totally preventable way. Three days later he blew his friends' minds by showing back up and being all like, "You guys have any snacks? I'm starving.

True genius is the one of the heart, not of intellect. Because intellect-less heart, though exploited a lot, still does good, whereas heartless intellect, with or without the awareness of it, ends up only exploiting others. But here's the thing, even true genius of intellect is not without its fare sense of responsibility towards the society. It's only the genius of halfbaked intellect that has absolutely no sense of service towards society - the only sense they have towards society, is that of domination or control. That is why one of the guardians of nuclear physics, Albert Einstein though initially encouraged the US government in a letter, to develop a nuclear weapon of their own against the Nazi nuclear program, ended up being an outspoken activist of nuclear-disarmament, and called his letter to Roosevelt "one great mistake of life". That is why the mother of radioactivity, Marie Curie never made a dime out of her discovery of radium, because to her, even amidst obscurity, science was service, unlike most so-called scientists of the modern world. That is why the man who literally electrified the world with his invention of alternating current, Nikola Tesla embraced happily other people stealing his inventions, and died a poor man in his apartment. You see, it's easy to make billions out of other people's pioneering work, the sign of true genius is an uncorrupted sense of service.

What though some suffer and die, what though they lay down their lives for the testimony of Jesus and the hope of eternal life--so be it--all these things have prevailed from Adam's day to ours. They are all part of the eternal plan; and those who give their "all" in the gospel cause shall receive the Lord's "all" in the mansions which are prepared. . . . We have yet to gain that full knowledge and understanding of the doctrines of salvation and the mysteries of the kingdom that were possessed by many of the ancient Saints. O that we knew what Enoch and his people knew! Or that we had the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon, as did certain of the Jaredites and Nephites! How can we ever gain these added truths until we believe in full what the Lord has already given us in the Book of Mormon, in the Doctrine and Covenants, and in the inspired changes made by Joseph Smith in the Bible? Will the Lord give us the full and revealed account of the creation as long as we believe in the theories of evolution? Will he give us more guidance in governmental affairs as long as we choose socialistic ways which lead to the overthrow of freedom? We have yet to attain that degree of obedience and personal righteousness which will give us faith like the ancients: faith to multiply miracles, move mountains, and put at defiance the armies of nations; faith to quench the violence of fire, divide seas and stop the mouths of lions; faith to break every band and to stand in the presence of God. Faith comes in degrees. Until we gain faith to heal the sick, how can we ever expect to move mountains and divide seas? We have yet to receive such an outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord in our lives that we shall all see eye to eye in all things, that every man will esteem his brother as himself, that there will be no poor among us, and that all men seeing our good works will be led to glorify our Father who is in heaven. Until we live the law of tithing how can we expect to live the law of consecration? As long as we disagree as to the simple and easy doctrines of salvation, how can we ever have unity on the complex and endless truths yet to be revealed? We have yet to perfect our souls, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel, and to walk in the light as God is in the light, so that if this were a day of translation we would be prepared to join Enoch and his city in heavenly realms. How many among us are now prepared to entertain angels, to see the face of the Lord, to go where God and Christ are and be like them? . . . Our time, talents, and wealth must be made available for the building up of his kingdom. Should we be called upon to sacrifice all things, even our lives, it would be of slight moment when weighed against the eternal riches reserved for those who are true and faithful in all things. [Ensign, Apr. 1980, 25]

More specifically, the Hebrew Bible tells the story of a people who move away from slavery under Pharaoh—a system that requires many people to produce more and more with less and less for the few with power, that requires them to give their lives to production in order to enhance the wealth of the powerful (in other words, the “rat race”)—into a covenant with their God and with each other. This covenant lifts up the ideal of “neighborhood”—a community in which the members care for one another, share in abundance, acquire no more than is needed, and especially look out for the poorest or the least powerful of those in the neighborhood (in the language of the Old Testament prophets: “the widow, the immigrant, and the orphan”).

But wealth is necessary for rearing children,' someone will say. This is a specious excuse for greed; although you speak as though children were your concern, you betray the inclinations of your own heart. Do not impute guilt to the guiltless! They have their own Master who cares for their needs. They received their being from God, and God will provide what they need to live. Was the command found in the Gospel, 'If you wish to be perfect, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor,' not written for the married? After seeking the blessing of children from the Lord, and being found worthy to become parents, did you at once add the following, 'Give me children, that I may disobey your commandments; give me children, that I might not attain the Kingdom of Heaven?

14 "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, `I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. 19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. (Revelation 3:14-19) (NIV)

In the late 1800s a certain man taught Sunday school for over 20 years in a Baptist church; he eventually became the wealthiest man in the world. He also did not pay tithes. He was not generous toward anyone, quite the opposite, he was the reason that journalists came up with the term, "Robber Baron." The man was John D. Rockefeller. He engaged in ruthless and illegal business practices and built an oil company called Standard Oil that was so large that, when it was broken up by antitrust laws, several major oil companies were created from that one company. Over one hundred years ago, John D. Rockefeller was worth over one billion dollars, which would be 50 to 100 billion dollars in today’s money. If he did pay tithes it would have meant an income of 100 million dollars (5 to 10 billion today) to his local church. It was not God that "blessed" him with great wealth; it was Satan, the god of greed. God does not lead people to engage in ruthless and illegal business practices in a desire for more, more, more. Even in his old age, he displayed his greed by giving away dimes. He always had dimes in his pocket so he could generously give one to people he met! What lessons are we to learn from this? One very important thing is that very often Satan will give people lots of money because Satan knows that money is very deceitful and can make even the most devout Christian materialistic and greedy. Let's take a look at another example. There is today a man who planned to become a missionary when he was young, but he not only turned against his calling, he turned against Christianity. Do you suppose that God has blessed this man? He is today a multi-billionaire, media-mogul. The man is Ted Turner, who started CNN and is a partner in Time-Warner and other media companies. Can we use him as an example that God blesses a righteous man? No, actually, the opposite is most likely true, that Satan prospers those who turn from the straight way.

The dangerously clear logic of the Negro’s position will more and more loudly assert itself in that day when increasing wealth and more intricate social organization preclude the South from being, as it so largely is, simply an armed camp for intimidating black folk. Such waste of energy cannot be spared if the South is to catch up with civilization. And as the black third of the land grows in thrift and skill, unless skilfully guided in its larger philosophy, it must more and more brood over the red past and the creeping, crooked present, until it grasps a gospel of revolt and revenge and throws its new-found energies athwart the current of advance. Even to-day the masses of the Negroes see all too clearly the anomalies of their position and the moral crookedness of yours. You may marshal strong indictments against them, but their counter-cries, lacking though they be in formal logic, have burning truths within them which you may not wholly ignore, O Southern Gentlemen!

Thus when people object, as they do, to me and others pointing out that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer—by commenting that wealth is not finite, that statist and globalist solutions and handouts will merely strip the poor of their human dignity and vocation to work, and that all this will encourage the poor toward a sinful envy of the rich, a slothful escapism, and a counterproductive reliance on Caesar rather than God—I want to take such commentators to refugee camps, to villages where children die every day, to towns where most adults have already died of AIDS, and show them people who haven't got the energy to be envious, who aren't slothful because they are using all the energy they've got to wait in line for water and to care for each other, who know perfectly well that they don't need handouts so much as justice. I know, and such people often know in their bones, that wealth isn't a zero-sum game, but reading the collected works of F. A. Hayek in a comfortable chair in North America simply doesn't address the moral questions of the twenty-first century.

although in the sixteenth century the word of God had been taken captive by the Catholic Church, the meaning of sin had been lost, and the death of Christ had been diluted, the Reformation still happened. The Gospel was recovered, the Church was renewed, Christian life was invigorated, and Europe was changed in deep and profound ways. If the Church then, which had been all but lost despite its outward wealth and pomp, could be recovered, so can the Church today. And if Europe could be changed as drastically as it was, so might our world today. Then as now, however, the prerequisite is a Christian life that is biblically faithful and a Church that is doctrinally shaped, morally tough, intellectually vibrant, and buoyant with a faith that can lay hold of the promises of God in the face of circumstantial disconfirmation and see God's great power at work. Is this the kind of Christian life we find in evangelical churches? The answer is that what I have described here is becoming rare and is being replaced by a kind of spirituality that, because it is walking in lockstep with the culture so often, is better able to mimic that culture than to change it.

It seems that in the kingdom of Heaven, the cosmic lottery works in reverse; in the kingdom of Heaven, all of our notions of the lucky and the unlucky, the blessed and the cursed, the haves and the have-nots, are turned upside down. In the kingdom of Heaven, the last will be first and the first will be last. In India, I realised that while the poor and oppressed certainly deserve my compassion and help, they do not need my pity. Widows and orphans and lepers and untouchables enjoy special access to the Gospel that I do not have. They benefit immediately from the Good News that freedom is found not in retribution but in forgiveness, that real power belongs not to the strong but to the merciful, that joy comes not from wealth but from generosity. The rest of us have to get used to the idea that we cannot purchase love or fight for peace or find happiness in high positions. Those of us who have never suffered are at a disadvantage because Jesus invites His followers to fellowship in His suffering. In fact, the first thing Jesus did in His sermon on the mount was to mess with our assumptions about the cosmic lottery. In Luke’s account, Jesus says, "Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.” (Luke 6:20-21; 24-25) It seems that the kingdom of God is made up of the least of these. To be present among them is to encounter what the Celtic saints called “thin spaces”, places or moments in time in which the veil separating heaven and earth, the spiritual and the material, becomes almost transparent. I’d like to think that I’m a part of this kingdom, even though my stuff and my comforts sometimes thicken the veil. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – these are God things, and they are available to all, regardless of status or standing. Everything else is just extra, and extra can be a distraction. Extra lulls us into the complacency and tricks us into believing that we need more than we need. Extra makes it harder to distinguish between God things and just things.

In the Gospels the sinfulness of all humans is assumed. It is neediness that is exceptional, and in Jesus’s ministry need clearly takes a certain precedence over sin. His kindness is best exemplified by his feedings and healings with no imputation at all of deserving. But the wealth of this idea of kindness is not exhausted by kindnesses to humans. It is far more encompassing. From some Christians as far back as the twelfth century, certainly from farther back in so-called primitive cultures, and from some ecologists of our own time, we have the idea of a great kindness including and binding together all beings: the living and the nonliving, the plants and animals, the water, the air, the stones. All, ultimately, are of a kind, belonging together, interdependently, in this world. From the point of view of Genesis 1 or of the 104th Psalm, we would say that all are of one kind, one kinship, one nature, because all are creatures. Much happiness, much joy, can come to us from our membership in a kindness so comprehensive and original. It is a shame, as I know from long acquaintance with myself, to be divided from it by the autoerotic pleasure of despising other members.

The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place, their ornament and diadem, and their everlasting honor and glory. They have none in heaven but God; he is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death, and which they are to rise to at the end of the world. The Lord God, he is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem; and is the 'river of the water of life' that runs, and the tree of life that grows, 'in the midst of the paradise of God'. The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another: but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them.8

When a person said “Jesus is Lord” in the first century, they were saying that Caesar is not lord. They were also saying that Kratos (the god of power) is not lord, Plutus (the god of wealth) is not lord, and Aphrodite (the god of lust) is not lord. (By the way, the near equivalent of these three gods are Eros, Mammon, and Mars.) Unfortunately, in our day, “Jesus is Lord” does not mean that Kratos, Plutus, or Aphrodite are not. It’s common for many Christians to have Jesus as their Lord on Sunday morning, Plutus as their lord at work, Kratos as their lord at home, and Aphrodite as their lord late at night on the internet. Paul’s message that Jesus is Lord was an in-your-face challenge to Caesar and every other pagan god. Today, the announcement that Jesus is Lord challenges all earthly powers as well as the invisible “principalities and powers” of the hostile spiritual world that stand behind them. The gospel of the kingdom also brings opposition from those forces which worship the pagan gods of power, greed, and lust. Indeed, the gospel of the kingship of Jesus summons every person to repent of giving their allegiance to false gods and entities, and to give their only allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth instead.

The Gospels were written in such temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events. Anyone who cared to could have checked out the accuracy of what they reported. The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection under such circumstances had it not occurred. The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of orthodox Christians. Against the idea that there could have been a deliberate falsifying of the text, no one could have corrupted all the manuscripts. Moreover, there is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the church fathers in regular and close succession. The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate any such tampering with the Gospels. The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by hundreds of people, friends and enemies alike; that the apostles had the ability to testify accurately to what they saw; that the apostles were of such doubtless honesty and sincerity as to place them above suspicion of fraud; that the apostles, though of low estate, nevertheless had comfort and life itself to lose in proclaiming the gospel; and that the events to which they testified took place in the civilized part of the world under the Roman Empire, in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish nation. Thus, there is no reason to doubt the apostles’ testimony concerning the miracles and resurrection of Jesus. It would have been impossible for so many to conspire together to perpetrate such a hoax. And what was there to gain by lying? They could expect neither honor, nor wealth, nor worldly profit, nor fame, nor even the successful propagation of their doctrine. Moreover, they had been raised in a religion that was vastly different from the one they preached. Especially foreign to them was the idea of the death and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah. This militates against their concocting this idea. The Jewish laws against deceit and false testimony were very severe, which fact would act as a deterrent to fraud. Suppose that no resurrection or miracles occurred: how then could a dozen men, poor, coarse, and apprehensive, turn the world upside down? If Jesus did not rise from the dead, declares Ditton, then either we must believe that a small, unlearned band of deceivers overcame the powers of the world and preached an incredible doctrine over the face of the whole earth, which in turn received this fiction as the sacred truth of God; or else, if they were not deceivers, but enthusiasts, we must believe that these extremists, carried along by the impetus of extravagant fancy, managed to spread a falsity that not only common folk, but statesmen and philosophers as well, embraced as the sober truth. Because such a scenario is simply unbelievable, the message of the apostles, which gave birth to Christianity, must be true. Belief in Jesus’ resurrection flourished in the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified. If the people of Jerusalem thought that Jesus’ body was in the tomb, few would have been prepared to believe such nonsense as that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And, even if they had so believed, the Jewish authorities would have exposed the whole affair simply by pointing to Jesus’ tomb or perhaps even exhuming the body as decisive proof that Jesus had not been raised. Three great, independently established facts—the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith—all point to the same marvelous conclusion: that God raised Jesus from the dead.

The call for justice was a protest as fierce as those of the biblical prophets and of Jesus, and the similarity of the call was no coincidence. As with early Judaism and early Christianity, early Islam would be rooted in opposition to a corrupt status quo. Its protest of inequity would be an integral part of the demand for inclusiveness, for unity and equality under the umbrella of the one god regardless of lineage, wealth, age, or gender. This is what would make it so appealing to the disenfranchised, those who didn't matter in the grand Meccan scheme of things, like slaves and freedmen, widows and orphans, all those cut out of the elite by birth or circumstance. And it spoke equally to the young and idealistic, those who had not yet learned to knuckle under to the way things were and who responded to the deeply egalitarian strain of the verses. All were equal before God, the thirteen-year-old Ali as important as the most respected graybeard, the daughter as much as the son, the African slave as much as the highborn noble. It was a potent and potentially radical re-envisioning of society. This was a matter of politics as much as of faith. The scriptures of all three of the great monotheisms show that they began similarly as popular movements in protest against the privilege and arrogance of power, whether that of kings as in the Hebrew bible, or the Roman Empire as in the Gospels, or a tribal elite as in the Quran. All three, that is, were originally driven by ideals of justice and egalitarianism, rejecting the inequities of human power in favor of a higher and more just one. No matter how far they might have strayed from their origins as they became institutionalized over time, the historical record clearly indicates that what we now call the drive for social justice was the idealistic underpinning of monotheistic faith.

it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If a sermon promises health and wealth to the faithful, it isn’t true, because that theology makes God an absolute monster who only blesses rich westerners and despises Christians in Africa, India, China, South America, Russia, rural Appalachia, inner-city America, and everywhere else a sincere believer remains poor. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If doctrine elevates a woman’s married-with-children status as her highest calling, it isn’t true, because that omits single believers (whose status Paul considered preferable), widows, the childless by choice or fate or loss, the divorced, and the celibate gay. If these folks are second-class citizens in the kingdom because they aren’t married with children, then God just excluded millions of people from gospel work, and I guess they should just eat rocks and die. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. Theology is either true everywhere or it isn’t true anywhere. This helps untangle us from the American God Narrative and sets God free to be God instead of the My-God-in-a-Pocket I carried for so long. It lends restraint when declaring what God does or does not think, because sometimes my portrayal of God’s ways sounds suspiciously like the American Dream and I had better check myself. Because of the Haitian single mom. Maybe I should speak less for God. This brings me to the question at hand, another popular subject I am asked to pontificate on: What is my calling? (See also: How do I know my calling? When did you know your calling? How can I get your calling? Has God told you my calling? Can you get me out of my calling?) Ah yes, “The Calling.” This is certainly a favorite Christian concept over in these parts. Here is the trouble: Scripture barely confirms our elusive calling—the bull’s-eye, life purpose, individual mission every hardworking Protestant wants to discover. I found five scriptures, three of which referred to

Although neither condemning nor protesting either institution in any explicit sense, the humble saint’s life serves as a radical juxtaposition and critique of the values of the world. He is not concerned with power. He is not interested in wealth. All he wants, with all his heart, is to be a poor imitator of Christ. Our world, as St. Francis knew, values individual greatness. In order for our lives to be significant—in order to be “great”—we are told that we must obtain as much power, wealth, and prestige as we can, living in constant competition with one another to see who has the most and thus is the best. Our worth is defined by what we possess as it relates to what others possess, and those who have more than others live believing that they are owed certain things from the world. Respect. Admiration. Glory. Fear. Love. This is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ that St. Francis lived by.

We often think of compromise when it comes to beliefs and behaviors, but a particularly subtle temptation is to compromise in our methods. It’s tempting to run our businesses, grow our churches, and pursue wealth through an end-justifies-the-means way of thinking. It’s tempting to prize stuff over people and political power over righteousness. It’s tempting to define success by popularity rather than faithfulness and seek to be relevant to avoid self-sacrifice, conflict, or suffering. The simple truth is that Christian faithfulness involves not only our doctrine and lifestyle but also our habits, attitudes, and affections. It isn’t enough to sprinkle Christian truth on lives shaped more by the cultural moment than the gospel.

On occasion, I would encounter men who looked well enough to work, but were just too lazy. I resented and despised them. Each time I met a man like that, my anger would boil and I would curse them out loud from the Proverbs, “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.

the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine.

It's why I despised prosperity gospel and developed a strong distaste for the ministers who preached it. I hated how they manipulated believers in their quest for wealth instead of souls. If allowed to, they would've flipped folks upside down, in the name of Jesus, and claimed every penny plummeting from their threadbare pockets... To earnest but beguiled believers, their pastors' prosperity was proof of the promise of their own. But they failed to grasp prosperity gospel's greatest hidden irony: believers' sacrificial giving ensured their pastors were the only ones, regardless of faith or sacrifice, guaranteed to prosper," —Roland Wade

Tithing and Generosity If you preach about tithing, at some point you must get to the ultimate giver, Jesus, who at infinite cost gave us not just a tithe of his wealth but all of it. This gives us the security and joy to give away our wealth, since the only real long-term security is to be rich in him. In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 Paul wants the people to give an offering to the poor. But he says, in effect, “I don’t want to order you. I don’t want this offering to simply be the response to my demand.” He doesn’t put pressure directly on the will (for example, by saying, “I’m an apostle and this is your duty to me!”) or on the emotions (by telling them stories about how much the poor are suffering and how much more they have than the sufferers). Instead, Paul vividly and unforgettably says, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). When he says, “You know the grace,” he is, of course, spiritually reminding them of that grace using a powerful image, bringing Jesus’ salvation into the realm of money and wealth and poverty. He moves them by a spiritual recollection of the gospel.

The story of a man's life, especially when it is told by the man himself, should not be interrupted by the hecklings of an editor.

True it is, we only hate those whom we do not know.

if Christians are materialistic, it is not merely a failure of will. Their lack of generosity comes because they have not truly understood how Jesus became poor for them, how in him we have all true riches and treasures. They may have a superficial intellectual grasp of Jesus’ spiritual wealth, but they do not truly, deeply grasp it. Preaching, then, must not simply tell people what to do. It must re-present Christ in such a way that he captures the heart and imagination more than material things. This takes not just intellectual argumentation but the presentation of the beauty of Christ.

When we hold too tightly to the “God-given” rights afforded to us by the constitution, we can place our own security, our own wealth over the call of God to engage the stranger, to work for equity. We can ignore the possibility that God would choose for us a path of hardship or ignominy or worse.  Proverbs 19 reminds us plainly: “Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.” How often do we think in terms of us and them? How often do we find ourselves in heated political discussions that estrange us from our neighbors, and which hinder any heartfelt discussion of the gospel?

Many officers of the obvious have commented that poverty makes people do terrible things. And indeed they are right, but you know what? Their acts are nothing compared to the atrocities of the wealthy. And the irony of the matter is, wrongdoings caused by poverty can be reduced exponentially if we improve the living conditions of those people and help them become self-reliant, whereas there's nothing we can do to reduce the atrocities committed by the wealthy, except for legally taking away their wealth beyond necessity altogether. That is why I say. Always stay as far away as possible from luxury. It's a terrible, terrible thing.

Some people's career is Mars and Cars, mine is justice and equality.

44They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.

My advice to young men would be not only to concentrate their whole time and attention on the one business in life in which they engage, but to put every dollar of their capital into it.

Wealth takes no account of kindness, good sense, beauty, or strength, nor is she concerned about valor, goodness, or eminent qualities. To such people she is hardly a friend, and when she is, that situation usually does not last long.

When I was a teenager, I would have said that I rejected the health and wealth gospel. Gothard himself would have criticized what prosperity preachers were teaching. But I did believe that obedience was the key to success in life. I was convinced that if I obeyed, God would reward me with the blessings. In other words, I believed the health and wealth gospel. It looked a little different from the popular version that shows up on television and in some of America’s biggest churches, but it was essentially the same message. In recent years, I’ve started to understand that what I thought was the key to success was actually a recipe for spiritual failure.

Money doesn’t do things. People do things. As von Mises has it in his title, economics is all about human action. Money simply measures the things that people do, and if we are going to be jealous about any resource, the thing we should be most jealous about is the greatest resource—which is the people who take risks. And this is why we should want to preach the kind of hot gospel that creates the kind of people who take those risks. The way we sometimes talk, it is as though we think the yard markers on the sidelines of the football game are capable of making first downs.

All of this metaphorical language describes the radical character of the decision demanded by the Kingdom of God. The modern man is usually quite casual about his religion. He will often undertake radical measures in the pursuit of wealth, success, power; but he is unwilling to become deeply moved about the concerns of his soul. Jesus says that such a man cannot know the life of the Kingdom. It demands a response, a radical decision, an enthusiastic reception. Nominalism is the curse of modern western Christianity. Jesus’ disciples must be radicals in their unqualified enthusiasm for the life of God’s Kingdom.

In contemporary Christianity the language is anything but slave terminology.14 It is about success, health, wealth, prosperity, and the pursuit of happiness. We often hear that God loves people unconditionally and wants them to be all they want to be. He wants to fulfill every desire, hope, and dream. Personal ambition, personal fulfillment, personal gratification—these have all become part of the language of evangelical Christianity—and part of what it means to have a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” Instead of teaching the New Testament gospel—where sinners are called to submit to Christ—the contemporary message is exactly the opposite: Jesus is here to fulfill all your wishes. Likening Him to a personal assistant or a personal trainer, many churchgoers speak of a personal Savior who is eager to do their bidding and help them in their quest for self-satisfaction or individual accomplishment. The New Testament understanding of the believer’s relationship to Christ could not be more opposite. He is the Master and Owner. We are His possession. He is the King, the Lord, and the Son of God. We are His subjects and His subordinates. In a word, we are His slaves.

Therefore I say, chant the name of God, and with it pray to Him that you may have love for Him. Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.

Power and wealth only leads into great destruction.

Evil comes from all source of gospel that tells people that you could be rich and wealthy without doing the hard work

One measure of the Coptic achievement is the Life of Saint Antony, who was born around 270 and who became the founder of Christian monasticism. His biographer Athanasius depicts a native Coptic-speaking Egyptian of respectable stock, living in a small village of the Fayum region, in which Christianity is already the familiar faith of the community. And for all his fame, Antony never learned Greek. Nor did many of the early monks and hermits, who used Coptic Gospels, Psalters, and liturgies. The monks in themselves reinforced popular devotion, because they differed so obviously from the higher clergy who might be seen as tools of distant authority. The monks were very much of the people, far removed from the world of wealth and luxury, and their deep piety and asceticism showed them to be heroic warriors against the forces threatening the community. Peasants, no less than city dwellers, united to support their spiritual troops.5

Behind the Jesus Is Here sign is a health, wealth, and prosperity “gospel” that removes God from the status of sovereign Lord and turns him into a convenient vending machine. Insert a prayer in the slot, pull the lever, and get a great life now. This type of thinking is big among Christians, but it shows very little respect for the omnipotent God who created the universe. Christians who worship the celestial vending machine assume that God is all about giving them more stuff and making them feel better. I wonder if Jesus mentioned promises of earthly goodies to the repentant criminal hanging on the cross next to him.

Scripture likewise seems to point out this method, Surely the Isles shall wait for me; the ships of Tarshish first, to bring my sons from far, their silver, and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord, thy God. Isai. lx. 9. This seems to imply that in the time of the glorious increase of the church, in the latter days, (of which the whole chapter is undoubtedly a prophecy,) commerce shall subserve the spread of the gospel. The ships of Tarshish were trading vessels, which made voyages for traffic to various parts; thus much therefore must be meant by it, that navigation, especially that which is commercial, shall be one great mean of carrying on the work of God; and perhaps it may imply that there shall be a very considerable appropriation of wealth to that purpose.

In respect to contributions for defraying the expences, money will doubtless be wanting; and suppose the rich were to embark a portion of that wealth over which God has made them stewards, in this important undertaking, perhaps there are few ways that would turn to a better account at last. Nor ought it to be confined to the rich; if persons in more moderate circumstances were to devote a portion, suppose a tenth, of their annual increase to the Lord, it would not only correspond with the practice of the Israelites, who lived under the Mosaic Oeconomy, but of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, before that dispensation commenced. Many of our most eminent fore-fathers amongst the Puritans, followed that practice; and if that were but attended to now, there would not only be enough to support the ministry of the gospel at home, and to encourage village preaching in our respective neighbourhoods, but to defray the expences of carrying the gospel into the heathen world.

It was in fact during the month of May 1889 that Carnegie was finishing up a magazine article to become known as “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he said, and much to the consternation of his Pittsburgh associates, “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” The gist of the article was that the rich, like the poor, would always be with us. The present system had its inequities, certainly, and many of them were disgraceful. But the system was a good deal better than any other so far. The thing for the rich man to do was to divide his life into two parts. The first part should be for acquisition, the second for distribution. At

The church lacks purpose, because we have lost the true power of the Holy Spirit. In the book of acts we saw miracles, and a true purpose driven church, we have traded in our power for money, and material wealth.In most churches preaching has been watered down to motivational speaking. The power of the gospel, is now a distant thought, how do we get a renewal of the power of God, by become the church. Most Christians leave Jesus at church, the power comes when Jesus lives not in the church but in the inside of us. In most churches preaching is being heard, that says God no longer does miracles. But I believe that the greatest miracle of the early Church was there power to live, and die for God.

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. (2 Cor. 8:1–5)

Television’s emergence as the dominant medium of communication gave birth to the slickly marketed health-wealth-and-success gospel rampant in today’s church.

Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven. (Prov. 23:4–5)

Utajiri wa mbinguni ni wa milele na mungu wake ni Yehova. Utajiri wa duniani ni wa muda na mungu wake ni Mammon. Mammon, ambaye hata Yesu alimtaja katika Injili ya Mathayo 6 na katika Injili ya Luka 16, ni mungu wa uchoyo na utajiri wa dunia hii. Mammon kazi yake ni kufanya watu waliokufa kifedha na walio hai kifedha kuwa maskini wa milele ahera. Yesu Kristo alikuwa maskini, ili tuwe matajiri kupitia umaskini wake, lakini kwa sababu alikuwa na imani ya Mungu katika moyo wake alikuwa tajiri. Hivyo unaweza kuwa na utajiri wa mbinguni hapa duniani, ukiikaribisha amani ya Mungu katika moyo wako.

How did the West produce the intense world of visual signs? What were the underlying forces that favored the multiplication of signs? It is generally understood that there is close relationship between capitalism and Christianity. Especially through the Protestant Reformation the Christian faith produced a huge shift to the individual, a man or woman separated out before God. Sociologists and historians recognize that by means of this ideological transition the individual no longer existed within a containing order of duties and rights controlling the distribution of wealth. Wealth instead became a marker of individual divine blessing. Thus the Reformation led to the typical figure of the righteous business man, the mill-owner who made big profits during the week and with them endowed a church for giving thanks on Sunday. More recently we have the emergence of the ‘prosperity gospel’ which applies the same basic formula to everyone. As they say in these churches, ‘prayed for and paid for’, neatly chiming relationship to God and personal financial success. Thus Christianity has underpinned the multiplication of material wealth for individuals. But a consequence of this is the thickening of the world of signs. Prosperity is a sign of God’s favor, and this is shown, signified, by the actual goods, the houses, clothes, cars, etc. Against this metaphysical background, however, the goods very quickly attain their own social value and produce the well-known contours of the consumer world. Once they were declared divinely willed and good they could act as self-referential signs in and for themselves. People don’t have to give any thought to theological justification to derive meaning from the latest car model, from the good-life associations of household items, refrigerators, fitted kitchens, plasma T.V.s, and now from the plugged-in cool of the digital world, computers, cell phones, iPods, G.P.S. and so on. So it is that our Western culture has developed a class of signs with a powerful inner content of validated desire. You

Wait a minute!" you say. "Didn't Jesus answer, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's when the Pharisees tried to trick him into denouncing a Roman-imposed tax?" Yes indeed, he did say that. It's found first in the Gospel of Matthew, 22:15–22, and later in the Gospel of Mark, 12:13–17. But notice that everything depends on just what truly did belong to Caesar and what didn't, which is actually a rather powerful endorsement of property rights. Jesus said nothing like "It belongs to Caesar if Caesar simply says it does, no matter how much he wants, how he gets it, or how he chooses to spend it." The fact is, one can scour the Scriptures with a fine-tooth comb and find nary a word from Jesus that endorses the forcible redistribution of wealth by political authorities. None, period.

And this is the gospel: The good news is not merely that Jesus saves but that Jesus is with us. The promise of the gospel isn’t the health and wealth we often hear through erroneous prosperity theology, but that in all situations, God is with us.