In the 1960s my grandmother was a big believer in faith-healer (and later prosperity-preacher) Oral Roberts. Like many millions of others, she watched him on television and listened to him on radio, fully convinced he had the power of God to heal the sick.
My father was dubious and found her faith a bit frustrating. He asked her, “Mom, if you think he can heal you, why don’t you go get healed?” She had very serious rheumatoid arthritis and was confined to a chair for the last seven years of her life. I never heard her respond.
But even as a boy I thought my dad had a reasonable point. Roberts claimed even to be able to heal people long distance – just touch the TV screen or put your hand over your hearts while I pray for you. Newspapers claimed instances of incredible success. She could have been healed in the privacy of her own living room.
As with many other Pentecostal faith healers in the early and mid-20th century, Roberts eventually shifted his focus from health to wealth – healing poverty as well as illness. At heart, they involve the same principle. God loves people; he wants them to succeed; he is deeply invested in their well-being; he has promised to help when things are not going well; illness and poverty are high on the list of human suffering; he can provide both health and wealth; and those who trust him will receive both. Wealth in abundance.
Roberts 1970 book The Miracle of Seed-Faith was his first major foray into the prosperity realm, and
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I think the appeal of the original evangelical talk show is that it’s some man intimately talking to the viewer with big promises and involving them in big events.
There’s usually no wife attached at the hip, and it’s just a safe way for a gma to have undivided attention. If a gma did not have those mirror neurons firing, perhaps they’d be less content with life.
Jesus and Jesus’ disciples use *medical material* after invoking healing intent/prayer.
• Jesus uses clay (astringent).
• Jesus’ TEAM applies medication “anointing oils to the sick” — he’s the diagnosing physician here.
• When Jesus is presumably displacing a cataract, he doesn’t get it right on the first try, but has to adjust it. Jesus uses saliva, it’s a known anti-infective and why animals lick their wounds.
Jesus’ team acts on his word, they may be in multiple locations, which would be imo why the Centurion believes in his word to heal his child. In particular for reviving, the East seems to have a medication less prevalent in the West for this period, and that is: ephedra.
There is something almost mystical about these names. Con-well! My favorite prosperity preacher is Creflo Dollar. Apparently based on his birth records that is his real name!
I know! What a scream.
I have become increasingly skeptical of the idea often associated with “trickle-down” economics—that if the wealthy become wealthier, their gains will naturally benefit society as a whole. Given the principle of diminishing marginal utility, some degree of redistribution seems economically rational: an additional dollar usually has far greater value to someone with very little than to someone already wealthy.
Jesus, of course, was not teaching modern economics. Yet throughout the Gospels he gives special attention to the poor, the weak, and the socially excluded. In that sense, protecting the vulnerable seems central to the ethics of the Kingdom of God.
This also makes me think about a weakness of simple majoritarian democracy: minorities and weaker groups can still be neglected by the majority.
Plato feared that democracy could deteriorate into rule by an uninformed or manipulated majority and proposed philosopher-kings. Human philosopher-kings, however, would be dangerous because no human ruler possesses perfect wisdom or goodness.
The irony is that the only conceivable version of that ideal may be the Kingdom of God itself—rule by Christ as a perfectly wise and perfectly good King, with particular concern for those whom society might otherwise overlook.
My sense is that Plato actually advocated for philosopher-kings in the REpublic?
Doctor,
From my personal, but brief, experience in this type of church, the physical healing supposedly guaranteed to all, comes from a misrepresentation of Mathew’s quote (Matthew 8:16, 17) of Isaiah 53:4,5. However there are way too many texts to cite here that refute the idea; from Paul’s own unhealed infirmities (2nd Corinthians 12:7-10) to Jesus pointing out that not all are healed (Luke 4:25-27).
As far as the wealth teaching goes, I was always taught the principle of “sowing seed” from Matthew 13; If you give $10 dollars God owes you $100. So I tried it…. only not exactly how it’s taught, but using the same logic. I called Benny Hinn’s answering team and told them I wanted them to give me $1,000,000 and then God would owe them $10 mil; give to get. I told them that I was just as qualified to receive their $ as they were to receive mine because I was a street evangelist who preached the gospel to people on a weekly basis. They didn’t agree with the logic; I guess they didn’t have enough faith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=725RsHJiMGE
Dr Ehrman: I thought the parable of the unworthy steward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Unjust_Steward was on uncollectible debts, so he reduces the amounts but collects for the boss.
Some EXPERT said: focus on wealth, not focusing on God; not going to Heaven because of life priorities
going through Wierbe’s BE commentary. Lie-
theMaterial: false riches; theSpiritual: true riches
As you know I gave my soul wholly to God in Shanghai & I had to wholly live as The New Life Andrew Murray.
BUT returning to the SF BA is worse. NOT only is there no national leader, I get dragged into other’s scapegoating. &that is the beginning.
I learned that the true life was not this life. When the older men were volunteering to be trained after retirement to evangelize. I thought ASAP &give God my 1st fruits. Despite I was not trained, nor called.
BUT wasn’t IPredestined?
WIERSBE
Jesus described 2opposite philosophies of life. Prior to his repentance, the prodigal wasted his life, but his elder brother only spent his life as a faithful drudge. Both attitudes are wrong, for the Christian approach to life is that we should invest our lives for the good of others &glory of God
My father didn’t listen to prosperity preachers, but he always cited Malachi 3:10 as why he expected to become rich after faithful tithing. Is that not a commonly cited verse?
My father prefers not to lean on the other passages because “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” However, the Malachi passage goes, “Test me in this.” So he has been testing God, with rather poor results I would add.