Joel Osteen famously said in a tweet, "It’s God’s will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty.” God’s Word, however, teaches that it is not always God’s will for His people to experience prosperity. Jesus was born poor and he died poor (click to open). Surely, the servant is not greater than his master. God’s Word also teaches that sometimes poverty is God’s will for His people. The apostle Paul died in abject poverty in the cold and damp Mamertine Prison in Rome. He had to request Timothy to bring him warm clothing for the coming winter. The Prosperity Gospel teaches the opposite.
Edward Luce, a journalist for the Financial Times traveled to Lakewood Church in Houston to interview Joel Osteen and attend a service. Luce included this quote in his article (click to open) from a letter Osteen wrote to his flock: "God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us."
In the interview, Luce asked Osteen, “How did he [Osteen] manage to keep sin and redemption out of a Christian message.” Osteen replied, “Look, I’m an optimist .... Life already makes us feel guilty every day. If you keep laying shame on people, they get turned off.”
There is no Gospel in the Prosperity Gospel if sin and redemption are absent. The prosperity in the Prosperity Gospel is limited mostly to affluent America. Albert Mohler in an article entitled: The Osteen Predicament---Mere Happiness Cannot Bear the Weight of the Gospel (click to open), asked the following penetrating questions:
• What about all those who are even now suffering persecution for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?
• What about the loved ones of the martyrs in Mosul?
• What about the Christians forced out of their homes and threatened with genocide?
• What about the children of Christians slain in Iraq and Syria ... or those martyred by Boko Haram in Africa?
• How does Prosperity Theology work for them?
This is the Prosperity Gospel’s Predicament! How does its message account for the godly who suffer deprivation for the sake of the Gospel? We want to learn and follow the teachings of God’s Word on prosperity and poverty.
The book of Proverbs teaches both positive and negative aspects of prosperity and poverty
Roy Zuck shows this metaphor of lifestyle is a major theme in Proverbs: “Proverbs frequently uses the metaphor of the way or the path .... By metonymy a way or path came to represent the conduct of the person walking in that direction or along that path .....”Way” and “ways” occur sixty times; “path” and “paths” twenty-nine times; and “walk,” “walks,” and “walking,” seventeen times (Roy Zuck, A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, Chicago: Moody Press, 1991, 239).
Solomon in Proverbs 4:11 refers to “the way of wisdom” and in 4:14 “the way of the wicked.” These two ways of life give unity to the apparent randomness of Proverbs (Peter A. Steveson, A Commentary on Proverbs, Greenville: BJU Press, 2001, xxiii).
If you choose the road or lifestyle of wisdom you will journey with the hard worker, the moral, the humble, good friends, the rich and the poor.
If you pick the road or life of foolishness you will travel with the lazy, the immoral, the proud, bad friends, the rich, and the poor. Notice on both of the two roads or lifestyles the rich and the poor travel. Because the book of Proverbs teaches both positive and negative aspects of prosperity and poverty.
Prosperity
The negative teaching about prosperity
Proverbs 21:13 is germane to our discussion: “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.” Solomon in Proverbs teaches that believers share their food (Prov 22:9) and money (Prov.28:8) with the poor.[1]
Edward Luce reported that amid Hurricane Harvey, which battered the city [Houston], Osteen suffered a social-media backlash for having kept the doors of Lakewood closed. Luce quoted one tweet: “Joel Osteen won’t open his church that holds 16,000 to hurricane victims because it only provides shelter from taxes.” This tweet received over 100,000 likes. Solomon in Proverbs 21:13 warns that when financial roles are reversed the selfish will reap what he has sown.
The positive teaching about prosperity
Prosperity can be evidence of God’s blessings (3:9-10). We have Old Testament examples in Job and Abraham. These men honored God with their financial blessings. Prosperity can be the result of hard work (13:11). Prosperity must be shared (3:27-28). Solomon elevates giving to the poor to the height of giving to the Lord in Proverbs 19:17. Jesus taught the same in Matthew 25:31-46. Luce reported that although Osteen exhorts his members to tithe [give ten percent of their salary] to the church, Lakewood church does not tithe. Luce noted that Lakewood spent one percent of its budget — on charitable causes.
There is a great weight in Proverbs on wisdom which is better than prosperity (8:11, 19; 10:1-3). John Henry Jowett caught the essence of this truth: “The real measure of our wealth is how much we’d be worth if we lost all of our money.”[2] If we lost all of our money, we would still have the wisdom to live for God and others. Solomon the wealthiest man on the planet exhorted his readers in Proverbs 8:11, “Wisdom is better than rubies.” Therefore, Solomon declared the main priority and pursuit of your life and mine should be God’s wisdom, “Wisdom is the principle thing: therefore get wisdom, and with all your getting get understanding” (Prov 4:7).
Poverty
The negative teaching about poverty
The negative teaching about poverty is seen in the causes of poverty. Injustice can be a cause of poverty according to Proverbs 13:23, “The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.” Discriminatory laws going back to the Black Code laws and Jim Crow laws put obstacles on the road to success for blacks. The Civil Rights Movement one hundred years later helped remove some of these roadblocks. Not too long ago, blacks who had equal ability and work ethics were deprived of raises and promotions. Watch the movie 42 and be reminded of the racial barriers Jackie Robinson, who died in 19772, had to endure to be the first African American to play in Major League Baseball. Racists threatened to murder him and his family. Robinson had the tenacity to overcome such injustices.
Another cause of poverty is sometimes laziness. There are six humorous proverbs: 19:24; 22:13; 26:13, 14, 15, and 16. These humorous Proverbs were not written to get a chuckle but to shame the slothful to work. The slothful in Proverbs 26:15 is so lazy he will not even feed himself with food off the plate right in front of him. My mom and dad owned a dog who lay around the house all day long. They would have to slide his dish of dog food right next to his mouth. He would not even raise his head to eat. He would run his tongue out and eat as much as he could that way. Solomon is trying to prod the lazy into productivity.
The love of pleasure in Proverbs 21:17 can also be a cause of poverty: “Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.” I was reminded of this verse when I was walking from my car into the grocery store and I saw this guy pushing a cart full of beer, which he loads into his old clunker. He has chosen pleasure over the more important needs of life and his family.
The positive teaching about poverty
God is the maker of the rich and the poor (14:31; 17:5; 22:2). Does this mean that God capriciously said to Himself, “Okay, I am going make you rich and I am going to make you poor, and neither of you can change what I have decreed?” More accurately, God made both the rich and the poor in His image, therefore the rich should not look down on a poor fellow human being who is just as much in God’s image and also is just as much loved by God.
The positive teaching about poverty includes remedies
The first remedy is hard work (Proverbs 10:3-5). In Proverbs 10:4, the lazy and the diligent are contrasted again: “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” God ordained work before the fall when He instructed Adam “to work it and keep it” in Genesis 2:15. There is dignity in hard work, danger in overwork as in workaholism, and disgrace in not working if someone is able and has an opportunity.
In addition to hard work, contentment is also a remedy for poverty and is seen in some of the twenty-one “better than” attitudes (3:14; 8:11, 19; 12:9; 15:16, 17; 16:8, 16, 19, 32; 17:1; 19:1, 22; 21:9, 19; 22:1; 25:7, 24; 27:5, 10; 28:6). Solomon draws a contrast between believers with contentment and believers who lack contentment in life. The discontent pessimistically says, “All the days of the afflicted are evil” in 15:15a.
Dr. Bob Jones Sr. used to tell the story of some naughty boys who saw a man asleep on a park bench. They went home and brought back some Limburger cheese and gently spread it on his mustache. Limburger smells much worse than it tastes. When the man awoke and started walking, he took a few steps, sniffed, and made a face. He took a few more steps, sniffed, and made a face. Finally, he bluttered out, “The whole world stinks.” The whole world did not stink just his mustache. The discontent can get sour on all of life when all of life is not sour just their bad attitude.
The second part of Proverbs 15:15 contrasts the believer with contentment: “But the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.” Instead of life stinking, life is a feast to enjoy no matter whatever one’s lot. In Proverbs 15:17, Solomon gave one of his “better than” principles: “Better is a dinner of herbs [a vegetable plate] where love is than a fattened ox [steak] and hatred with it.”
My wife and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary. Some of her relatives gave us a gift card to Ruth Chris Steak House which is one the more expensive steak house in our area. We got the special which was $51 each before the tip. We each had filet mignon. It melted in our mouths. Solomon is saying you could go to Ruth Chris and have a miserable evening if you and your wife hate each other. Or you could go to the K & W Cafeteria and get a vegetable plate, which we often do, and have an amazing evening if you are content just to be with each other.
Let me circle back and restate these Biblical principles: God’s Word teaches that it is not always God’s will for His people to experience prosperity.
If you have worked hard and prosperity is God’s will for you, then you should be generous with God’s blessings. God’s Word also teaches that sometimes poverty is God’s will for His people.
If poverty is your present circumstance, then you need to work hard and be content with God’s blessings. Remember if you are the “diligent” and you are not wealthy, you are as much the creation of God as the rich. You are as much made in the image of God as the affluent. You are also loved just as much, “For God so loved the world [that includes you] that he gave his only begotten, that whosoever believes in him, should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
[1] John A. Kitchen, Proverbs (Scotland: Mentor, 2206), 472.
[2] Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Skillful (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1993), n.p. in chapter seven.