Monthly Archives: August 2012

Does Proverbs teach “the Health, Wealth, and Prosperity Gospel?”

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From David Murray

Does Proverbs teach “the Health, Wealth, and Prosperity Gospel?” It certainly contains multiple promises of health, wealth, and prosperity to those who live wisely. However, there’s an eternity of difference between the Prosperity Gospel and Gospel Prosperity. Let me give you five statements that will help clarify that difference.

1. God has provided external Wisdom, in principle and Person form, to correct our sin-caused ignorance, error, and folly.

God made us with knowledge, rightness, and practical life-skills. However, as a punishment for Adam’s sin, God cursed Adam and his descendants with ignorance, error, and folly.

As no amount of research, experimentation, or reasoning will make us spiritually wise again, God has revealed His otherwise inaccessible and unattainable Wisdom to us. In the Old Testament, God reveals that wisdom largely in principle form (e.g. the Moral Law, the Proverbs). However, Proverbs also personifies Wisdom, giving a hint of a future revelation of Wisdom in human form, a revelation we now know is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:24; Col. 2:3).

2. As Wisdom cannot be attained, retained, or practiced quickly or easily, God has graciously incentivized the diligent pursuit and practice of it with multiple different rewards.

As sinners find it so difficult to seek, keep, and do Wisdom for its own sake, throughout Proverbs God promises spiritual, physical, intellectual, financial, social, relational, and eternal rewards for seeking, remembering, and doing it. Yet even these rewards are of grace, because God is not obliged to reward what we should do anyway, and any spiritual diligence is itself His gift.

3. In the NT era, Wisdom’s rewards are more spiritual and eternal than material and temporary, Gospel prosperity more than the Prosperity Gospel.

The Old Testament manifested spiritual blessings in a much more material form, mainly because the church was still in its infancy. Although God still blesses in material ways, the focus of Christ and His Apostles is much more on spiritual and eternal blessings (e.g. John 7:17; 14:16,21; Rev. 3:7, 11).

The Prosperity Gospel puts prosperity before the Gospel, and seeks prosperity above all else. Gospel prosperity puts the Gospel first and gratefully accepts any spiritual and material blessings as the overflow of a Gospel-centered life.

4. The divinely-ordained connection between godliness and Gospel prosperity is a general maxim, but not without notable exceptions.

There are two kinds of wisdom in the poetic books. Practical Wisdom contains simple, optimistic, popular, and pithy truths. It describes the way things generally ought to be (e.g. the Proverbs). Philosophical Wisdom deals much more with the complexities of life. It reflects on the reality that things do not always go as they ought, that there are sometimes enigmas, mysteries, and exceptions to Practical Wisdom (e.g. Job, Ecclesiastes).

It’s like learning a language. You start by learning all the basic rules and regular patterns (Practical Wisdom), and once you’ve mastered them, then you consider the irregular verbs, the qualifications to the rules, etc., (Philosophical Wisdom).

5. Seek and embrace Wisdom for Wisdom’s sake, not for the rewards He brings.

While the rewards should encourage us to seek and practice Wisdom, it is best to look on them retrospectively rather than prospectively. Don’t predict in the future tense, “If I do this, then I’ll get this.” Rather reflect in the past tense, “I did that, and the Lord has graciously rewarded me.”

A couple of weeks ago I came home from a solo trip to Scotland. Imagine if when I came off my plane, my children grabbed my case and started rifling through it to find their presents, and then walked away leaving me empty-handed with my bags strewn all over the airport!

Don’t seek the gifts but the Giver, not the rewards of Wisdom but the Rewarder who is Wisdom. Remember what God said to Abram: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward” (Gen. 15:1 NKJV).

Countering Claims to Peter’s Primacy

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This is an excellent article from ANNOYED PINOY asked me to repost something I wrote almost a decade ago. It was a list of 51 Biblical proofs of a Pauline papacy and Ephesian primacy. I wrote it in response to a Roman Catholic apologist’s list of 50 alleged Biblical proofs of a Petrine papacy. Some of the items in my list are meant to parallel items in that Catholic’s list. For example, he cited the performance of a miracle through Peter’s shadow (Acts 5:15) as evidence of Petrine primacy. I paralleled that with a citation of Acts 19:11-12 as evidence of Pauline primacy. I don’t actually think a Pauline papacy is implied by Acts 19 or any other passage I cite below. What I was doing was demonstrating how the same sort of bad reasoning that Catholics often apply to Peter can be cited to justify similar conclusions about other Biblical figures, like Paul.

Catholics can’t object to my list by pointing to post-Biblical evidence for a Petrine papacy, since the issue under discussion is whether the Biblical evidence supports a papacy. Nobody denies that a Petrine papacy eventually developed in Rome. The question in this context is whether that papacy was just a later development or is a teaching of the scriptures as well. If Ephesus had been the capital of the Roman empire and had possessed other advantages the Roman church had, and the Ephesian church had gradually become more and more prominent, the bishops of Ephesus could have claimed that the Bible teaches a Pauline (or Johannine) primacy. In fact, in other places I’ve noted early patristic material that could be cited in support of an Ephesian primacy.

My list loses some of its force when removed from its original context. But I think it’s mostly understandable, even without much knowledge of the background that led me to write what I did. Here are the 51 Biblical proofs of a Pauline papacy and Ephesian primacy, using popular Catholic reasoning: Continue reading →

The word sanctification

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It’s such a long word — sanctification. And it has such a churchy ring to it. No one uses this language outside the church.

So why not adopt a simpler term from the secular world and freight it afresh with Christian content?

While expositing Romans 6:23, but not the manuscript) to tackle this question and also provide a short but substantive definition of what Christian theology means by the term “sanctification.”

Now I know sanctification is a church word. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word sanctification in the Minneapolis StarTribune. It’s a church word.

So someone might say, “Why don’t you choose a non-church word?” There are reasons for that — not the least of which is that sanctification is built on the Latin word sanctus, which means “holy,” and the world doesn’t know anything about holiness. That’s a church word too.

I will not let the scope of my reality be governed by the paucity of vocabulary in the fallen, secular world. What a folly to think that the world could create enough words to treat infinite realities we learn from the Bible!

The force must go the other way. There are realities in the Word about holiness that the church must teach the world to know — we have to tell the world what it doesn’t have a clue about, and then create words for it, and say, “You have to get the word holiness into your vocabulary.”

We need the word sanctification. If we tried to built it on a non-Latin word and said “holification,” it wouldn’t be any better. Where there are words with enough overlap, I’m happy to take them — plunder the Egyptians — and use what they have, and make it plain as I can. But I’m not going to sacrifice the word sanctification because nobody in the world uses it. I’m going to teach it.

So here’s the definition: progressively becoming like Jesus. Gradually becoming like Jesus, or becoming holy. Becoming conformed to the image of Christ. Little by little, over time — from conversion till Jesus comes back, or you die — you are in the process of sanctification, becoming sanctified, becoming holy.

HT: David Mathis

Chosen you to Salvation

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2 Thess. 2: 13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“There are three things here which deserve special attention. First, the fact that we are expressly told that God’s elect are “chosen to salvation”: Language could not be more explicit. How summarily do these words dispose of the sophistries and equivocations of all who would make election refer to nothing but external privileges or rank in service! It is to “salvation” itself that God has chosen us.

Second, we are warned here that election unto salvation does not disregard the use of appropriate means: salvation is reached through “sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” It is not true that because God has chosen a certain one to salvation that he will be saved willy-nilly, whether he believes or not: nowhere do the Scriptures so represent it. The same God who “chose unto salvation”, decreed that His purpose should be realized through the work of the spirit and belief of the truth.

Third, that God has chosen us unto salvation is a profound cause for fervent praise. Note how strongly the apostle express this – “we are bound to give thanks always to God for you. brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation”, etc. Instead of shrinking back in horror from the doctrine of predestination, the believer, when he sees this blessed truth as it is unfolded in the Word, discovers a ground for gratitude and thanksgiving such as nothing else affords, save the unspeakable gift of the Redeemer Himself.”

– A. W. Pink

The Church is Subordinate to the Word of God

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The Church is Subordinate to the Word of God (And Not the Other Way Around)

Wilhelmus à Brakel:

If the Word of God is the only criterion by which we can determine a church to be the true church of God, then we must first acknowledge Scripture to be the Word of God before acknowledging the church to be the true church. Furthermore, we cannot receive the testimony of the church unless we acknowledge her to be the true church.

Thus, we do not believe the Word to be the Word of God because the church affirms it, but on the contrary, we believe the church to be the true church because the Word validates her as such. A house rests upon its foundation, and not the foundation upon the house. A construction is subordinate to its cause rather than the cause being subordinate to what it has constructed. (The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 1:29)

HT: KDY

I don’t want free will

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“I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want “free-will” to be given me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavour after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground ; but because even were there no dangers. I should still be forced to labour with no guarantee of success. But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfortable certainty that He is faithful and will not lie to me, and that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him. Furthermore, I have the comfortable certainty that I please God, not by reason of the merit of my works, but by reason of His merciful favour promised to me; so that, if I work too little, or badly, He does not impute it to me, but with fatherly compassion pardons me and makes me better. This is the glorying of all the saints in their God.”

– Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Grand Rapids: Revell, 1957), 313-314

You would have no authority over Me at all unless…

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Ponder with me the lesson of Pilate’s authority over Jesus.

Pilate said to Jesus, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” (John 19:10–11)

Pilate’s authority to crucify Jesus did not intimidate Jesus.

Why not?

Not because Pilate was lying. Not because he didn’t have authority to crucify Jesus. He did.

Rather this authority did not intimidate Jesus because it was derivative. Jesus said, “It was given to you from above.” Which means it is really authoritative. Not less. But more.

So how is this not intimidating? Pilate not only has authority to kill Jesus. But he has God-given authority to kill him.

This does not intimidate Jesus because Pilate’s authority over Jesus is subordinate to God’s authority over Pilate. Jesus gets his comfort at this moment not because Pilate’s will is powerless, but because Pilate’s will is guided. Not because Jesus isn’t in the hands of Pilate’s fear, but because Pilate is in the hands of Jesus’s Father.

Which means that our comfort comes not from the powerlessness of our enemies, but from our Father’s sovereign rule over their power. This is the point of Romans 8:25–37. Tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and danger and sword cannot separate us from Christ because “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35–37).

Pilate (and all Jesus’s adversaries — and ours) meant it for evil. But God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20). All Jesus’s enemies gathered together with their God-given authority “to do whatever God’s hand and God’s plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28). They sinned. But through their sinning God saved.

Therefore, do not be intimidated by your adversaries who can only kill the body. Not only because this is all they can do (Luke 12:4), but also because it is done under the watchful hand of your Father.

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Luke 12:6–7).

Pilate has authority. Herod has authority. Soldiers have authority. Satan has authority. But none is independent. All their authority is derivative. All of it is subordinate to God’s will. Fear not. You are precious to your sovereign Father. Far more precious than the unforgotten birds.

– John Piper