David W. Jones (1) (1973–)

“Health, Wealth, and Happiness” details the differences between the false Word of Faith movement’s teaching versus the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m so grateful to have discovered this book because it helped me to find the truth after having been taught things for years that were unbiblical.

It contains a wealth of information concerning the Word of Faith movement’s problematic origins. The book covers different aspects of the prosperity movement’s teaching, comparing it to the truths and principles of God’s Word.

This book details what you need to know about the false Word of Faith gospel versus what the Bible actually teaches, such as:

• What the false prosperity gospel actually is.
• The origin and history of the Word of Faith movement.
• Errors and unbiblical teachings of the prosperity gospel.
• What the Bible actually teaches on suffering, wealth, poverty, and giving.

Notable quotes:

“Instead of promising Christ, this gospel promises health and wealth… According to this new gospel, if believers repeat positive confessions, focus their thoughts, and generate enough faith, God will release blessings upon their lives. This new gospel claims that God desires and even promises that believers will live a healthy and financially prosperous life.”

“It is difficult, if not impossible, to find anyone in either the Old or New Testament who experienced a pain-free life on account of their faith. Many passages in the Bible presume that suffering is a regular part of the Christian life.“

“…believers must take up their cross daily and die to self in order to live for Christ (Matt. 16:24). The cross demands that followers of Christ make sacrifices for the sake of the kingdom of God and exalt God rather than themselves.”

This book contains such a wealth of information. I highly recommend it to all believers so we can be equipped with the truth in the face of this all-too-popular false teaching.… (altro)

Practical book warning against prosperity gospel

This is a helpful book, outlining some of the key origins and theological faults of the prosperity gospel (PG). The book is composed in two parts. The first describes the PG's history and doctrines, and the second part attempts to provide a summary of biblical teaching on healing, suffering, and money as an alternative to the PG. The intended audience is likely church laity, which means that the portrayal of the issues is necessarily generalized.

The authors are not unfair in their description and assessment of the PG, but at times there is a lack of nuance. Further, Calvinist/popular evangelical assumptions seem to be at play throughout, meaning that the PG is evaluated based on perhaps too simplistic of a theological system, although given the intended audience and agenda (practical help) this may be inevitable. For example, when critiquing Joel Osteen's theology, it is asserted that Osteen does not sufficiently emphasize the cross and suffering, and therefore he is teaching a false gospel. Gospel is then narrowly defined as sinners needing forgiveness and justification through Christ. I don't want to defend Osteen here, since I find his preaching to be rather shallow, but the gospel cannot be reduced to individual "sin management" (to use Dallas Willard's term). Rather, the good news is that in and through Jesus all things will be made right (and God has made a way for individuals to participate). It is the entire story of Jesus, not my story of my interaction with Jesus. It would be helpful to see what a critique from a fuller view of "gospel" would look like for these authors.

The debate over the PG is also by not quite as simple as is portrayed here, although I share the authors' concern over its abuses. The book at least does note that there is a strong and weaker form of the PG. It is the stronger form that seems more explicitly tied to 19th century New Thought, and which probably deserves the severest critique. I do think the presentation of New Thought and it's connection to current PG teachers is described in a clear and concise way, and readers may be surprised to see some integration of questionable metaphysics into Christian preaching.

Regarding the second part of the book, the teaching here does a good job of summarizing some of the biblical material on how Christians should handle suffering and money, emphasizing overall that the life of a disciple is one lived for the Lord and not immediate material gain. The biblical content is handled fairly, and pastoral applications are provided in each chapter. The authors even breach the subject of tithing, raising doubt in whether it is necessarily required of believers today (while advocating generous giving that need not stop at 10%). In this point I think they are being quite consistent with their anti-PG stance, since the way tithing is often taught today is really a mild expression of PG assumptions. A minor irritation for me was the authors' point re the use of biblical narrative material (in Acts) not being suitable for developing principles. I understand their caution, but the conversation in this matter has evolved considerably in the past few decades, and narrative genre deserves more attention for the development of doctrine that sometimes assumed.

Overall, this would be a good book for introducing some of the key teachings and background to PG, but other perspectives may help round out the conclusions of this book. For those interested, Kate Bowler's *Blessed* provides a more detailed and nuanced history of the PG movement and doctrines.… (altro)

NCLA Review: The Prosperity Gospel is very popular today in the U.S. and around the world. Many televangelists are proponents of this view. The author’s contention is that this philosophy is at best misleading and at worst downright wrong. They describe a movement, New Thought, that was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and say that many of the beliefs of the Prosperity Gospel are similar to beliefs in the New Thought movement. They also use Scripture and argument to show how the beliefs expressed by proponents of the Prosperity Gospel or logical extensions of those beliefs are not congruent with Christianity. They feel that many of the televangelists are not bad people, they are just wrong in their interpretations of God’s word. Understanding the basics of the Prosperity Gospel really gets to the heart of what Christianity and the belief in God is all about. Reading this book would be beneficial to anyone. Rating: 4 —JC… (altro)