... Why doesn't the Bible tell us about Peter's split level condo in the suburban Jerusalem or his vacation home on the Sea of Galillee? How do we reconcile this "gospel" with Jesus's words that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? I don't see how you look at what Jesus said and conclude that He wanted us to have wealth.
Well, I agree. But the prosperity people simply lie and twist that scripture to their own end.
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
they will simply say, "Here I am I'm rich and I'm a 'christian' believe me, this is how to do it..."
When you give them, "The love of money is the root of all evil."
They will simply lie and say, "But I don't love money, I love 'God'."
Which is clearly a lie as anyone watching their programing would know. They virtually never preach on Jesus and the cross, and when they do, as this video clearly shows, they don't even know what they are talking about.
If you'll notice, in a LARGE percentage of Creflo Dollar's so-called teaching, he almost never even mentions Jesus or the Cross. He talks about 'god' and quotes some out of context scriptures, but virtually never preaches on Jesus. Most of these others are the same way.
then when they do preach on Jesus, they quote the parable of the sower or the parable of the talents and take those out of context to promote their false doctrine, when Jesus had already interpreted the parables.
You don't "re-interpret" a parable that the Bible itself already interprets, particularly when Jesus himself did the interpretation.
That's just pure deception.
None of the parables have anything to do with money, and this includes the parables that use money as the object of the example. Even in these parables, the "money" represents the word of God, or in one case(the parable of the woman with the ten coins) the "money" represents 9 believers and one unbeliever, whom the woman sweeps the house to find.
The point is, the prosperity preachers on TBN and INSP do not even have a sunday school knowledge of the Bible, yet the write all these books and make millions off people who also do not even have a sunday school knowledge of the Bible.
the fact is, most of these preachers and most of the people supporting them are not born again. If they were, the Holy Spirit would convict them and get them out of the mess.
This is why we have something like 60 million professing Christians in this country, and a large portion of them, when surveyed, do not meet the Biblical definition of the salvation/born again experience, including those who
claim to be "born again".
Excerpts from Barna group surveys 2007:
More than half of all adults (53%) believe that if a person is generally good, or does enough good things for others during their life, they will earn a place in Heaven. (2007)
On their way to hell in a hand basket. That is called "self righteousness" and the Bible says, "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."
Half of born again Christians (46%) agree that Satan is "not a living being but is a symbol of evil." (2007)
I would be interested to see how this people justify these claims, given the many, many verses in the Bible which clearly show Satan is a sentient, angelic being.
37% of born agains believe that if a person is good enough they can earn a place in Heaven. (2007)
A sad and clear contradiction. If a person believes this, they cannot possibly be "born again" because realizing that you cannot earn your way into heaven is part of the requirement for BEING born again. "Whoever comes up by any other way is a thief and a robber...".
26% of born agains agree that "while he lived on earth, Jesus committed sins, like other people," compared to 41% of all adults. (2007)
Again, not really "born again". They are serving "another Jesus, another gospel, and another spirit".
The Bible says:
2 Corinthians 5:21
For he hath made him to be
sin (refers to the sin offering)for us,
who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
1 Peter 2:22
Who did
no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:
So we see, at least 26% of people classified as "Born again"
by barna do not know enough about the real Jesus TO be "born again," because the "jesus" they think they know is a sinner, to put it bluntly, a false christ (psuedo-cristos).
===
This is the state of the so-called "church". And while I cannot blame all of this on the prosperity message, I CAN lay a large portion of the blame on them, because they do not teach salvation or sanctification, and what little they do try to teach is completely wrong anyway, and because they are the biggest thing going these days. All they teach is "money cometh" and fools hear them gladly.