I have of late, been addressing the popularity of Word Faith teachers whose central focus in ministry (other than collecting your offerings) is to tell you that God has promised you a rose garden of a life and that if you are not living a life of perfect health and abundant wealth then it is all your fault… if you had faith all this would be yours. It is an amazingly ear tickling message while simultaneously being a back door… sometimes front door… condemnation of the suffering. It is an encouragement to hubris (thinking one always knows the complete mind of God) and foolishness (determining to talk and walk in one’s own vision of life rather than in the reality before them… a rejection of wisdom in favor of “faith.”).
Part of the confusion that a lot of people feel about Word Faith Teachers centers around their rather confident and pervasive quotation of Scripture.
- Joh 14:14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
- Mar 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
- Jas 5:15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
- Mar 16:17-18 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
- Mat 17:20 …For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
- Isa 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
- Jer 33:6 Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security.
I could go on and on quoting similar passages.
The problem, of course is context. Not just the immediate context which often tempers the situation in the quoted passage (see my post “Jesus, Blank Checks, and Getting a Clue: ‘Whatever You Ask in My Name’ in John”) but also a larger Scriptural context and theological context in which the temptation to extreme application of some statements is curbed by the theological demands of other statements.
Jewish scribes often employed what Bernard Ramm has called “The Rule of Absurdity” in which any interpretation of a text whose logical outworking leads to an absurdity is seriously reconsidered.
Let me illustrate by quoting the Devil… A risky proposition at any time.
Mat 4:5-7 reads, “Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'”
This is how Word Faith teachers use Scripture and this is how the church at large should respond to them.
Word Faith teachers shed blood with the Bible. They tempt people to prove their faith by making foolish and reckless choices. They shame the sick AND their families. They denounce the faith of the struggling. They take no responsibility for the lives they destroy, nor for those whose faith they destroy with constant disappointment in failed promises that God never made them.
How many have died rejecting medications or refusing medical treatment? How many sit around rebuking the Devil rather than changing their habits or getting real help? How many give to these ministers more than is wise in the hopes of promised bountiful returns? They rob the elderly with chain-mail like threats and false promises, sucking up the widow’s mite from hundreds of thousands.
How many walk and talk in the delusion of crafting their own realities in faith rather than dealing wisely with what is before them? They stand opposed to every Biblical proverb that speaks about confronting the ugliness in the world in wisdom. “Don’t see, don’t hear, don’t acknowledge” they trumpet.
Satan quotes a true verse at Jesus, a genuine divine word to messiah, but uses it to encourage a foolish and selfish path.
Jesus counters with a grand Scriptural and theological context. God, the all wise, all seeing, all knowing one, the sovereign and holy creator of all is not to be trifled with. He is to be followed not led. He is to be entreated not commanded. He is to be trusted not instructed.
It is the height of human arrogance to presume to know the will of God in every situation… to claim that only perfect health and abundant wealth is God’s design every time is beyond reckless… it is heresy of the first order… hubris run amuck.
Do not tempt the Lord your God… and put these false teachers behind you as you seek to discover not dictate what is God’s specific will for YOUR life… and death.
