Sermon Tone Analysis

!!! Church Offerings

!!!

The Problem with Prosperity Preaching 1

 

 

       *I have had just about all that I can take of prosperity preaching, particularly as it relates to church offerings!*

Why?

Because it is around church offerings that a great deal of erroneous, manipulative, and even sinful teaching and gimmicks revolve.

For about 20 years prosperity preachers have been preaching the “name it and claim it,” “stab it and grab it,” “call it and haul it,” brand of blessings and Christianity.

Before you jump to any conclusions, I don’t have much respect for the perspective God wants you to be poor and raggedy either, because (/in my study/) neither of these positions is biblical.

However, the “poverty is spiritual” position has seemed to almost die out, while preaching of prosperity is rising in correspondence to the approximately 880 mega churches in America (/7~/27~/2006/).

Evangelical megachurches—defined as those that attract at least 2,000 weekly worshippers—have shot up to 880 from 50 in 1980, figures John N. Vaughan, founder of the research group Church Growth Today, in Bolivar, Missouri.

By way of contrast, there are approximately 400,000 churches in America.

·        A traditional U.S. church typically has fewer than 200 members and an annual budget of around $100,000.00.

·        The average megachurch pulls in $4.8 million, according to a 1999 study by the Hartfort Seminary, one of the few surveys on the topic.

This money is fueling a megachurch building boom.

First Baptism Church of Woodstock, near Atlanta, for example has just finished a $62,000,000.00,

7,000-seat sanctuary.

*These mega churches and their TV pastors are having a tremendous impact upon the religious landscape of America.*

I haven’t drunk any hatorade, because we are very close to megachurch statistics.

*However, should megachurch pastors determine our theology concerning prosperity and money?*

On the other hand, how do we interpret the fact that one out of seven verses, in the Gospels, addresses the subject of money?

Well, I want to preach on the topic of church offerings, by exegeting 2 Corinthians 8:1-9.

However, to do this, I need to first deal with the religious landscape and its impact upon our understanding of the Word of God.

 

\\ /(So, let’s begin this four message series by dealing with “The Problem With Prosperity Preaching.”)/

*According to a lot of the prosperity preachers, God wants every believer to be wealthy.*

However, a number of New Testament verses are being viewed ethnocentrically and then applied out of context to our modern situation.

Therefore, let me begin this series with a piece of information that should shock us and properly ground us in the context of the New Testament:  *What we are looking at, in the New Testament, is a peasant society.*

“The term ‘peasant society’ refers to a set of villages socially bound up with preindustrial cities in which the overwhelming portion of the population lives in the villages and makes a living from the land.”[1]

Consequently, “Villages were small and usually related to a preindustrial city which functioned as both an administrative center and a central place of worship.

These preindustrial cities lived off the crops of agricultural people in the surround.

*Peasant freeholders, that is, peasants who owned and farmed their own land, had economic obligations that severely limited prospects for moving beyond a bare subsistence level.*

Obligations were both internal and external to the family.”[2]

The word “subsistence” according to Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary means

 

“*1.*

*condition of managing to stay alive:*  the condition of being or managing to stay alive, especially when there is barely enough food or money for survival.”[3]

*Therefore, the vast majority of the people who populate the pages of the New Testament had barely enough food and other resources for survival!

*This fact must be taken into consideration when talking about money, prosperity, giving, etc., in the New Testament.

Now, this is very difficult for American people to understand, because

 

·        There was *no* middleclass in the Bible and that’s we have become accustomed to dealing with.

·        There was *no* movement from one class to another, which is a part of the American dream.

·        There were really four classes of people:  the ruling elite, the service class to the political elite, a service class to the village, and the peasants.

Ø     The small ruling elite controlled and were advantaged by most of the distribution.

Ø     The service class to the political elite was made up of priests, soldiers, merchants, and craftsmen.

The service class to the village was made up of traveling or local craftsmen, village elders, and local religious leaders.

“Lenski (1966:284) has estimated that only 2% of the agrarian population belongs to the ruling elite, about 8% of which comprises the service class in the cities, and the remaining 90% or so tills the soil or services the village”[4] as toiling agriculturalists.

Did you get that?

*90% of the people who populate the pages of the people are toiling farmers who live at subsistence level!*

 

/(How did subsistence level impact their food supply?)/

“Though it can vary from person to person, people living in modern industrial societies require approximately 2,500-2,800 calories per day to meet basic needs.

Estimates for Roman Palistine (/Palestine is what the Romans called the land of Israel/) very from 1,800-2,400 calories per day, primarily obtained from grain.

*Up to one-fourth of the calories came from alcohol.*

The availability of calories from grain and produce in a peasant family in antiquity would have varied inversely with the number of mouths to feed.”[5]  *If we subtract the one-fourth of the calories that came from alcohol the Israelites would have 1,350 to 1,800 calories a day, which came mostly from grain.

In addition, the larger the family—and these tended to be larger families—the less food each of them would have.*

Furthermore, “Seed for planting and feed for livestock could amount to a substantial portion of the annual produce.

In medieval peasant societies where records exist, seed could consume one-third of grain production and feed and additional one-fourth.”[6]

*So, also subtract that from what they would have to eat!*

 

       If this wasn’t bad enough, “A farm cannot produce everything needed for subsistence.

Some produce, therefore, had to be reserved for acquiring equipment, utensils, or food the family did not produce.”[7]

*This too must be subtracted from the grain that was available!*

However, there were even more obligations!

“Participation in weddings or other local festivals and the requirements of cultic or religious obligations required yet another portion of the annual produce.

This could vary substantially from place to place and year to year.”[8]  *This included Temple sacrifices for annual feasts!*

 

       *Now, we haven’t even mentioned taxes!*  “Most agrarian societies expropriated between ten and fifty percent of the annual produce in taxes.

Recent estimates for Roman Palestine, including a variety of both civil and religious taxes, put the figure at 35-40%.”[9]

“Since it is difficult to arrive at precise figures for each of the various obligations, drawing conclusions about what might have been available for family subsistence can be only an estimate at best.

*Nonetheless, recent attempts (1993) to do that for Roman Palestine in the first century suggest that in good years freeholding peasant families may have had as much as 10-20% of annual produce available for meeting subsistence needs.*

Large families and small landholdings thus placed the peasant family close to the margin of survival.

In the case of the tenant farmers who owned land-rent in addition to the above, the amount available would have been far less.”[10]

That is the context and background for the one in seven verses about money, in the Gospels.

\\ /(Finally,)/

 

·        There was *no* money, as we think about it.

“In the rural village money transactions were rare.

The usual course was bartering something of mutual value or something else, and then only with someone who was known by the family and trusted (like family).”[11]

*Money was primarily used for taxes!*

 

*Therefore, even though one out of seven verses in the Gospels is about money, those verses are not about money as we think about it!*

So, our interpretation of what the writers of the New Testament meant by money and prosperity must be viewed through this context!

An important question that I have never heard discussed about what I just discussed is, “Why?”  *“Why were most of the Israelites in the New Testament peasants?”

*The answer is an astounding revelation that is simple to God, but profound to me:  the Israelites had rebelled against God and enemies were occupying their territory!

*Consequently, this is not what God wanted for His people!*  So, what did God want for His people!

I believe the best place to find that answer, in the New Testament, is in the Sermon on the Mount, i.e.

Matthew the 5th through 7th chapters, because that is where Jesus preaches on the culture of the Kingdom!

One of the major words that comes up there is “blessed,” which literally means happy.

Therefore, God wants us to live a Kingdom life that will result in our happiness!

·        This is much more about the inside than the outside.

·        This is much more about character than characteristics.

·        This is much more about living for the Kingdom than living for the culture.

·        This is much more about what has you than what you have.

\\ Living this kind of life is good, whether you are rich or poor.

So, it doesn’t seem that God is ultimately interested in whether we are rich or poor, but whether we are living for the Kingdom, no matter what our financial status.

Paul touches on this in

 

Philippians 4:11-12 (NASB), “11 Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.”

Neither should we enshrine poverty, nor bedevil richness!

We should not be consumed by either, but rather with Kingdom living!

What is sometimes interesting to me is that I don’t hear prosperity preachers dealing with texts like:

 

1 Timothy 6:3-10 (NASB), “3 If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, 4 he is conceited /and/ understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, 5 and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.

6 But godliness /actually/ is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.

7 For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either.

8 If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.

9 But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.

10 For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

This is not so much about richness and money as it is being consumed with being rich and loving money more than one should!

I happen to believe that God wants us to have enough and be prosperous enough to depend upon Him, to be content with what we have, to serve Him, and facilitate His Kingdom!

 

       Therefore, this means that all of the people in the Bible are poor or have just enough.