Ask yourself this question: how much of your thinking about wealth aligns with God’s thinking?
I’ve found that many people can’t properly answer this question because most of their thinking about wealth is based on someone else’s perspective, their own feelings, some tradition they interacted with, or one of the million other reasons why 96% of Christians don’t have a biblical worldview.
Mark 7:7 is worth noticing in the passage we talked about last time. “They teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”
There are two abilities that you and I have. We have the ability to experience information, and we have the ability to interpret information. The problem often comes not in the experience, but the interpretation. There is nothing wrong with experiencing things. The problem always arises with us elevating our interpretation to the level of truth. Ideas are great, and interpretation is how the human mind makes sense of the world. The problem does not arise from my interpretation. My interpretation is just my interpretation. The problem arises when I elevate my interpretation to the level of a command from God.
The human interpretation is often wrong, and needs to change. One of the truths I’ve discovered in my own life, is that the more I pursue God, the more my interpretation of information needs to change. Jesus gives us a philosophical challenge about our beliefs. He shows us that it’s not truth that affects us, it’s what we believe about truth. The Pharisees believed that their responsibility was to interpret the laws of God for people. They were the educated, academic, experts who studied the law of God in depth. The problem was not with their study. The problem arose when they decided that their ideas = God’s ideas. That’s also the problem with modern-day Pharisees. These descendants of ancient Pharisees are the kind of people who tell you that you can’t use instruments in worship, dancing and “secular music” are demonic, the King James translation was the version that Jesus used, women can’t wear makeup, you can’t wear a hat in church, the only true prayer that matters is if you pray in tongues, and you should only address God as Adonai. I didn’t make any of these examples up. These are all things that I have personally been told. Are these things good ideas? Should people practice them for one reason or another depending on their context? Maybe. Are they commands from God for us today? No. Not at all. We have to be able to clearly tell – and show – the distinction between God’s commands and human ideas. Or, we can be like Pharisees who get mad when other people don’t wash their hands before they eat.
Oftentimes, as humans, we think that something is true because we believe that it is. And what is interesting about the way that humans work, is that we find confirmation for our beliefs everywhere we tend to look. Jesus tells us that our beliefs are so important that they can actually prevent the “truth” of God’s word from being true in our lives. Some people are the kind of people who will show up to pray for someone in the hospital and will pray for “God’s will.” When you pray “God’s will” in a situation, what do you believe that it is? Do you believe that God’s will is to heal someone or not? That belief will determine how you pray, and how you act. Ultimately, it’s up to God to determine whether or not he wants to heal an individual. But, if I’m in the hospital, I don’t need “God’s will” prayers. I need prayers that align with God’s will to heal me. So many people tend to spiritualize the limitations they have placed on themselves – and God. This is the point that Jesus is making in Mark 7. It’s about a lot more than money. It’s about life. What you believe is even more important than what God’s word says. God has actually given us the power to cancel out the word of God in our own life through our thinking.
Thousands of times, Scripture teaches us that God’s will is to prosper us in every way. If we decide not to agree with God’s definition of prosperity, whether that’s because of culture, tradition or something else, then our prosperity will be limited by our belief, not by God’s will. The problem of prosperity is not God’s definition. It’s not whether God wants it for you. It’s whether you want it for you and are willing to agree with God’s definition.
Could the problem really be our own limited thinking? That seems to always be our problem.
8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens
and stay on the ground to water the earth.
They cause the grain to grow,
producing seed for the farmer
and bread for the hungry.
11 It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it.(Isaiah 55:8-11, NLT)
the church at Corinth
Ancient Corinth was one of the largest and most important cities in Greece. It was about halfway between Athens and Sparta, and at its height, it had a population of close to 100,000 people. In Corinth, Galio, the brother of Seneca – the philosopher – presided over the trial of Paul. Paul worked in Corinth as a tentmaker and founded the Church in Corinth during his time there. The church at Corinth was dramatic. They were split into different factions and followed different leaders (1 Corinthians 1:10-13). Prostitution and other sexual sins were prevalent (1 Corinthians 6:9-20). Church members were suing each other (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). Some church members would eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, which created division among those who were “stronger and weaker” in the faith (1 Corinthians 8). The church gatherings were chaotic. The services were interrupted by random people in the crowd speaking in tongues and misusing spiritual gifts(1 Corinthians 11:2-16, 14:26-40). Wealthy people within the church were using communion as an excuse to become drunk during church services and corrupting the purpose of communion (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). Paul calls them “infants in Christ,” “arrogant” and threatens to “come to [them] with a rod” in 1 Corinthians 4:21. And that was just what Paul addressed in 1 Corinthians.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul has learned that the church he founded is continuing to struggle. 2 Corinthians is an interesting Epistle to me because Paul is at his most vulnerable in writing it. He gives more insight into his personal life and feelings than he does in any other Epistle. He continues to be harsh with them, but expresses that his harshness is out of deep love and sorrow to help them. Paul is much more gentle with the Thessalonian church and the Philippian church, but felt the need to strongly correct the thinking of the Corinthian church. Some in the church mistook Paul’s gentleness for weakness or a lack of authority (2 Corinthians 10:1–2). In response, he defended himself by asserting his equal standing with the other apostles, his deep understanding of the Christian faith, his endurance of severe suffering for Christ, and his direct experiences of divine visions and revelations (11:1–12:13). Paul is not just harsh, but is also sarcastic and even defensive about his leadership of the church in the midst of their divisions. The Corinthian church struggled with pride, sin and confusion as to what “truth” was.
There are two main sections of 2 Corinthians. We will focus on the first one. In this first section, Paul explains various leadership dynamics, forgives those who opposed him, and reflects on the nature of leadership. For Paul, leadership meant both intense suffering and comfort. Physical and emotional suffering came from the situations and people he worked with. His comfort came from the experience of God working through him, and the knowledge of a future reward. Sometimes, we can see Bible characters as beyond human. We tend to think that they did not struggle with the same kinds of conflicts, feelings and disillusionments that we tend to face. Human nature has not changed in our 10,000 years of history. Marcus Aurelius defines this struggle this way in The Meditations: “Say to yourself first thing in the morning: I shall meet with people who are meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable. They are subject to these faults because of their ignorance of what is good and bad.”
When we learn and grow, there is an interesting phenomenon that takes place. We begin to expect people to somehow know what we know, and be guided by our knowledge and not their own. We are not born wise. We only become wise through education and training. When we make errors in judgement, this stems from ignorance of what is truly good. Why do I take time to express this in a book about prosperity? Because, if we are learning, growing and committing to helping others, Paul’s frustration will inevitably become our experience too. If you are a part of a church, or any organization really, think about the drama and/or chaos that is prevalent throughout that organization. That chaos is ultimately not a reflection of the organization itself, but the humanity within it. When a person becomes a “leader,” they decide to become a person who makes themselves responsible for trying to bring peace to chaos. Leaders aren’t ultimately addressing the chaos of a group, team or organization, they are addressing the chaos of humanity within that group, team or organization. What many young, or immature leaders tend to do is abandon the premise entirely. Look beyond the church at Corinth. Think about the modern, western church.
We don’t have these same controversies, but there is humanity. And where there is humanity, there is entropy. There is always a human pull towards disorder. In many ways, this seems unavoidable. The solution for some is to abandon the idea of the Church. Or to see Christianity as a monolith that requires deconstruction and rebuilding. The idea of deconstruction of the church, or anything else is not new. The Church is a God-idea, but Scripture does not tell us everything about how to run a church. People don’t like mega-churches. This is understandable for many reasons. What do you do when you start a house church and 1000 people start showing up? All through Scripture, and history, there are attempts to create structures around God’s idea for the church. All of these structures are imperfect, flawed, and will ultimately crumble, because they are human. Even deconstructionist structures come with their own inherent flaws and weaknesses. On this side of eternity, there is no such thing
“even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9, NLT)
In the middle of Paul’s frustration with the church, he reveals this vulnerable line of thinking. Inherent within the flaws, weaknesses and failings of ourselves and the things we build is the thing that God uses.
As we discuss prosperity and the context of Christianity, I think its vitally important to remember Paul’s response to the perceived failure of the church at Corinth. Not to abandon it, tear it down or become its enemy. But to keep trying. I love my dad’s definition of God’s grace: “The power of God to do things God’s way.” In the midst of what humans are not, that is where God can give us His power to do things His way. In the midst of what the things humans build, and what they are not, can God give us the same kind of ability to continue to strive to do it His way? The church at Corinth shows us this interplay between the God-dream of His Church and the human endeavor to partner with Him to build it. We might not ever get there. We will experience difficulty, chaos and even our own self-created entropy. But the pursuit of what it “could be” is always worth it.