Monday, February 26, 2007

Prosperity Gospel?

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Genesis 32:26b

I'm not sure, but is this one of those scriptures that people quote to support the Prosperity Gospel?

It sure seems like it's giving us permission to demand a blessing from God.

And hey, who wouldn't like to be blessed?

The problem I have with people who insist that God wants to bless us, is that it always seems to be some sort of Western/Consumer Driven style blessing.

I wonder how some Christians would feel if they asked for God to bless them, only to hear a knock on the door, and find a needy person asking for help (it is better to give then to receive)?

But lets just assume that God does see blessings as purely the socially acceptable monetary value added type of thing... we'd still have to look at the scripture in context right?

During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions. This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!”
Genesis 32:24-26

Now I'm no Bible scholar, but it seems like Jacob was up all night, wrestling with God in the flesh. Now I'm not sure that that's gonna ever happen again, but using Jacob's blessing as a bench mark, if we want that brand new, 42" HiDef Widescreen, we've got a whole night of wrestling with God, presumably through full on prayer, and then when morning comes, right before God delivers us our new piece of home entertainment, wham!, we've just suffered a massive hip injury.

But scream in pain as we might want to, we can't, not if we want that TV, we've still got to hold on and demand it from God.

Finally God relents, we have our TV but will never play sports again, because, gosh-darn-it, we didn't ask God to pay for Hip replacement surgery.

Oh, and none of your friends will be able to come over and enjoy the TV with you, 'cause they can't find you in the WhitePages as you've had to go change your name to Kazakhstan or some other country's name (v.28).

1 comment:

Mike Messerli said...

funny post. well written. I had an old pastor friend who said, "If it doesn't teach in Haiti (the poorest country on the hemisphere) it's not bible."

I agree with him, and you put it in a very humorous way.

thanks

LinkWithin