SUBVERSIVE KINGDOM STUDY FREE

Believers, especially leaders in the church (1 Timothy 3:3), are to be free from the love of money (Hebrews 13:5). Instead of stressing the importance of wealth, the Bible warns against pursuing it. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Far from speaking things into existence in the future, we do not even know what tomorrow will bring or even whether we will be alive. James 4:13-16 clearly contradicts this teaching: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. Thus, God’s ability to bless us supposedly hangs on our faith. Then God is required to answer (as though man could require anything of God!). Your confessions, especially the favors you demand of God, must all be stated positively and without wavering. What you say, prosperity teachers claim, determines everything that happens to you. As the name “Word of Faith” implies, this movement teaches that faith is a matter of what we say more than whom we trust or what truths we embrace and affirm in our hearts.Ī favorite term of prosperity gospel teachers is “ positive confession.” This refers to the teaching that words themselves have creative power. Faith, according to the Word of Faith doctrine, is not submissive trust in God faith is a formula by which we manipulate the spiritual laws that prosperity teachers believe govern the universe. Prosperity teaching prohibits God from working on His own, meaning that God is not Lord of all because He cannot work until we release Him to do so. Paul said covetousness is idolatry (Ephesians 5:5) and instructed the Ephesians to avoid anyone who brought a message of immorality or covetousness (Ephesians 5:6-7). It should also be remembered that the only disciple concerned with wealth was Judas. But He did not, preferring instead to have no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20) and teaching His disciples to do the same.

If riches were a reasonable goal for the godly, Jesus would have pursued it. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (v. The pursuit of wealth is a dangerous path for Christians and one which God warns about: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. These men of “corrupt mind” supposed godliness was a means of gain and their desire for riches was a trap that brought them “into ruin and destruction” (v. Paul warned Timothy about such men in 1 Timothy 6:5, 9-11.

Subversive kingdom study