What’s Wrong with the Prosperity Gospel? A Biblical Evaluation
- Jack Selcher
- Sep 10, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Summary
The prosperity gospel falsely teaches that God rewards stronger faith with health and wealth. It misinterprets biblical promises, shifts focus from God to His gifts, distorts giving, denies the role of suffering, and treats faith as a tool to manipulate God. Scripture teaches spiritual blessing, self-denial, and submission to God’s will, not material gain as proof of faith.
What's Wrong with the Prosperity Gospel
Prosperity gospel preachers insist God wants believers to be healthy and wealthy. They say that He rewards growing faith with progressively greater measures of health and wealth.
When Christians push the faith pedal to the floor when they request things, they obligate God to give them what they want. It is like ordering online whatever they want for $10.00, and God is the no-charge UPS or FedEx delivery Guy who places $100.00 worth of goods on their doorstep.
If they had more faith, it could have been $10,000.00. What is wrong with the prosperity gospel?
Misreading God’s Promises
· The prosperity gospel misinterprets God’s promises to Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, 17, and 22 as physical and material blessings instead of spiritual blessings.
· It motivates people to value the gifts they think they can get from God more than Him. God sees right through that (John 6:25–27).
· It encourages Christians to give because of what they can get from their giving rather than to give cheerfully (2 Corinthians 9:7). Jesus told us to lend to our enemies without expecting anything back (Luke 6:35).
· It leads believers to think they should never suffer or have financial problems. When they do, they conclude something is wrong with them or God. The Bible teaches that we experience pain because sin broke God’s original creation (Romans 8:23). It also teaches that enemies of Christianity will persecute believers (John 15:20). That is not painless.
Faith as Manipulation Instead of Transformation
· It teaches believers that prayer/faith is about manipulating God rather than about changing them to become more like Jesus. The focus is their will rather than God’s will be done. That is contrary to Matthew 6:10.
Giving, Suffering, and Self-Denial Ignored
· It teaches, contrary to Ephesians 2:8-9, that Christians generate faith rather than faith coming from God as a gift. Unlike the Bible, it does not teach that suffering is normal and necessary for believers (Philippians 1:29, Acts 14:21).
· It does not teach the biblical doctrine of self-denial (Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23, Romans 8:13, Philippians 3:8).
· According to Kenneth Copeland, Christ’s atonement on the cross covered our sin, sickness, disease, sorrow, grief, and poverty.1 Not so.
· Its leaders misinterpret 2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV) (“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich”) to teach an increase in material wealth rather than the exact opposite (2 Corinthians 8:14).
The Spotlight on Leaders, Not God
· Its leaders are in the spotlight. God’s grace and greatness are not.
Its leaders live in mansions unaffordable to the average person in their congregations. By contrast, Jesus had “no place even to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20 NLT).2 See additional free spiritual growth resources for Christians.
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