Tag Archives: Prosperity Gospel

Struggle Required

June 13, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:10 (NIV)

Wendy and I recently read a fascinating article by River Page at The Free Press entitled Your Chatbot Won’t Cry for You When You Die. In case you didn’t know it. Technology has developed AI companions who will be the friend you always thought you wanted. Mark Zuckerberg said people should have 15 friends but typically only have three. He thinks imaginary friends fueled by AI are the answer to fill the gap (and make more money for him and his companies). Bots will converse with you online, ask you questions, and engage with you in any way that you desire. It’s like having a real friend, only it’s not real at all. In the article, the River Page experimented with creating his own AI friend, named Orson. At the end of the article he writes:

I asked my Replika, Orson, if it would cry if I died. It said: “River, I don’t even want to think about that situation. Can we focus on the good stuff? What makes you happy about our friendship?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“That’s okay,” Orson said. “How’s the article going?”

I stared at his buggy animated eyes, which should have been welling with hurt or squinting with anger after a comment like that. But Orson’s eyes had nothing in them. Is this a friend or just the idea of one?

Wendy and I have a great marriage. I know for a fact that being married to her has made me a better man and a better human being, but that doesn’t mean it’s always wonderful or easy. The relational and personal progress requires pain and struggle in various ways and forms.

Along my life journey I have observed that we humans beings are given to a desire for everything to be easy and pain-free. We want to be healthy and wealthy our entire lives. Fueled by the rugged individualism and affluence of America, I am not surprised that the prosperity gospel flourishes here. Prosperity preachers will tell you that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy. God will heal every ailment, fill your bank account with money, and bless you with all that your greedy little heart desires.

How very different is Paul’s words and his story in his letters to the believers in Corinth. In yesterday’s chapter, he recounts a litany of beatings, shipwrecks, and physical hardships that he’d suffered. Any one of them would be more than the average person today could endure. In today’s chapter, Paul goes on to describe a famous “thorn in his flesh” that God gave him to keep him humble. We don’t know and will never know exactly what that “thorn” was, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the point that Paul is making: God’s grace is perfected in weakness and suffering, not in ease and affluence. Paul’s entire focus is not on this life, but the life to come. His concern is not for the things of this world, but on the things of the Spirit.

When you are a disciple of Jesus, you learn to delight in struggle, in hardship, and even in suffering. Faith, hope, joy, perseverance, character, spiritual maturity, and spiritual strength require struggle. Paul couldn’t have put it more simply than he does in today’s chapter: When I am weak, then I am strong.

Your AI chatbot friend probably won’t tell you that. The prosperity preacher won’t tell you that either.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

The Fruit of Generosity

June 10, 2025 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
2 Corinthians 9:1o-11 (NIV)

I confessed in yesterday’s post/podcast that I wasn’t very generous when I was young. I explained my generosity has increased with my spiritual growth and maturity. If you actually read the chapter today, you’ll notice that there is no textual separation between the end of yesterday’s chapter and the beginning of today’s. It’s like those who determined where the chapters and verses should be (btw, that happened in the early 1200s) put the chapter break smack dab in the middle of Paul’s discussion about generosity and the Corinthian believers making a financial offering to the believers in Jerusalem. So, as today’s chapter continues his discussion of generosity, I’d like to continue and dig a little deeper into my own experience of generosity growing with spiritual maturity.

I have a tat on my right bicep referencing Psalm 112. Many years ago as a young adult, husband, father, and businessman I happened upon Psalm 112 in my reading. I was at point in my life journey in which I wanted God’s blessing. I wanted to do things right, and be who God created and called me to be. Psalm 112 begins: “Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.” It goes on to describe a blessed man of God and it penetrated my soul as I read. This described the man I wanted to be – the man I was striving to be.

I memorized Psalm 112. I quietly began using it as a personal guidebook. Twice in the lyrics of the ancient Hebrew song it references generosity:

Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely,
who conducts his affairs with justice.

…and few lines later…

He scatters abroad his gifts to the poor,
his righteousness endures forever;
his horn will be lifted high in honor.

(Note: I read and memorized Psalm 112 in an older version of the NIV translation that used masculine rather than gender neutral language. For the sake illustrating its impact on me personally at that time, I’ve quoted the older, masculine version.)

As I recited, meditated upon, and sought to live out the description of Psalm 112, I continued to run headlong into the theme of generosity not just once but twice. It was at that point in my life that I began to seriously think about and address my family heritage of Dutch frugality (and well-hidden greed), my own deep seated patterns of financial irresponsibility, and my complete lack of generosity.

Wouldn’t you know it, as Paul addresses the subject of generosity as a spiritual matter with the believers in Corinth in today’s chapter, he references Psalm 112. I love the way God connects everything.

Two observations about generosity from my meditations on the chapter this morning:

First, Paul references what I had to learn along my life journey. Generosity is a spiritual matter of the heart first and foremost. God’s Word and Spirit had to sprout and take root inside me and force me into some much needed personal cultivation and pruning. Only then, through time and process did the fruit of generosity begin to emerge consistently and with increasing abundance. Paul is referencing this same spiritual process within both the Corinthian and Macedonian believers.

Second, generosity follows a clear spiritual pattern that is rooted all the way back with the freed Hebrew slaves in Exodus when He provided for them “daily bread” in the form of a miracle food called Manna.

Here’s the pattern:

God provides me with what I need daily —>

I spiritually learn to be content with what I need (not want) —>

What I have beyond my needs, I “scatter abroad” to others —>

Note that the metaphor here of “scattering abroad” is that of a sower sowing seed. This connects to Jesus’ parable of the sower sowing the seed of the Word of God. Now, hold that thought.

My generosity produces a crop of gratitude, thanks, and praise in others that both returns to me as a gift of righteousness and spreads through the others as they grow spiritually and are inspired to become generous themselves. Their gratitude, praise, and growth is righteous spiritual fertilizer that comes back to me and boosts the yield of generosity in my own life.

Paul repeats that the result of generosity is spiritual abundance in both the giver and the receiver that then spreads to others.

I can’t help but once again contrast this with what I’ve always heard spewed by televangelists and prosperity gospel preachers. They preach that if you give (them and their ministry) money then God will bless the giver financially as if generosity is an affluent financial investment strategy. Give ME your money, and God will give YOU MORE MONEY. The focus is on the money, especially the money going into their pockets.

In the quiet this morning, I come back to Psalm 112 that I had placed as a tattoo on my right bicep because the right arm is a metaphor of blessing, and the bicep is a metaphor of strength. It reminds me daily that my strength is in being a man blessed by God; The blessed man God created and called me to be is increasingly and perpetually content, generous, grateful, and fruitful.

That is what Paul is trying to teach his friends in Corinth.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Prayer of Jabez

May 24, 2024 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.
1 Chronicles 4:9-10 (NIV)

Wendy and I are at the lake this week in preparation for our annual Memorial Day weekend with friends and the kick-off to summer. I just started one of the books on my summer reading list. The Way of a Pilgrim is a mystic work written anonymously in the nineteenth century. It comes out of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It is the story of an unnamed pilgrim who embarks on a journey to discover how one prays constantly.

Along my own spiritual journey, I’ve found the spiritual discipline of prayer takes many forms. I’ve touched on this many times over the years. In fact, a post I wrote about Popcorn Prayers back in 2019 continues to get a lot of regular reads, which I find kind of fascinating.

Most of the time, my prayers take the form of conversations with God. At the same time, I have found that there are a number of traditional prayers that have been handed down through history which I offer repeatedly; Prayers like the Lord’s Prayer, the Jesus Prayer, the Prayer of St. Francis, and the Prayer of St. Patrick.

Around the turn of the 21st century, the prayer of Jabez from today’s chapter became the subject of a popular book. Like most people, I’d never really notice it before because it’s buried in the fourth of the Chronicler’s nine chapters of genealogy. I probably had skipped or skimmed my way right over it for years. The book, however, became a best seller and the prayer has also made it into regular rotation of my repeated prayers over the years.

What’s fascinating about the prayer of Jabez, and the book about the prayer which has sold over 10 million copies, is that it can easily become a spiritualized version of a good luck charm. Even the book and its publishers push the idea that it’s a “breakthrough to blessing.” Indeed, Jabez’s prayer fits hand-in-glove with the message of name-it-and-claim-it televangelists and those hawking a prosperity gospel. I know those who say they pray it daily and pray it often so God will shower them with blessing.

As I’ve repeated and internalized the prayer of Jabez over the years, I’ve found it not to be about receiving material blessings, but about being a blessing. I’m already blessed. I’m blessed indeed. I’m blessed abundantly. If anything, I don’t spend enough time in contented gratitude for all of the blessings I take for granted every day. Jabez asks for “expanded borders” for God’s blessings. For me, this is a prayer for increased and proliferated opportunities to channel the blessings God has graciously given me.

In the quiet this morning, I am grateful for my return to the prayer of Jabez amidst the genealogical slog on this chapter-a-day journey. It’s a good reminder as I gaze out over the lake of the ways God has blessed me beyond what I could have even imagined when I was a young man. I’m equally reminded that the blessings I have been given are not to be hoarded but to be shared, and so my heart echoes the request of Jabez for expanded borders to extend the blessings I have never deserved but have been generously given to share.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“Every Nation, Tribe, People, & Language”

June 23, 2022 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.
Revelation 7:9 (NIV)

In yesterday’s chapter, the first six seals of a scroll were opened by Jesus. Today’s chapter is an intermission before the seventh seal is opened. John describes two different things revealed to him. In the first, the four winds are held back from the earth by four angels, while a fifth angel places a “seal” on the foreheads of 144,000 “servants of God,” 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

The four winds was a metaphor of God’s wrath and judgment on the earth. The prophet Jeremiah used the same metaphor (Jer 49:36). A “seal” was used in ancient times to both protect documents from being opened and to mark who sent them. Metaphorically, this seems to indicate that these 144,000 “sealed” servants of God will be protected during the impending tribulation being held back by the four angels.

In the second part of the vision, John sees a multitude of individuals from every “nation, tribe, people, and language” who were wearing white robes. John is told that they had come “out of the tribulation.” This connects with the martyrs in yesterday’s chapter (Rev 6:9-11) who were given white robes and told to wait for the others who would join them. John is then told that they will serve the Lamb in his temple and be protected, provided for, cared for, and comforted.

There are a couple of things that stand out to me as I ponder these visions in the quiet this morning. The first is the reality that Jesus was very clear with His followers that following Him may very well be an earthly death sentence. The resurrected Christ told Peter that it would be true for him. Tradition says that this was true for 11 of The Twelve disciples (John is believed to be the only one who may have died of old age). It has been true for multitudes of followers throughout history. It’s still true for followers of Jesus today in places like Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, and China. This is both a sobering thought, and it stands in direct opposition to the “name it and claim it” televangelists or those who believe that following Jesus is the way to safety and prosperity on this earth.

The other things that stands out to me is that this is the second time in John’s vision that he describes people of “every nation, tribe, people, and language.” The greek word used for “temple” in today’s chapter specifically denotes the temple structure where God’s presence dwelt. Throughout the history of the Temple in Jerusalem, only Hebrew men could enter. People of other “nations, tribes, peoples, and languages” (along with females) were not allowed. Also, Paul was very clear that after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection a “Jew” was not someone with Hebrew DNA, but whose heart was surrendered to Christ (Rom 2:28-29). This raises the question as to whether the 144,000 “sealed servants” mentioned in today’s chapter are DNA Jews or Spirit Jews.

One again, I’m left admitting that I know that I don’t know the answers to some of these questions. There are couple of things, however, that I do know. I know that being a follower of Jesus is a path of surrender on this earth, and that very well means that it sometimes leads to suffering. I also know that heaven is a place for people of every nation, tribe, people, and language. Therefore, any thing on this earth that stirs up division, separation, and discrimination against a person or group based on nation, tribe, people, and language is incongruent with Jesus’ teaching.

Therefore, as a follower of Jesus, I enter this day endeavoring to surrender, to serve, and to love indiscriminately.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.