(upbeat music) - So begins a new week of episodes with John Piper on the Ask Pastor John podcast. Thanks for listening. Pastor John, we have an email from a listener named Kai Tam. Pastor John, how do you practically and lovingly lead your loved ones who are steeped in the prosperity gospel all their lives back to the true gospel?

I come from Malaysia and Singapore, places immersed in prosperity gospel theology. I understand that in 2 Timothy, Paul says there will come such days as these where people will gather for themselves teachers that suit their own passions. But what if these are your close friends and family whom you love so much?

How do you teach or love or rebuke or reprove them? I'm training for ministry in Melbourne. One day I will go back to Singapore, God willing to preach and pastor there. And I know as Paul advised, I should preach in every season being ready to rebuke, reprove and exhort.

So what does this look like in a culture so steeped in the prosperity gospel? Just yesterday, I was writing an article about these days being the best of times and the worst of times. And one of the evidences of it being the worst of times that I mentioned has to do with the so-called prosperity gospel.

I wrote, "I have watched the rise of enormous churches and ministries who preach and export to poor nations a prosperity, quote, gospel, unquote, that mutes the Bible teaching on suffering and reduces the glorious gospel to earthly betterment rooted in human attitudes, not the glory of Calvary." That was my sentence that I wrote down.

And there are three criticisms and I wanna just mention these so that it can inform the counsel that I give to Kai. Number one, downplaying the vast scriptural theology of suffering expected of Christians, the suffering that's expected of Christians and promised to Christians like 1 Peter 4.19, "Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good." So the prosperity gospel downplays this vast pervasive teaching in the Bible that we're called upon to suffer.

And it's not just persecution suffering, but body wasting away disease type suffering in Romans 8.23 and 2 Corinthians 4.16. So Christians in the prosperity churches are often profoundly unprepared for what life under God's providence is gonna deal them. And that's tragic. And so it's right for Kai to feel jealous about his family, that he can figure out a way to help them see these things.

And here's just one little sidebar. My wife is going to Africa in a few weeks. Well, I think sometime this fall. And she's going for the third time as part of a ministry to give wheelchairs to the disabled who can only crawl around or stay in their simple houses.

And a wheelchair changes the life of many. And she made the point to me as I was talking to her about this the other day, that big prosperity ministries, as they're looking for partners there to help them, big prosperity ministries usually give little help because disabled people in a wheelchair are an embarrassment to their ministry.

They don't have a biblical theology of suffering and the fruit is not pretty. So that's my first concern, the downplaying of a biblical theology of suffering that would help people so much prepare for what necessarily must come in this life. And the second thing is the prosperity gospel reduces the glorious gospel to earthly betterment.

The dominant gift of the gospel in the New Testament is not earthly betterment. The dominant gift is the joy of reconciliation with God and eternal joys at His right hand forever through Jesus Christ. Whether life in this age goes better here on earth is quite secondary to the New Testament way of looking at things.

There's gonna be a great day on a new earth where everything is made glorious, but that's not the immediate payoff of the gospel in front of everything else in the New Testament. The biggest problem in the world is that God is angry at His creatures for rebelling against them.

And the central good of the good news is that in Christ, God took the initiative to satisfy that anger and make Himself our treasure and not our terror. So prosperity preaching skews all that so badly by turning possible and secondary effects of the gospel into primary certain outcomes, which they're not.

And the third problem that I see is that prosperity teachers distort the ground of our salvation by putting the emphasis on whether we can produce the kind of faith that gets healed and gets rich rather than putting it on the glorious work of Christ in dying and rising to bear the guilt of our sin and propitiate the wrath of God.

So what I would suggest to Kai as he considers talking to his family about this is number one, concede and celebrate that they are right to believe that God aims at the happiness and the health and the wealth of His children eventually. God did not send Jesus into the world to make them eternally miserable, but eternally happy.

And to remove all tears from their eyes, Revelation 21, 4. But raise the question with your family about timing. Prosperity preachers get the timing of this all wrong. Is all of that wonderful promise intended for now in this age in full? Or does the Bible teach that God saves us in stages or phases and that this earthly walk between conversion and glorification is one of much suffering in the hope of glory?

So my suggestion to Kai is that if he can tackle this with them, make it an emphasis on timing, not whether we will be eventually healthy, wealthy, and happy in God. And second thing I would suggest is talk to them about God Himself being our greatest treasure, not His gifts.

For example, "Whom have I in heaven but you? "And there's nothing on earth I desire besides you. "My flesh and my heart may fail, "but God is the strength of my heart "and my portion forever," Psalm 73, 25. And the text that Noelle and I used in our wedding, she just called my attention to it the other day.

"Though the fig tree should not blossom, "nor fruit be on the vines, "the produce of the olive fail, "the fields yield no food, "the flock be cut off from the fold, "there be no herd in the stalls, "yet I will rejoice in the Lord. "I will take joy in the God of my salvation." That is so foreign to the mindset of prosperity preachers because of what is taken away in that verse and how joy abounds in that verse.

And the third thing I would say to Kai is raise with your family the issue of how they can love those with permanent disabilities. Are they embarrassed by them in their community? Or is it a sign of Christ's love that they care for them? And is it a sign of great faith that these people, while not healed, are rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God rather than being miserable and angry at God?

Isn't that glorious faith? And the fourth thing I would say is ask the family, ask them, what they think of the promises of suffering in the Bible. If they say, "Well, it's all persecution. "We're not promised to suffer from sickness," then point them to those texts which show that it includes the bodies wasting away.

Ask them about those texts. My sense is that the necessity of all suffering is minimized in prosperity preaching. All suffering is minimized, not just the necessity of persecution suffering. And fifth, share stories of great saints in history whom God used mightily and who suffered enormously. And sixth, as a means to these kinds of conversations, ask your parents or brothers and sisters, whoever you're having to deal with, ask them for permission to talk about these things and set up a time when they're expecting it rather than being rushed or surprised by it and needing to be defensive.

I just think a lot of times we try to sow the seeds of our ideas on the spur of the moment and it's never quite the right time. We just need to ask them permission to set up the right time. And the last thing I would say to Kai is pray that God would give them eyes to see that there is great joy in suffering now and there will be great joy and prosperity at Christ's coming.

First Peter 4:13, rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. Amen, thank you Pastor John, very helpful counsel. And for more on this topic, be sure to listen to episode number 320. It's titled Six Keys to Detecting the Prosperity Gospel.

You can find that episodes and all of our episodes at zaringod.org/askpastorjohn or also in our free mobile apps. Well, the new school year is well underway and tomorrow John Piper shares seven tips for students. I'm your host Tony Reinke, I'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)