Why do the prosperity preachers seem to prosper?

The life of a prosperity preacher can be pretty good. Just ask Benny Hinn’s nephew, Costi Hinn.

Hinn writes, “Prosperity theology paid amazingly well. We lived in a 10,000-square-foot mansion guarded by a private gate, drove two Mercedes Benz vehicles, vacationed in exotic destinations, and shopped at the most expensive stores. On top of that, we bought a $2 million ocean-view home in Dana Point, California, where another Benz joined the fleet.”

Before college, Hinn worked as a “catcher” (someone who catches the people who are “slain in the spirit”) for his uncle. He describes that year as “…a whirlwind tour of luxury: $25,000-a-night royal suites in Dubai, seaside resorts in Greece, tours of the Swiss Alps, villas on Lake Como in Italy, basking on the golden coast of Australia, shopping sprees at Harrods in London, and numerous trips to Israel, Hawaii, and everywhere in between. The pay was great, we flew on our own private Gulfstream, and I got to buy custom suits. All I had to do was catch people and look spiritual!”

Nice work if you can get it.

The truth is a lot of professing Christians want to get it. Some years ago, Christianity Today reported that the prosperity gospel is taught to 40% of churchgoers. That’s about 21 million adult people each week considering the current rate of weekly church attendance in America.

Yikes.

Almost no professing believer seems immune to the prosperity preacher’s siren song. Witness the recent story about the late Christian music artist Mylon LeFevre who “sowed a seed offering” to Kenneth Copeland in the form of a Bentley with a Breitling clock in the hopes of overcoming his cancer.

LeFevre died of the disease on September 8, 2023.

And yet, Copeland is still going strong at 87, as are other prosperity preachers like him such as Hinn, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, John Hagee, Creflo Dollar, Paula White, and Joyce Meyer.

This raises a rather interesting question: Even though many Christians decry the prosperity gospel, why do so many of that gospel’s preachers seem to, well, prosper?

Who serves who?

The prosperity proclaimers often ask innocently: Is wanting to be successful and have monetary gain come from that success really wrong? After all, doesn’t John say, “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 2)? And weren’t various people in the Bible, like Abraham and Solomon, who were blessed by God wealthy?

On the one hand, no, there’s nothing wrong with working hard and succeeding in life from that labor. There is a decent volume of biblical content that points in that direction such as Proverbs 14:23 which says: “In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” But on the other hand, when that’s the sole focus of life and God becomes only a wishing well to get a big payoff, there be dragons.  

David W Jones gets to the heart of the issue when he says: “In light of Scripture, the prosperity gospel is fundamentally flawed. At bottom, it is a false gospel because of its faulty view of the relationship between God and man. Whether they’re talking about the Abrahamic covenant, the atonement, giving, faith, or prayer, prosperity teachers turn the relationship between God and man into a quid pro quo transaction.”

The prosperity message distorts the real gospel by turning spiritual truths into here-and-now channels of financial “blessings”. Jones traces the prosperity path through five checkpoints: 1. The Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement; 2. Jesus’s atonement extends to the “sin” of material poverty; 3. Christians give to gain material compensation from God; 4. Faith is a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity; 5. Prayer is a tool to force God to grant prosperity.

These fly in the face of numerous biblical admonitions such as “Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions” (Luke 12:15) and “[be] free from the love of money” (1 Tim. 3:3). Moreover, the Bible tells us these false prosperity doctrines are not new and that there were those in the early church who were “teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain … and in their greed they will exploit you with false words” (Titus 1:11; 2 Peter 2:3).

So far so good on the prosperity gospel being out of sync with Scripture. All that said, though, let’s return to the question of, if this is true, why do the prosperity preachers seem to live the high life? Isn’t that a sign of God blessing their work?

Costi Hinn struggled with such issues saying. “Despite the questions, I trusted my family because we were so successful.”

So, what are we to think?

First, let’s remember the old saying that goes, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Whether it’s prosperity preaching or other get-rich-quick schemes that aren’t religious, all of it is directed at everyone’s greedy desire to accumulate things we think will make us happy. And let’s face it — when the scammers are telling you there’s a transcendent hand ready and willing to deliver and they supposedly back it up with divine words on a page, the temptation can be overwhelming. Before long, all those “seed offerings” fill up the prosperity preacher’s pockets.     

That being true, let’s not forget this is very much a spiritual struggle on the giver's end; as James says: “…each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust” (James 1:14). Paul adds, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth” (2 Tim. 4:3–4).

OK, fine, understood but still … why does God allow for such teaching to continue and allow the prosperity preachers to maintain their plot of ground on easy street?

Well, let’s uplevel the question and ask why God allows any false teaching to continue. After all, the prosperity gospel is just one of countless false religious frameworks.

Scripture tells us that “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come” (Luke 17:1) and that they come even from within the Church: “From among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them (Acts 20:30).

Moreover, we’re told that such false teaching must come to shine the light on the truth and those who follow it: “For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you” (1 Cor. 11:19).

But in the end, all false teaching and its proponents — whether they’re selling the prosperity gospel or something similar — meet divine justice, if not in this life, then in the next. They think they’re safe and say, “How does God know? And is there knowledge with the Most High?” (Ps. 73:11), but David goes on to tell us “Then I perceived their end. Surely You set them in slippery places; you cast them down to destruction. How they are destroyed in a moment! They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when aroused, You will despise their form (Ps. 73:17–20).

And why does God do this? Because the prosperity gospel creates a false god and idol to be worshipped just as Paul says, “greed … amounts to idolatry” (Col. 3:5).

I don’t know about you, but such a disastrous end doesn’t seem worth a Bentley with a Breitling clock to me.