Yesterday, we observed that Jesus’ Spirit-filled, Spirit-led life was not always easy, and we commented that those who teach a “health and wealth prosperity gospel” are in error. No one is more adamant about the problem with the prosperity gospel than John Piper. I just ran across an in-depth story of John’s impromptu 3-minute diatribe against the prosperity gospel delivered in Birmingham, Alabama, November 2005. The article opens like this:

In fact, it was an off-the-cuff tangent to an afterthought, unusual for a man whose sermons are well-prepared and meticulously researched.

“I don’t know what you feel about the prosperity gospel—the health, wealth and prosperity gospel—but I’ll tell you what I feel about it,” Piper told a gathering of more than 1,000 college students in November 2005. “Hatred…It is not the gospel, and it’s being exported from this country to Africa and Asia, selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor: ‘Believe this message, and your pigs won’t die and your wife won’t have miscarriages, and you’ll have rings on your fingers and coats on your back.’ That’s coming out of America—the people that ought to be giving our money and our time and our lives, instead selling them a bunch of crap called ‘gospel.'” Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, The Gospel Coalition, February 14, 2017

Strong language and that’s not all. You can read the article for yourself and even hear the 3-minute clip. Caution: John is very intense, and I’m not sure I could or would say some of what he says here. John himself says that he has “no recollection” of that part of his sermon.

There have always been false gospels of one sort or other. We’ve talked a lot about a “gospel” based on legalism, for example, and the Apostle Paul, probably at least as intense as John Piper, would have none of it:

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1.8, 9, ESV)

Paul, like Jesus, did not experience prosperity:

…Far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Corinthians 11.23 – 27, ESV)

And yet, even without what we call prosperity, Paul experienced joy:

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1.18 – 21, ESV)