No. The prosperity gospel teaches that God has promised material wealth and health to
people with enough faith, and that giving money is the mechanism that releases it. That is
not what the passages it quotes are doing.
The pattern is easy to see once you know it: a line is lifted out, its paragraph is left
behind, and a covenant promise made to a nation becomes a personal guarantee. Malachi 3 is
spoken to a covenant nation withholding its tithes, not offered as an
investment product. Luke 6:38 sits inside a passage about mercy and judging, not fundraising.
Philippians 4:13 is a statement about enduring plenty and want, and Philippians 4:19 is
written to a church that had just given sacrificially. Deuteronomy 8 warns Israel against
forgetting God when prosperity arrives.
Two more things are true and both are usually lost in the argument. God does give material
good, and Scripture says so plainly. And Jesus, Paul and most of the apostles were poor,
which makes any teaching that reads poverty as insufficient faith a teaching that condemns
them. Giving is commanded, and Scripture does attach blessing to it, but never as a guaranteed
financial return, and a teacher who promises one is selling something.
The passages
Printed in full from the public-domain World English Bible, resolved from a local copy of
that text before this page was built. Read them before you take our summary on trust, and
see how we read Scripture on money for the ten rules
every page here follows.
8Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings. 9You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation. 10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this,” says Yahweh of Armies, “if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there will not be room enough for. 11I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before its time in the field,” says Yahweh of Armies. 12“All nations shall call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says Yahweh of Armies.
The most abused money passage in Scripture. Read it as what it is: covenant words to a whole nation withholding tithes, in a book that opens by rebuking its priests over offerings.
“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you. For with the same measure you measure it will be measured back to you.”
11Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. 12I know how to be humbled, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need. 13I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
17and lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth.” 18But you shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth; that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers, as it is today.
17Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; 18I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.
A church that measures itself as rich and in need of nothing is told it is the poorest in the letter.
Weighed by the Book
CommandedWhat Scripture commands
Give freely, cheerfully, and without expecting repayment (2 Corinthians 9:7; Luke 6:35).
Do not teach for money: shepherd willingly, never for dishonest gain (1 Peter 5:2).
WisdomWise application, not command
Test any teacher against the paragraph, not the verse: read what comes before and after the line being quoted.
When a promise of return is attached to a donation, treat it as a sales claim and ask who benefits: false teachers are described as exploiting people with invented words (2 Peter 2:3).
FreedomWhere faithful people differ
Believing God can and does give material good. Scripture says so (Ecclesiastes 5:19); it simply never sells it.