Mega-Churches, Wealth, and Spirituality

It is funny how just last week there was a talk about the topic of wealth as the world defines it.

First off, there was the buzz in the office that everyone should go get their Toto tickets because the prize money for the week was S$5 million (US$3.32 million).

I did not buy any tickets for the draw because I never had the habit of “buying hope” as I call it. Besides, I have never thought that I’d win one of the prizes — it is not in my personal history to have won anything that involved the ‘luck’ of the draw.

Then there was a letter in the Forum page of the national daily, The Straits Times, from a concerned parent about how mega churches adversely affect students, which naturally led to a rather lively debate on whether churches should be as rich as mega churches.

Now I don’t have anything against mega churches per se.

If a church is able to grow to a big enough size to be one, it’s good. After all, aren’t we all for the spreading of the Good News to everyone, and if there are more who come to know God and accept Christ Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, it is something that we all should celebrate.

What I have a problem with is the prosperity gospel that some mega churches preach. And it’s not just the prosperity gospel, but other non-Biblical teachings that come out of these churches that worry me.

I have an issue with pastors issuing statements like “Give more and God will bless you back 100 fold when you give!” while decked out in designer garb and sporting dyed hair.

Looking at their designer togs, it does say something about where some of that money is going, doesn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong — I don’t advocate that Christians must be as poor as the proverbial church mice, and neither do I think that God doesn’t have in His plan to make someone rich materially.

After all, Abraham and Job were made prosperous.

Yet, we need question at the same time if that is the purpose for a person believing in God and seeking His blessings. Do you obey God and His commandments, or tithe in the belief that you will be blessed materially?

I once heard two testimonies during a church service when it came to the part where the offering bag was passed out. Both told the congregation that after they gave more of their money, God gave them better jobs and they had more than 100% increases in their pay packets.

It is all well and good that God has blessed them with riches but won’t it be better, in my opinion, to give testimonies of how one got saved or how God has helped one overcome some difficulties instead of touting material riches during offerings?

Being rich materially is great — money greases a lot of hands and takes care of many needs and wants, but our Lord Jesus Christ teaches that it is much better to store up our treasures in heaven rather than chase after the material riches on earth.

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Luke 12:13-34

To borrow wisdom from the investment community, we should all be looking at reaping long-term benefits rather than short-term gains. In this case, our treasures in heaven are for an eternity rather than what riches we shall gain on earth and which are temporary.

The ancient kings and nobles stored up for themselves material goods in their tombs to take with them into the afterlife, but I fully believe that they will find those possessions useless when they shall meet their Creator. Not to mention that grave robbers would have rendered their stores empty by that time.

As for those who ask if God indeed can make a person rich, I can tell you it’s a definite! Yet as to whether God wants to make you rich, that’s another question altogether. For God knows what is best for you, and He looks at your heart.

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:7

Can you tell for sure that if God made you rich materially that you would become a better person? I won’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ so quickly if I were you, for even I don’t profess to know my heart as well as God does.

We don’t know what will become of us in the future, aye even in the next second, but God our Father already knows and has the best plans for us already laid out.

As for me, I know well that God can make me a rich man if He willed it so, but I would rather He teach me how to better store up treasures in heaven.

Shalom Aleichem.