Son,

I appreciate your struggle with the variety of means that Jesus is presented.  These are confusing times.  People who have become successful in America are conflicted – the traditional message of suffering no longer fits their lifestyle.  The ministers of the Prosperity Gospel seek to find an audience among the wealthy – why do you suppose that is?

But we are conflicted.  Much of the gospel of Jesus is about giving to others, about forgiveness, about suffering.  This message played well with the impoverished early Americans.  They took their struggling lot in life to mean that they were fulfilling the challenge of Christianity – they were wrong.  As the followers of the other extreme – the followers of the Prosperity Gospel are wrong.

People are living their lives and using the Bible to justify the outcome, rather than using the message of Christianity to drive the outcome.  Neither material Prosperity or suffering in poverty were the objective of Christ.

Jesus spoke to the prosperity of the spirit, of happiness in any circumstance.  Check this video by John Piper.

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Dad