We’re All Vulnerable

Chapter eight

For Richer, for Poorer

Don’t give me poverty or wealth. Feed me with the appropriate allotment of food, so I won’t get satisfied and deny truth by saying, “Who is the Lord?” or become poor and steal and so abuse the name of my God.

—Proverbs 30:8–9

Give us today our bread for the day.

—Matthew 6:11

I recognize that trusting God’s provision for us, like trusting him for healing and other needs, is biblical. When I started my bachelor’s degree, I was working maintenance and doing yard work twenty hours a week, alongside eighteen hours of classes, including Greek and Hebrew. Then a couple offered to pay much of my tuition with one string attached: that I wouldn’t say that God provided for me. As a matter of conviction I had to refuse the condition, noting that it was God who would supply my need one way or the other. Soon after this they dropped the condition and God provided through them. We can be grateful to human agents (in this case, the nearer cause) while being also grateful to God (the ultimate cause).

Likewise, the day before I was going to call Duke University and tell them that I couldn’t come to do my PhD because I had no funds, money unexpectedly came. After graduation, I could not immediately find a teaching position and I was not sure how I was going to support myself. Less than a day after I figured how much I would need to live on that year and cried to God with very weak faith, InterVarsity Press unexpectedly offered me an advance on my IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Amazingly, it was for the exact dollar amount I had calculated the night before. So let no one suppose I am belittling God’s provision.

But God’s provision is based on need and calling, not on keeping up with neighbors. Note what we are to seek and not to seek, and the basics God provides in Matthew 6:31–33 (here nasb): “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.”

Prosperity Teaching

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters! Didn’t God choose the poor of the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? (James 2:5)

James here almost certainly refers back to a saying of Jesus:

How well it will be for you who are poor, for God’s kingdom belongs to you! (Luke 6:20)

I confess that academic work doesn’t leave me much time to keep up with popular-level teaching. My summary of some prosperity teaching here therefore uses my old notes on prosperity teaching as it was circulating in the 1980s, when I was a pastor needing to address it in my congregation. I apologize if some of the following quotations do not reflect the writers’ latest thinking; I use them merely to illustrate that my concern about prosperity teaching does not come from thin air.1

Kenneth Hagin himself, often hailed as the father of the modern faith movement, later in life did express concern that some were abusing prosperity teaching for personal wealth rather than to serve God’s kingdom.2 Indeed, an author with inside knowledge notes that “Hagin met privately with some of the major ‘prosperity teachers,’ including Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Jerry Savelle, Jesse Duplantis, and others, and gave them an opportunity to adjust their messages and correct their errors before the release of his book. Some did, while others did not.”3 So my quotes from Hagin’s earlier works (below) should be read in light of his later warnings.

This chapter will be short, but it could be a book. A couple of decades ago I was collecting biblical material for a critique of unbiblical prosperity teaching. When Craig Blomberg published his excellent Neither Poverty nor Riches,4 however, I decided that his treatment of biblical wealth and possessions was more than sufficient—no need for the same book from two Craigs. The biblical material on the subject is vast, and there is no need to rehearse more than a sample of it here. (The original prospective publisher that invited my treatment of prosperity teaching also disliked my approach: I noted that prosperity preachers at least respect Scripture enough to seek a theological justification for their practice, whereas most of the Western church practices rampant, selfish materialism without caring what Scripture actually says about it.)

Kenneth Hagin’s Teaching

Hagin says that he sacrificed many years before the prosperity he confessed materialized.5 Yet godliness, he says, is profitable both in this life and in the life to come (1 Tim. 4:8),6 with Hagin taking “profitable” as financially profitable in this life. (The Greek term simply means “beneficial,” and in context applies also in a lesser way to physical exercise.) On his view, God “said that if His children would listen to Him, He would make them wealthy. He isn’t opposed to their being rich, only to their being covetous.”7 That God isn’t opposed to wealth is true as far as it goes (may God bless donors to good causes!), but in the same letter (1 Timothy) seeking to get rich for one’s own sake counts as covetousness (1 Tim. 6:9–10).

The point of the “cattle on a thousand hills” being God’s in Psalm 50:10 is that (unlike pagan gods) God doesn’t need our sacrifices (50:8–14). Hagin, however, reasons that God put them there for us.8 Don’t let the devil make you poor, he advises.9 Hagin says that we have been redeemed from poverty’s curse.10 “The first thing that God promised to Abraham was that He was going to make him rich. Do you mean that God is going to make all of us rich? Yes, that is what I mean.” He clarifies that he does not mean millionaires, but he speaks of abundance.11

Hagin is right to contrast the blessing of Abraham with the law’s curse, from which Jesus redeemed us (Gal. 3:13–14). The blessing of Abraham is inheriting the earth (Rom. 4:13). But we inherit the earth in the future; the foretaste Paul promises us in the present is not wealth but the promise of the Spirit (Gal. 3:14; compare 5:5; Rom. 8:23; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13–14).12 Although the covenant blessings in Deuteronomy 28 are for obedient Israel in the Holy Land, there is likely a relevant principle of collective material blessing on God-fearing societies. Nevertheless, as individual believers in the present, it is explicitly the Spirit who is the down payment of our future blessing in Abraham (Gal. 3:14).

If you need money, Hagin urges, loose it; it’s in the earth realm, so God won’t send it from heaven, or he’d be a counterfeiter.13 “The Lord told me never to pray for money,” he explains. “He said for me not to ask Him to give me money, for it was down here. He instructed me that in the name of Jesus I should command the money to come. Whatever I wanted or needed, I should claim it. He said that He wanted His children to have the best.”14 “If you pray to God to give you $100, you are putting all the responsibility upon Him. But the responsibility is on our part [contrast Deut. 8:3]. . . . From that day to this I never pray anymore about money. I just tell Satan to take his hand off my money. I always say that I claim so much money. I always say that angels are ministering spirits who are sent to minister.”15

So instead of praying to God for resources, one addresses Satan? Where is that in the Bible? As for commanding angels to fetch it (based on ministering angels in Heb. 1:14),16 the verse says not “sent to render service at the command of” but rather, “sent to render service for the benefit of.” While on earth, Jesus himself would have asked his Father for angelic help rather than commanding angels directly (Matt. 26:53; compare 4:6, 11). Likewise, guardian angels remain subject to God’s command rather than ours in Psalm 91:11 (“He will command his angels concerning you”); placing them at our discretion seems closer to how Satan uses the passage in Matthew 4:6 and Luke 4:10–11.

Kenneth Copeland and Charles Capps Go Further

Kenneth Copeland proclaims, “You must realize that prosperity is the will of God for you.”17 “Decide on the amount you need. Be careful not to cheat yourself. God is not a skinflint. He is a giver. He is a lover. God is love.”18

Charles Capps claims authority to choose prosperity and refuses “to accept . . . poverty, or any other thing of the devil.”19 Copeland notes that the responsibility for choosing lies solely with us.20 When Jesus says to lay up treasures in heaven (Matt. 6:20; Luke 12:33), Copeland says this is a literal financial investment—money laid up in heaven till we need it, and then we can take it. “The rust and corruption,” he claims Jesus told him, “is inflation and depression.” In the Gospels, the promise of treasure in heaven follows using one’s resources to help the needy (Mark 10:21; Luke 12:33), and it has to do with entering eternal life and the kingdom (Mark 10:17, 23–24). It is reserved for the future (“the treasure . . . for the future,” 1 Tim. 6:19 nasb).

Copeland claims that Jesus went on,

If I gave you one thousand dollars today, in nine months’ time it probably wouldn’t be worth more than seven hundred fifty dollars. You need to learn to exercise your faith in the fact that you have this money on deposit, and when you need it, all you have to do is call for it. Make your deposits with Me according to the rate of exchange which My Word guarantees and operate under My system of finance instead of the world’s system. We can make it work at the current rate of exchange at that time. It won’t matter if it takes a billion dollars to buy a loaf of bread—I [God] can afford it!21

Copeland claims that Jesus attributed the rich young ruler’s wealth to his keeping the commandments. “The Lord said, ‘Do you think I would ask something from him that I hadn’t given him in the first place?’” Jesus only wanted him to give up his money so he could bless him all the more. In fact, “He had intended to give the rich young ruler a hundred times what he had!” This man would have been the replacement for Judas, Copeland’s Jesus said.22 The hundredfold return, he insists, is guaranteed to us today as well.23 Yet in Mark 10:30, the hundredfold for those who lose everything for the kingdom comes because they share in a new spiritual family (compare Mark 3:35); our spiritual brothers and sisters are to be our safety net.

Citing Proverbs 13:22, Capps declares that “the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just” and that “it is beginning to change hands. When you and I begin to act on the Word of God; when we get our speech in line with the Word we will see God move in our behalf.”24 Some of it may “change hands” because God’s people are normally hard and honest workers, but this is not a matter of simply “claiming” wealth.

Nor are prosperity teachers all simply advocating a good day’s work. As Copeland notes, “Well, I could look at my dad and see that this wasn’t working in his life. He made more than a good living, but he worked for every dime he got.”25

Many use 3 John 2 to declare that one can pray for and receive financial prosperity.26 But 3 John 2 is a prayer, using the precise literary form often used in ancient letters to wish someone well.27 Although as a pastor I explored a fuller range of arguments used by prosperity teachers, examining them all would extend this chapter beyond its appropriate length and objective. I simply encourage interested readers to examine proof texts in context.

Prosperity as Provision

In challenging what many people mean by “prosperity teaching,” I am not disagreeing with faith for provision (which is what some people mean by that label). When we pray for our daily bread (Matt. 6:11; Luke 11:3), we are not praying for mansions. Especially when conjoined with a prayer for God to protect us from testing (Matt. 6:13; Luke 11:4), some of us might pray more like Agur, Jakeh’s son, a prayer with which this chapter opened:

Give me neither poverty nor riches . . .

So that I will not be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?”

And that I will not become impoverished and steal,

And profane the name of my God. (Prov. 30:8–9 nasb)

Of course God does invite us to trust him for provision for what we need for our life and ministry (Pss. 23:1; 33:19; 34:9–10; 37:19). At the height of the Great Depression, Pentecostal Bible college student Louise Jeter had no money, but someone gave her a dollar. On March 7, 1933, she and the women’s dean prayed that God would multiply it so she could go to Peru. God provided the funds, and on June 7 she sailed for Peru, the beginning of sixty years of service in Latin America.28 Everett and Esther Cook, the couple who ran the mission where I helped, also told me about the times God provided for them when they were planting churches during the Great Depression and World War II.

At the age of twenty-three, Lillian Trasher heard God telling her to break her engagement to a minister and move to Africa; in 1910 she arrived in Egypt. When a dying mother entrusted her baby to Trasher’s care, it shaped the course of Trasher’s future ministry. An increasing number of orphans were entrusted to her care, and initially she had to beg from locals to feed them. She established the nation’s first orphanage. At different times she was associated with the Church of God and Assemblies of God denominations. But World War II brought new trials. She refused to abandon her children by leaving Egypt, but German tanks approached Cairo while bandits from the south plundered the orphanage’s city of Asyût. One bandit had already climbed the orphanage compound walls when a stray bullet struck him—after which the other bandits fled. The war, however, cut off food supplies, and one day there was insufficient food for the next day’s meals. In chapel, Trasher led the children to pray in Arabic for their daily bread.

They could not know that two days earlier a British captain, informed that Italian submarines were coming to sink all British ships in Alexandria’s harbor, received orders to evacuate. Given the urgency, he planned to scuttle the cargo, which consisted of food crates intended for British troops. One Scottish sailor pleaded for the crates to be sent to an orphanage he knew about. The captain allowed the donation if it could be accomplished expeditiously. The sailors laboriously unloaded all the crates and sent them by railway cars to Asyût. Three hours after the children prayed for their daily bread, the crates arrived. This was merely one of the many times God acted on their behalf. By her death in 1961, she was known around the world as “Mother of the Nile.” Her ministry had cared for some twenty-five thousand children. The orphanage today continues to house four hundred orphans.29 Similar stories of tested faith are told of George Mueller, who ran an orphanage in the nineteenth century.30

For most of us, promised provision means the basics:

We’ll be content to have something to eat and wear. (1 Tim. 6:8)

Such an idea goes back to Jesus himself, who invited us to trust God for our food and clothing.

Don’t worry about your life, what you can eat or what you can drink; or about your body, what you can wear. . . . So don’t worry, saying, “What can we eat?” or, “What can we drink?” or, “What can we wear?” For pagans seek all these things—but your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matt. 6:25, 31–33)

Prosperity Is Relative

Diligence “makes rich” (Prov. 10:4; 12:24; 13:4; 21:5), but prosperity is relative. God provided a meal a day for Médine’s family during the war in her country, and an end to the war before they would have died from malnutrition (compare Ps. 33:19). When Jerusalem fell, God rewarded faithful Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, not with great things but simply with his life (Jer. 45:5). In Roman custody, Paul’s chains presumably limited his material advancements (compare 1 Cor. 4:9–13; 9:5–6; 2 Cor. 6:4–10; 11:23–33; Phil. 4:10–13).

For Paul, contentment and sufficiency were themselves prosperity.

Reverence for God along with being content with what one has is great gain. (1 Tim. 6:6)

Compare that to the psalmist’s words:

You have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and wine abound. (Ps. 4:7 nrsv)

Above the level of basic needs (unmet for many people living on benches or tenement roofs or in abandoned buildings or shacks), poverty is a relative term. A family too poor to buy its children video games might not be poor by the standards of poverty in Calcutta.

Remember again also Paul’s words, which apply not only to direct persecution but also to limited access to basic necessities such as food and clothing:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? (Rom. 8:35)

Jesus also spoke of earthquakes, wars, famines, plagues, and other hardships as characteristic of this age until the time of the end (Mark 13:7–8; Luke 21:10–11); he calls them merely “the beginning of birth pangs” and notes that “the end is not yet” (Mark 13:7–8; compare Rev. 6:1–8).

How Jesus Wants Us to Use Our Resources

Let us grant, however, that we may trust God’s provision for what he has called us to do for him (e.g., Luke 10:7–8). As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, I myself have experienced this blessing. But I want to spend most of this chapter looking at what Christian love urges us to do with our resources. Scripture promises its blessings of provision especially to the generous (e.g., Deut. 15:10; Ps. 37:21–22; Prov. 11:25; 22:9; Luke 6:38).

One goal for which we trust God’s provision is that we can help others:

Anyone who was a thief must stop stealing; instead he should exert himself at some honest job with his own hands so that he may have something to share with those in need. (Eph. 4:28 njb)

Instruct those who are rich in this present world . . . to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Tim. 6:17–19 nasb; compare Ps. 62:10)

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? (James 2:15–16 esv)

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? (1 John 3:16–17 nrsv)

This ministry brings honor to God:

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God. (2 Cor. 9:12–13 niv)

When Rwandan genocide widow Denise Uwimana first saw the relative wealth of Manhattan, she thought of completely homeless widows and orphans in her country. “Couldn’t America spare a scrap of its wealth to put roofs over my people?”31 None of us merited to be born or raised where we were. Many of the needy in today’s world—including many refugees displaced by fighting in Africa or drug cartels in Central America—are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Christians may represent nearly half the world’s migrants today.32 In some places in the Western world, such Christian migrants are even a counterforce to a culture’s abandonment of religion. In the Bible, sharing of course includes our neighbors (Luke 16:20–23), but it can also extend beyond geographic boundaries when we know the needs of believers elsewhere (Acts 11:27–30; 1 Cor. 16:1–2; 2 Cor. 8–9).

Nations that are generous will be blessed, but since I write to fellow believers, what is specifically our role? Some say Christians should influence governments for righteousness; others, that caring for needs is the financial responsibility only of the church. On the latter approach, the church has plenty of opportunity to put its money where its mouth is. Some estimate that more than two billion people (a quarter of the global population) lack access to safe drinking water, and nearly half lack access to safely managed sanitation.33 Some estimate that resolving this problem would cost about $114 billion annually.34 Some other solutions are less expensive. An estimated one thousand children under the age of five die from malaria daily, mostly in Africa (with its strong concentration of our fellow believers, but also of malarial mosquitoes); $7.8 billion annually can address much of this need.35 As believers, we cannot insist that we are responsible only for people in our own nation. If Jesus is truly our Lord, then fellow believers are our fellow citizens even more than national compatriots are. (In free countries, we don’t even get persecuted for saying that.) If someone values earthly country over brothers and sisters in Christ, are they really a true Christian?

Sharing Possessions

One aspect of Spirit-filled experience following the day of Pentecost was sharing possessions with those in need (Acts 2:44–45), repeated again during the book’s next reported outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 4:31–35).36 This fits a pattern of expectations for kingdom living in Luke’s narrative:

The last command, trusting in Jesus, may seem incongruous with the other commands, but it is instead simply another side of the same truth. We who truly trust in Jesus stake our lives on his truth and learn to live accordingly. In Acts 16:30, the jailer addresses Paul and Silas as “sirs” or “lords” (kurioi ), but in 16:31 they respond that he must trust in the Lord (ton kurion), Jesus. The jailer responds so radically that he removes them from their cell to wash their wounds and lets them wash him and his family in baptism. He eats with them, which was against the rules for a prison keeper. He lays his job and perhaps his own freedom on the line, showing radical trust in God as in the other cases noted above.

Often God’s provision comes through others—our new, spiritual family (remember again Mark 10:29–30). This can go beyond individual or local support (again, Acts 2:44–45; 4:32, 34–35) to collective support for believers in different regions. Concerned for the needs of the poor in Jerusalem, believers in Antioch supplied them with resources. They did so even though the coming famine would impact the whole Roman world—including Antioch (Acts 11:28). Paul continued to care for the destitute in Jerusalem with a collection from among his circle of churches farther north (Rom. 15:25–27; 1 Cor. 16:1–4; 2 Cor. 8–9).

More on Sharing Possessions

Jesus further tells the story of a rich man who let a poor beggar, Lazarus, starve to death at his doorstep. This is the only sin recorded of this rich man, yet he faced eternity in hell (Luke 16:25). Of course, most of us Western Christians can piously protest, “There are no poor beggars at our doorstep.” That is true; our modern society is too sophisticated to let the destitute poor get that close to our doorsteps. Much as many of us rightly insist on honoring and obeying Scripture today, we sometimes strain out gnats while missing a major theme there: More than a hundred passages talk about the poor, most of them inviting us to make sure their basic needs are met, warning against mistreating them, or speaking of God’s care for them.37 To take just a handful of examples from Proverbs:

Resources are of course limited, and wise stewardship includes determining which needs are most severe and which methods are most sustainable. How best to meet those needs is a legitimate matter of discussion, welcoming expertise, for example, in economics, drilling water wells, microfinance, and the like. That we must seek to meet those needs, however, is such a plain teaching in Scripture that no one who denies it should pretend to love the Bible.

Although the teaching about financial sacrifice is for all Jesus’s followers, it applies especially to those regarded most as Jesus’s ministers and representatives (Luke 12:41–48). It was a standard church rule that church leaders must not be greedy (1 Tim. 3:8; Titus 1:7; 1 Pet. 5:2)—that is, they must not love money (1 Tim. 3:3; compare Acts 3:6; 20:33). (One should note at this point that despite common complaints about a few pastors being paid millions of dollars, the vocation of most ordinary pastors is itself sacrifice, a less lucrative profession than others they could have chosen.)

If somebody has this world’s resources and sees a brother or sister in need, yet shuts their heart against them, how does God’s love live in that person? Children, let’s not love just with our words or our mouths but by deeds and for real. (1 John 3:17–18)

If we feel like something is missing in our lives, this could be it.

This is how we’ll know that we belong to the truth and we’ll reassure our hearts before God. (1 John 3:19)

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17 esv)

If someone’s church tradition says that James 2 sounds too legalistic to belong in the Bible, they could follow Martin Luther’s lead in questioning whether James is fully inspired. But if we accept such passages as fully inspired, we need to engage what they say rather than denouncing the stewardship beliefs of those bold enough to quote them.

Wesley and Other Voices from History

Illustrations of sacrifice for the kingdom are not difficult to find in church history. When the era of mass martyrdom ended in the Roman Empire, monastic movements took over as an expression of devotion to Christ. Leading church father Athanasius wrote an account of the demon-fighting Saint Anthony. Anthony actually took literally Jesus’s call to abandon everything and follow him, and signs followed his ministry. In times of massively bloated church bureaucracy, Francis of Assisi, John Wycliffe, and others called Christians back to what they believed was apostolic poverty.38 Early Anabaptists and Moravians embraced Jesus’s teachings about sacrificing possessions; Hutterites even pooled their possessions literally.39 Such sacrifices also characterized the early Pentecostal movement in China known as the Jesus Family40 and some elements in the North American Jesus Movement of the 1960s–70s.41 Until the mid-twentieth century, signs and wonders were more associated with living simply than with wealth (compare Matt. 10:8–10; Acts 3:6; Rev. 11:3–6).

John Wesley (1703–1791) was an evangelical Anglican leader in a revival that birthed the zealous early Methodist church, a forerunner of the Holiness and Pentecostal traditions. Wesley preached total commitment to Christ, including in the area of finances.42 For Wesley, defying lust for material prosperity was part of holiness, separation to God away from the things the world valued.43 He warned that riches would increase believers’ conformity to the world, and he attacked those who preached the accumulation of wealth.44 He felt that Acts 2 remained the standard—including the part about sharing possessions (2:44–45).45 In contrast to most contemporary Christians, Wesley felt that “stewardship means giving to the poor. . . . We give to God not by giving to the church, but by giving to the poor.”46 (One might add some qualification to the dictum today,47 but only after letting its raw demand shake us regarding what God cares most about—people in his image.) If one did not give all one could, Wesley taught, one was in disobedience to Jesus’s teaching and would end up in hell.48

My former colleague, ethicist Ron Sider, summarizes Wesley’s teaching on possessions:49 earn all you can, but keep for oneself only the bare minimum, “plain, wholesome food, clean clothes, and enough to carry on one’s business,” giving the rest to the poor.50

Unfortunately, Wesley discovered, not one person in five hundred in any “Christian city” obeys Jesus’ command. But that simply demonstrates that most professed believers are “living men but dead Christians.” Any “Christian” who takes for himself anything more than the “plain necessities of life,” Wesley insisted, “lives in an open, habitual denial of the Lord.” He has “gained riches and hell-fire!” Wesley lived what he preached. Sales of his books often earned him fourteen hundred pounds annually, but he spent only thirty pounds on himself. The rest he gave away. He always wore inexpensive clothes and dined on simple food. “If I leave behind me ten pounds,” he once wrote, “you and all mankind bear witness against me that I lived and died a thief and a robber.”51

Whereas many Western observers today complain about the extravagant lifestyle of some preachers, we can imagine them complaining that Wesley must be legalistic. Yet Wesley’s preaching is no more emphatic than that of John the Baptist or Jesus. Luke’s Gospel particularly underlines this point. When ordinary hearers asked John what their saving repentance should look like (Luke 3:7–10), he demanded,

Whoever has two tunics should give [one] to the person who doesn’t have one, and whoever has food should do the same. (Luke 3:11)

Even just wanting one’s just share of an inheritance (a matter that Judeans sometimes invited rabbis to arbitrate), Jesus calls greed (Luke 12:13–15). This is a form of greed because one’s life cannot depend on one’s possessions (12:15). Jesus then illustrates the point with the parable of the rich fool, which emphasizes that treasures are worthless in death (12:16–21). Jesus’s opposition to greed “therefore” entails not worrying about even food or clothing (12:22–23)! (I won’t pretend that I have always succeeded at that virtue.)

What would this say about some people’s “needs” for more video games, flashy cars, and other possessions to entertain them or raise their status in others’ eyes? What does it say about those who, to justify their own lifestyles, would dismiss John Wesley or Charles Finney (I discuss Finney below) as legalists or proto-Marxists? Granted, Jesus (and John the Baptist, Wesley, and Finney) may be speaking hyperbolically, but the purpose of hyperbole is to grip our attention and force us to consider our ways, not so we can ignore the demands by saying, “That’s just hyperbole!”

Charles Finney and Others

Charles Finney (1792–1875), a leading figure in the Second Great Awakening in the US, was uncompromising regarding biblical demands for following Christ. We may not lose our possessions, jobs, or property at conversion, he granted; but we do lose our ownership of them. If Jesus is our Lord, then everything we “own” must be at his disposal, “so that we shall never again for a moment consider it as our own. A man must not think he has a right to judge for himself how much of his property he shall lay out for God.”52

But, sadly, he complained, many do not acknowledge this fact:

Men have been led to suppose that they could be Christians, while holding on to their money. It is an undoubted fact, that the church has funds enough to supply the world with Bibles, and tracts, and missionaries immediately. But the truth is, that professors of [those who profess] religion do not believe that the “earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” Every man supposes he has a right to decide what appropriation he shall make of his own money. And they have no idea that Jesus Christ shall dictate to them on the subject.53

Later, he notes: “Young converts should be taught that they have renounced the ownership of all their possessions, and of themselves, or if they have not done this they are not Christians.”54 Here Finney is simply taking Jesus at his word:

Any of you who does not renounce ownership of all their possessions cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:33)

The context is one of demand.

If anyone comes to me and doesn’t “hate” their own father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters—and indeed their own life—they can’t be my disciple. Whoever doesn’t carry their own cross and come after me can’t be my disciple. (Luke 14:26–27)

After giving examples of counting the cost beforehand so that one will follow to the end (Luke 14:28–32), Jesus continues:

So in the same way, any of you who doesn’t renounce interest in all their possessions can’t be my disciple. So salt is good; but if salt loses its saltiness,55 what will you season it with? It’s of no use for the soil or the dung heap, so it gets thrown out. Whoever has ears, let them take heed! (Luke 14:33–35)

Some have endured hunger for the sake of serving others. Desperate to feed her Chinese friends, Southern Baptist missionary Lottie Moon died from her own malnutrition.56 I am not presenting this as a model of ideal self-care. Nevertheless, she acted in desperation to save others when her pleas for outside support fell on deaf ears.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13 niv)

Generosity

Some teaching about prosperity is meant to counter defeatist identification of poverty with piety. Scripture provides much guidance for wise and honest business practices, including diligence, perseverance, and thrift. It does not encourage earning less; rather, it emphasizes generosity with what we have.

Let one labor, working with one’s hands to produce what is good, so one may have something to share with someone else who has need. (Eph. 4:28)

The issue is not how much one makes (ideally, the more the better) but what one does with what one makes. A Christian leader should encourage those who are wealthy

to do good, being rich in good works, to be generous and to share, so treasuring up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, so they make take hold of genuine life. (1 Tim. 6:18–19)

This exhortation may echo Jesus’s warning to someone who owned much property and asked how to have eternal life: He should give to the poor and so lay up heavenly treasure (Mark 10:17, 21). The inquirer realized that he lacked something necessary (Matt. 19:20; Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22) to have eternal life (Matt. 19:16; Mark 10:17; Luke 18:18). Jesus invited him first to surrender his rival affection, and second to follow Jesus himself (Matt. 19:21; Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22). Jesus suggested that it is harder for the well-endowed to follow him and be saved because they have more to lose (Matt. 19:22–24; Mark 10:23–25; Luke 18:23–25).

First Timothy does not call the wealthy to divest themselves of all their capital, but to enjoy what God had given them and to pour their resources into serving the needy (1 Tim. 6:17–19). By serving those in need, they invest in what will count forever. Yet only those who genuinely trust Jesus’s promise about forever stake their lives on his claim in this manner. Wealth thus holds a special temptation.

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap and many foolish and harmful desires that submerge people in ruin and destruction. For love for money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some by pursuing it have strayed from the faith and have impaled themselves with many griefs. (1 Tim. 6:9–10)

Pursuing wealth risks straying. One may pursue it to have more to give (Eph. 4:28), but most who pursue it are motivated by “love for” it. Believers should not be impressed with wealth (James 2:1–9) or pursue it for its sake (Prov. 23:4–5; 28:20; Matt. 6:31–33; Luke 12:29–31; 1 Tim. 6:9–10). When Jeshurun grew fat, she kicked (Deut. 32:15); when Israel became prosperous, she forgot God, the source of her blessings (see Deut. 6:10–12). Some trust their resources rather than God (Ps. 52:7), though riches prove worthless in death (52:5). But if we desire only God (Ps. 73:25), versus the wicked’s temporal prosperity (73:3–12), God will surely grant our desire (37:4).

The rich in Jesus’s day were often oppressive landlords whose land the poor worked; New Testament statements about the wealthy are not directly applicable to all the wealthy today. But reliance on wealth risks spiritual poverty, as in the case of the Laodicean church (Rev. 3:17–18; compare 1 Tim. 6:17), whereas the poor could be spiritually rich (Matt. 5:3; Luke 6:20; James 2:5), as in the case of the persecuted church in Smyrna (Rev. 2:9).

Israel’s prophets repeatedly address this temptation. God granted safety and prosperity to his people in the time of Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:25–27), after Israel’s rival, Aram, had been destroyed. Assyria had troubles at home, giving Israel opportunity to expand. In that time of blessing (Hosea 1:1), however, Israel attributed her prosperity to sources other than God (Hosea 2:5–13), and both Isaiah in the south and Amos in the north thundered the Lord’s judgment against his people. They began a refrain that would sound again and again by the prophets until both Israel and Judah were carried away into captivity. The true fast and the true sacrifice is to care for those in need (Isa. 1:17, 58:6–7; Zech. 7:3–10). To fail to institute justice for the oppressed, when it is in our power to establish it, is to invalidate our prayers (Amos 5:21–24).

Where More Resources Are Needed

God does supply our needs. But when God gives us more than we need, it is often so we can be God’s gift to others by meeting their needs:

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality. (2 Cor. 8:13–14 niv)

God had provided the Corinthians enough resources to go around, giving some the privilege of sharing what was beyond their needs with others who still had needs.

Many Believers Are Poor

As I walked through parts of Kinshasa in a largely Christian part of Africa, I witnessed many barefoot children playing near open sewers, piles of rubbish, and streets strewn with broken glass. It is estimated that Christians, though some 30 percent of the global population, represent nearly half the world’s migrants today.57 Many of them migrate, seeking better jobs to provide for their families. Many others are refugees from wars or persecution. By the end of 2023, more than 117 million people were living forcibly displaced from their homes; roughly 40 percent are children.58

By Western middle-class standards, many believers around the world are materially poor. The same was true of many of our forebears in the faith. In a narrative that contrasts young Mary with the aged and honored priest Zechariah, Mary cries out that God casts down rulers and exalts the humble (Luke 1:52); he fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty (Luke 1:53). Likewise, James declares that God will exalt the poor and cast down the rich (James 1:9–11).

Believers can be hungry or otherwise needy (1 Cor. 11:21; Phil. 4:12). When I helped in street missions, I met Christians who lived on the street and ate at the mission because they had no choice. One who had gotten off the street let me spend the night with him in his room in a condemned building swarming with insects, lines of them marching up and down the walls. Becoming a Christian did not immediately resolve his housing problem. (I couldn’t invite him to my place because I still lived in a dormitory and that wasn’t allowed.)

The Stats

While it is possible that many casualty estimates run high in the interest of increasing donor support (and some readers might mistrust some of the reporting organizations for other reasons), common estimates provide at least an order of magnitude.

Yet Larry Ward, founder of Food for the Hungry,76 lamented that statistics were not enough to convey the pain of starvation. Each statistic had a face and a name: “I see those statistics in terms of that little girl in Laos, her pretty face now like a skeleton . . . as she dies of ordinary dysentery. At last a hot bowl of rice has been placed beside her, but her little body is too weakened from long-term malnutrition. All she can do, as she lies there and dies, is take one little grain of rice at a time and transfer it to the tip of her tongue.”77

He describes meeting a boy in Cambodia whose ankle and leg, even above the knee, he could circle with his thumb and forefinger. He discovered that the boy was nine years old, but severe malnutrition had stunted his growth.78 Eighty percent of brain development occurs by age two; inadequate access to protein during formative years leaves children mentally retarded, sometimes with underdeveloped craniums and brains.

Some accuse those who speak of such needs of being guilt manipulators. Guilt isn’t the best response to these needs. But compassion is. And surely every real Christian, who has Jesus in his or her heart, experiences compassion (compare Matt. 9:36; 15:32; Luke 10:33, 37).79 Admittedly, resources are limited, and sometimes the needs are so many that it’s tempting to shut our hearts. Unlike God’s infinitely large heart, we can’t endure all the pain. What then can we do?

Western Wastefulness

Many Western Christians seek to finance “necessities” that, in light of the lifestyles of most of the world’s people, are mere status symbols. Although churches in the New Testament period normally met in homes, church buildings have their usefulness in many cultures, both for outreach and for shelter. But what might Jesus say about our priorities, considering US religious institutions spent nearly three billion dollars in 2023 on building construction alone?80 Unimpressed with the splendor of a physical temple, Jesus chose to build one of people instead (Mark 13:1–2; 1 Pet. 2:5). But physical buildings are not the costliest of our expenditures.

We should consider whether we can live more simply to be more faithful in using the resources he entrusts to us. Indeed, sometimes God’s calling requires that of us. When someone volunteered to follow Jesus, as already mentioned, Jesus responded,

The foxes have their dens and the birds of the sky have their nests, but the Son of Man doesn’t have anywhere to lay his head. (Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58)

When Jesus sent the Twelve, he commanded them

not to take anything for the journey, except a staff. That means no bread, no bag, no money in their belt, though they would wear sandals. “And don’t wear two tunics.” (Mark 6:8–9)

After visiting ministers serving in Western New Guinea (Indonesian Papua), charismatic leader Jamie Buckingham praised their sacrifices and criticized our Western waste of resources on things we don’t need.81 Comparing them to Eli’s corrupt sons Hophni and Phinehas (1 Sam. 2:12–17), Buckingham denounced corrupt modern prosperity preachers. He quotes Catholic charismatic leader Francis MacNutt’s words from the 1976 Holy Spirit conference in Jerusalem: “If Jesus were on earth He wouldn’t be here today. He couldn’t afford the registration.” Criticizing morally compromised television preachers, Buckingham concluded, “The only way we will ever restore our lost credibility is to pick up our wounded, renounce what we have become and re-commit to be like Jesus.”82

Some people object, “I give to meet some needs; I just have a nice lifestyle, too,” as if we’re being generous. If Jesus is truly Lord of all our life and all our possessions (Luke 14:33), however, it is not very generous to rescue a few people from starvation while letting others die so we can buy mere status symbols. Do our resources belong to us, or are we called to be stewards (1 Chron. 29:14)? If we squander our resources mainly on ourselves, do we really believe that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35)? Of US Christian finances devoted to God’s work, some estimate that only 4 percent reaches the 94 percent of the world’s population outside the United States. Jesus warned us not to be tricked by the allure of money (“the deceitfulness of wealth,” Mark 4:19 NASB, NIV). If we truly believe that we can lay up treasure in heaven worth eternally more than treasure on earth, what we do with our resources will show where our heart is (Matt. 6:19–21).

What to Do with What We Have

[Your father Josiah] upheld the cause of the poor and needy. So things went well for Judah. The Lord says, “That is a good example of what it means to know me.” (Jer 22:16 NET)

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matt. 6:24 nasb)

That is why you must kill everything in you that is earthly: sexual vice, impurity, uncontrolled passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god. (Col. 3:5 njb)83

. . . people of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment. . . . And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. (1 Tim. 6:5–6, 8 nasb)

Many of us could live with less, but a key purpose of most advertising is to delude us into thinking that we need more.

Covetousness is not a matter of one’s income. It is possible to have a very high income and be very generous with it; God provides members in the body of Christ with this gift (Rom. 12:8). Contrary to some common misinformation, a needle’s eye back then meant what it means today, not something larger. The point of the image is something impossible. Nevertheless, God, who accomplishes the impossible, can squeeze even a camel through a needle’s eye—that is, he welcomes anybody into his kingdom who is truly willing to abandon all for Jesus (Matt. 19:25–26; Mark 10:26–27; Luke 18:26–27). Joseph of Arimathea becomes one such example (Matt. 27:57–60; Mark 15:43–46; Luke 23:50–53; John 19:38). He was clearly willing to lay his wealth, reputation, and even life on the line by standing for Jesus; requesting the body of someone executed for treason (Matt. 27:58; Mark 15:43; Luke 23:52; John 19:38) could lead to the requester being charged with the same offense. Governors were especially happy to pin capital charges on the wealthy to confiscate their property.

Other persons of wealth also entered the kingdom after making sacrifices commensurate with their resources (e.g., Acts 4:36–37). When one rich man (Luke 19:2), Zacchaeus, was converted, he expressed his faith in two ways: (1) he gave half his goods to the poor; and (2) he paid back fourfold anyone he had ripped off (19:8), treating his white-collar crime as theft (Exod. 22:1, 4; 2 Sam. 12:6). Once Zacchaeus announced his intention to make restitution, Jesus announced that Zacchaeus was saved (Luke 19:9–10). His second action provides a model for those who gain wealth dishonestly; his first action provides a model for all persons who have more than they need (compare Luke 3:11).

Views vary on how best to generate wealth, and I am no economist. Most agree at least that helpful approaches include accountable NGOs establishing microfinance, job training and job creation, and education. Partnership on projects is also valuable. Principles that foster self-support and indigenous initiative are far more effective in the long term than are practices that foster dependence.84 At the same time, urgent crises such as famines and displacement require more direct interventions, and these are massive issues today.

We’re All Vulnerable

Some Americans suggest that the poor should just “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”; but as Tom Skinner pointed out, most of the poor are children. How can children pull themselves up by their bootstraps? An estimated 20 percent of children even in the US suffer hunger, with cases in nearly every community.85 An estimated half of low-income homes with children in the US are headed by single mothers with limited means; nearly one-third of households led by single mothers face food insecurity.86 Many of us who have not lived our entire lives in privilege can remember when we ourselves were just a paycheck, medical crisis, or job loss away from vulnerability or dependence.

In my early ministry, I pastored a small congregation for free while working in a fast-food restaurant to support myself. Although God provided my basic needs—groceries and rent for the cheap basement apartment that stank for a week whenever it flooded—I often wanted to eat the more nutritious food I saw other people throwing away. When the restaurant where I worked closed down, I quickly found another job, but after a couple weeks that employer began laying off the new employees when it became clear that the program was under-enrolled. I could have been on the street had it not been for one generous couple in the congregation who secretly helped those in desperate need.

There were several other times in my life when I was one of those people just a paycheck away from being homeless. It took twelve years of college to get the academic qualifications required for me to teach in my discipline; I often lived hand-to-mouth until I finished, though the Lord provided my tuition and essential needs every year, sparing me from debt. During my first winter doing PhD work I could see my breath while bundled up in my apartment because I couldn’t afford the heat bills. I looked to God, and he did supply my needs—but needs differ from preferences, and life was not always easy.

May our own vulnerability motivate us to greater compassion for those in need.

1 It precedes those known as prosperity preachers; see Harrell, All Things Are Possible, 48–49, 105, 159, 200–201.

2 Hagin, Midas Touch.

3 Oliver, Revivals, 239, noting Hagin’s criticism of gimmicks such as promises of specific material benefits for giving, or treating prosperity as an indication of spiritual maturity.

4 Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches. My published review (Keener, review of Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches) sounds less positive only because editing for space constraints deleted more of my favorable comments.

5 Hagin, Godliness Is Profitable, 15–16. Hagin’s works went through many printings, and I am not sure whether pagination changed in any of these.

6 Hagin, Godliness Is Profitable, passim; Hagin, Redeemed, 1.

7 Hagin, Ministry of a Prophet, 24.

8 Hagin, Ministry of a Prophet, 9. His argument is that God didn’t put them there for the devil’s children; otherwise, he reasons, God “loves the Devil’s children more than He does His children.”

9 Hagin, Authority, 21–22.

10 Hagin, Redeemed, 1.

11 Hagin, Redeemed, 5–6.

12 The example of Abraham does illustrate that God can provide abundance; the example of Paul’s ministry shows that God can also bless us whether we have little or much (Phil. 4:11–12).

13 Hagin, Prayer Secrets, 18; compare Matt. 5:45.

14 Hagin, Prayer Secrets, 19; compare Turn Faith Loose, 16. He uses Matt. 7:11, but what if the child in Matt. 7:10 had asked his wise father for a snake?

15 Hagin, Prayer Secrets; compare p. 20.

16 See Hagin, Visions, 126; Hagin, Prayer Secrets, 20; Capps, Tongue, 57; Copeland, Laws, 104.

17 Copeland, Laws, 53. He boasts that his children can believe God “for anything in the world and get it!” (Laws, 25).

18 Copeland, Laws, 103, emphasis his.

19 Capps, “Keys,” no. 3 (audiotape).

20 Copeland, Decision, 5, noting that choosers are in God’s class of being. Discussion of some prosperity teachers’ affirmations of believers’ divinity (Copeland, Laws, 15; Capps, “Keys,” nos. 1–5 [audiotapes]; compare Hagin, Authority, 11–12; Hagin, Zoe, 36, 39–42; Hagin, Name of Jesus, 105–6) would take us too far afield, but it is particularly concerning.

21 Copeland, Laws, 73 (compare 70ff.).

22 Copeland, Laws, 63–66.

23 Copeland, Laws, 66, 87, 91; compare Believer’s Voice of Victory 7 (4, April 1979).

24 Capps, Tongue, 81.

25 Copeland, Laws, 59.

26 Hagin, Prevailing Prayer to Peace, 85; compare Copeland, Laws, 13; Capps, Tongue, 83; Wierwille, Studies, 18. For earlier examples, see Harrell, All Things Are Possible, 229.

27 Fee, Disease, 4; see Deissmann, Light, 151, 194, 202–3; Kim, Form and Structure, 15–16, 25–34; Aune, Environment, 163; Stowers, Letter Writing, 74; Grant, Gods, 57. For health wishes, see, e.g., 2 Maccabees 11:28; 3 Maccabees 7:1–2; Letter of Aristeas 35; Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum 1:244–45, §132; Zenon Papyri 59060.1; Oxyrhynchus Papyri 292; Griechische Papyri zu Giessen 17; 80.13; Cicero, Epistulae ad familiares 14.8.1; Diogenes Laertius 8.4.79.

28 Walker, “Where God Guides.”

29 Hammond, “Heroes.” The account about the crates comes especially from Irwin, “Daily Bread”; Irwin worked with Trasher before her death. Recently, see also Ma, “Gospel,” 163–64.

30 See, e.g., Müller, Autobiography.

31 Uwimana, From Red Earth, 126.

32 Fodor, “Migrants.”

33 Omer, “Global Water Crisis.”

34 UNESCO, “Valuing Water Supply.”

35 UNICEF, “Nearly Every Minute.”

36 It has also occurred during times of intense revival and persecution (see, e.g., Kim, If I Perish, 52).

37 See, e.g., Exod. 22:25; 23:6, 11; Lev. 19:10; 23:22; 25:35; Deut. 15:7, 9, 11; 24:14; Pss. 12:5; 72:12–13; 112:9; 140:12; Prov. 14:21, 31; 17:5; 28:8; 31:9, 20; Isa. 3:14–15; 10:2; 11:4; 58:7; Jer. 5:28; 22:16; Ezek. 16:49; 22:29; Amos 4:1; 5:12; Zech. 7:10; Mark 10:21; Luke 12:33; 14:13; Acts 4:34; Rom. 15:26; 2 Cor. 8:14; Gal. 2:10; for a fuller sampling, see Sider, Cry Justice.

38 On these figures, see, e.g., Galli, Francis of Assisi; Evans, Wycliffe.

39 Peter Riedeman, an Anabaptist (1506–1556), argued for communal sharing of goods (still practiced among Hutterites; McGee, “Possessions,” 167–68; Williams, Radical Reformation, 232, 426–29), though among Anabaptists, only Hutterites practiced this literally (Finger, Meals, 21–22). For Moravians, see Williams, Radical Reformation, 429; compare 229–33.

40 Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 135; Zhaoming, “Chinese Denominations,” 452–64; Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 54–62; Wesley, Church, 56. Starting in 1921, they predated Communism’s ascendancy in China.

41 Jackson, Quest, 32; Di Sabatino, “Frisbee,” 395–96.

42 The following several paragraphs follow Keener, Matthew, 150–51.

43 Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 157–79.

44 Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 36, 98–102.

45 Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 111–16.

46 Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 105.

47 The church or parachurch organizations today typically offer better distribution mechanisms than we often have individually (see Acts 4:34–35; 6:1–3; 11:29–30; 1 Cor. 16:1–4), and we also do well to support the ministry, including outreach (Luke 10:7; Rom. 15:24; 1 Cor. 9:3–14; Gal. 6:6; Phil. 4:14–16; 1 Tim. 5:17–18). Nevertheless, sacrificial ministry to the truly needy is essential (e.g., Luke 12:20–21, 33; 14:13, 21, 33; Acts 4:34; Rom. 15:26; Gal. 2:10), and the church in Wesley’s day invested more in buildings than in human need. In all cases, accountability is also essential (2 Cor. 8:19–21; today note, e.g., the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability).

48 Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 133.

49 Though Anabaptist ethicist Ron Sider, a Yale PhD in Reformation history, was controversial in some circles, he and his wife, Arbutus, certainly lived according to the values they preached. I owe their friendship more than I could possibly repay; see Keener, “Fidelity”; and especially Keener, “Sider.” What first drew me to Ron was his honesty about the values I was already discovering in Luke-Acts.

50 Sider, Rich Christians, 152.

51 Sider, Rich Christians, 152; compare Jennings, Good News to the Poor, 119–23.

52 Finney, Lectures, 53.

53 Finney, Lectures, 53.

54 Finney, Lectures, 127, emphasis his.

55 Apart from salt, the term most often refers to becoming foolish, a possible wordplay here. On proposed meanings for Jesus’s salt image, see Keener, “Salting.”

56 Hefley and Hefley, Blood, 63.

57 Fodor, “Migrants.”

58 See UN Refugee Agency, “Key Figures.” Official statistics distinguish refugees beyond their nation and those displaced within the nation, but national boundaries are often of less relevance than cultural ones to the displaced themselves.

59 Holmes, “Losing 25,000 to Hunger Every Day.” The figures are thankfully down from an estimated 40,000 a day several decades ago.

60 World Health Organization, “Hunger Numbers 2022.” For COVID’s impact in the US, see also Martin, Nailing It, 18–21.

61 Agence France-Presse, “Wasted Meals.”

62 Food Research and Action Center, “Hunger,” noting this involved 44.2 million Americans.

63 World Health Organization, “Hunger Numbers 2024.” The report adds the contrast that, by medical definitions, some 15.8 percent of the world’s population in 2022 was obese. At least a significant proportion of these cases (there are genetic and other causes) stem from abuse of food.

64 Gray, Lit Up with Love, 100.

65 Schoch, “Half the Population.”

66 Omer, “Global Water Crisis.”

67 UNESCO, “Children”; Cankara, “244M Children.”

68 Schoch, “Half the Population.” In 2011, more than four billion people, 71 percent of the world’s population, lived on less than $10 daily (Kochhar, “$10 per Day”).

69 Pew Research Center, “World Population by Income.”

70 UN Inter-Agency Group, “Levels and Trends.”

71 World Health Organization, “Child Mortality.”

72 United Nations, “Everyone Included.”

73 Homeless No More, “Understanding Global Homelessness.”

74 Soucy, Janes, and Hall, “State of Homelessness.”

75 Samuel, “Global 1%.”

76 The organization’s name comes from Ps. 146:7; see Food for the Hungry, “Who We Are.”

77 Ward, Famines, 5.

78 Ward, Famines, 29.

79 On the value of empathy, see, e.g., Martin, Nailing It, 27–32.

80 Although this figure is not exorbitant by industry standards, and some churches need such construction more than others, it becomes an issue when churches neglect more crucial needs. Compare Luther’s fiftieth of his Ninety-Five Theses: “Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of St. Peter were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.” And number 86: “Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?” (From https://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html, accessed Sept. 21, 2024).

81 Buckingham, “Heroes,” 24, 35.

82 Buckingham, “Spirit of World.” On August 26, 1991, Jamie Buckingham kindly called me about my first book, not knowing beforehand that I was charismatic. His voice was prophetic, and I regret that, because of his passing later that year, we were not able to pursue discussions further.

83 I suspect that the immediate context of the word translated “greed” suggests an emphasis on sexual desire more than monetary desire, but the term itself can bear a broader meaning, and the principle probably still applies.

84 At the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, one required course for my major was “Indigenous Church,” using as textbooks Hodges, Indigenous Church; Williams, Partnership.

85 See Feeding America, “Hunger.” Compare also Hales and Coleman-Jensen, “Food Insecurity”; Mumphrey and Rodgers, “Focus.” Compare Marian Wright Edelman in Powery, “Mark,” 140–41.

86 Bread for the World, “Hunger.” The higher figure of 40 percent may be more current, at Humberstone, “Single Mothers.”

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