Parsley Preaching Poverty?
Right before leaving for Together for the Gospel, I caught just a glimpse of TBN's pledge-a-thon. "Pastor" Rod Parsley was preaching about "seed money." TBN needs more money, and rather than speaking to giving to those works which are glorifying God, Parsley decided to entice people to give by promising them more money. He gave example after example of people giving small portions of money--only to have God give much more money.
His point was clear: Give some money and God will give you more money. It's a great financial investment plan. In fact, it became so clear to Parsley that this was his message, that he finally paused and said something:
"I've had the LA Times, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, all asking me the same question. They want to know if I am a prosperity preacher..."
(I looked up from the laundry to hear his answer.)
"...I told them, 'Well, I sure ain't a poverty preacher."
Everyone sitting on stage behind him began to cheer loudly. They clapped as Parsley stood their proud of his witty reply. Of course, I couldn't help but think of a couple of passages:
Matthew 5:3 (Jesus says the poor are blessed.)
Matthew 19:21 (Jesus encourages a man to become poor.)
Luke 9:58 (Jesus Himself had no place to lay His head.)
Philippians 4:10-19 (Paul had learned to live with nothing.)
Just so we're clear, without much investigation, Parsley basically admits he preaches a different message than Jesus or Paul.
Parsley may speak of wealth, but his message is truly poor.
His point was clear: Give some money and God will give you more money. It's a great financial investment plan. In fact, it became so clear to Parsley that this was his message, that he finally paused and said something:
"I've had the LA Times, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, all asking me the same question. They want to know if I am a prosperity preacher..."
(I looked up from the laundry to hear his answer.)
"...I told them, 'Well, I sure ain't a poverty preacher."
Everyone sitting on stage behind him began to cheer loudly. They clapped as Parsley stood their proud of his witty reply. Of course, I couldn't help but think of a couple of passages:
Matthew 5:3 (Jesus says the poor are blessed.)
Matthew 19:21 (Jesus encourages a man to become poor.)
Luke 9:58 (Jesus Himself had no place to lay His head.)
Philippians 4:10-19 (Paul had learned to live with nothing.)
Just so we're clear, without much investigation, Parsley basically admits he preaches a different message than Jesus or Paul.
Parsley may speak of wealth, but his message is truly poor.
posted by danny2 @ 8:49 PM
3 Comments:
At 11:33 AM,
~~anna~~ said…
Yes, and we've seen him on the TV in the Dominican with Spanish dubbing. So he's just not spreading his message to Ohio.
How did your SS class on DaVinci Code go today? I was in a church service today (in Virginia) where the msg was devoted to exposing some of the lies in Dan Brown's book, along with the Gospel according to Judas, and the Jesus Papers. Interesting stuff, I just wished the speaker would have used the Scripture more and "critics and scholars" less. There was only once when he said "If you want the truth, read this" and he held up a New Testament. The rest was using scholars to refute authors basically. Good, but if left me wanting more....not of what he shared, but more of Scripture! Maybe it's me, but I want a church service to be focused on Christ and not on scholars and refuting authors. SS is the place for that...but am I just being picky?
At 2:13 PM,
danny2 said…
anna,
that's why we reserved it for ss and no tthe morning service. the togetherforthegospel conference re-enforced to me that the gathering of believers for church is to be centered around expositing scripture. (it also doesn't feel right to me to allow your church preaching to be determined by a movie that has come out.)
it went ok today...there was a ton of information to work through. i assume jason will have it on line before too long
At 8:12 PM,
Dan Pritchett said…
Well, maybe if TBN needs more money, they need to give it away so that God will give them more -- the church God has called me to serve just voted to purchase an adjoining piece -- we would be more than happy to provide the "ground" need for the seed money! (That's bad, but it is Sunday evening).
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