Christian Salesmanship: Oh Lord, won't you buy me ...

Column #9
January 9, 2007
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper

Christian Salesmanship: Oh Lord, won’t you buy me …By Bob Walters

I get the creeps when I see Christian salesmanship (some call it evangelism) focused on either sin or prosperity.

Both miss the point terribly, but are understandable sales tactics because they are global concepts.

Sin – everybody has it. Prosperity - everybody wants it.

God, the Bible teaches us, isn’t all that interested in either.

Sin certainly has a theological basis. Christ came from God for our salvation, and preached fervently against the sins which separate us from our relationship with God the Father Almighty.

God’s not that interested in our sin because He doesn’t dwell on our past; guilt has no place in the Kingdom. Satan, on the other hand, has nothing except our past sins and our current guilt to fulfill his lowly aim of controlling us in order to spoil that Godly relationship Christ died for.

So when I hear a Christian selling Christ on the basis of our awful sins that He died for, the Christian is selling the disease (guilt), not the cure.

What’s the cure? That’s easy: Love, and faith in Christ.

God’s power is love and faith; Satan’s power is guilt and fear. Class dismissed.

The Prosperity Gospel, the health and wealth doctrine so tremendously popular today (especially on TV), has preachers selling salvation in a gold box. If your relationship is right with Jesus, they preach, if you pray right and live right, Jesus will reward you with the desirable spoils of this life. You’ll get your best life right now.

That is dangerous baloney. If you “believe” in order to get something material, then what you have isn’t faith. What you have is greed. And your faith is going to take a beating when you lose your job or your health. God isn’t in that stuff; He’s in your heart.

In the Old Testament, God made the Jews His Chosen People. They strove for righteousness with earthly works to win God’s favor. Popular “Capitalist Christianity” finds its scriptural basis in the Old Testament, before the coming of the Messiah.

In the New Testament, in Christ, God’s favor is already won … for eternity. Not only does the New Testament not teach the prosperity gospel (not without a good yank, tuck and a twist, anyway), it very clearly points out the specific perils of wealth (Matthew 19:16-30). Nowhere does it say wealth is bad, certainly; only dangerous. And nowhere does it say being rich, smart, good looking and healthy are a measure of virtue.

Virtue, it teaches, is in your heart, not in your hand. Salvation, it promises, is in your faith in Christ, not in things. Forgiveness of our sins is wonderful, but God’s promise is that we will eventually forget our sins, because He already has. (New Year’s note – Why not go ahead and forget your sins? Satan will have a harder time getting to you.)

Health and wealth? They are false gods. You may have noticed that everybody dies, and there are an awful lot of going-to-glory Christians who will leave little behind.

For God’s love, Christ erased our sin and laid up our real riches in heaven.

Sell that.

Walters, a Carmel resident, has lost faith in most TV preachers.