By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario
[Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is a doctoral student in New Testament Studies, Project Manager for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary, and Adjunct Professor of Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University, Rocklin, California.]
It was like a mixture between the royal family and the mafia.” In an episode of The Table called “Escaping the Prosperity Gospel,” Costi Hinn explains what it was like growing up as the nephew of faith healer and “health and wealth” preacher Benny Hinn. He compares his upbringing to “the lavish lifestyle of the royal family—wealth, servants, mansions, and security,” noting that it was like “the mafia in that we were very loyal. You never turned your back on family. It didn’t matter . . . if things were truthful or if they were lies.”
Costi Hinn eventually questioned whether faith resulted in physical health or financial prosperity, as his teachers said. On this view, wealth is a sure sign of God’s favor—an idea that has been gaining ground among those who describe themselves as “born again Christians.”[1] In 2018, Christianity Today reported that prosperity gospel ideas are in some way taught to about forty percent of evangelical churchgoers,[2] citing a LifeWay Research study suggesting that sixty-nine percent of Protestant churchgoers agreed with the statement, “God wants me to prosper financially.”[3] While this is a concerning trend, Hinn’s spiritual journey out of the prosperity movement shows how God leads even those who perpetuate false doctrine to repent. In this briefing, we share a section of Hinn’s story as told on The Table, including his journey out of the movement, and the importance of recovering the real gospel.
Preaching The Prosperity Gospel
Hinn grew up around prosperity and “word of faith” ideas. His father pastored a church preaching this doctrine in Vancouver, British Columbia. As a teenager, Costi travelled widely with his uncle’s organization. He explains how this movement formed his early views on Go, what it was like to serve in the televangelist’s organization, and clarifies the core of prosperity theology.
Del Rosario: What did it look like growing up in that whole context?
Hinn: Flying on private planes, driving Hummers and Bentleys, Ferraris, staying in the best hotels in the world, eating at the best restaurants in the world. . . . Spiritually speaking, the reason we thought that that was ministry, and the reason that I felt so strongly and that that was God’s blessing, and it was indicative of being “anointed” was because we looked at passages like John 10:10, where Jesus says, “I’ve come that they might have life and life more abundantly,” as evidence for living the “abundant life.” [For us, that] abundance meant health, wealth, happiness.
We would look at a greeting where John writes, “I wish above all that you may prosper and be in good health, even as the soul prospereth.” I would look at that and say, “God doesn’t just want me to benefit or prosper spiritually in my salvation, but he wants me prospering materially. It’s always his will that we be healthy. It’s always God’s will that we be wealthy.”
We traveled the world preaching that. We took the Bible and forced it into our system. We prooftexted to ensure that we had a version of the gospel that would sell well, and God was like a magic genie. If I rubbed him right with enough faith or a big enough offering, he would give me whatever I wanted. . . . We lived that message, and lived like rock stars, but all on donations.
Del Rosario: Is that what the core of the prosperity gospel is?
Hinn: Yeah, the prosperity gospel taps the deepest felt need of every human being on the planet, which is to be comfortable, to be safe, to be secure, to have financial stability. In 2 Peter 2:1–3, when he’s introducing an entire chapter about false teachers, Peter says, “In their greed, they will exploit you.” I do think there’s an element of greed that’s there, but certainly the people that buy into this, a lot of them are just after health and wealth and prosperity. Who doesn’t want to be healthy? I want to be healed. I don’t want to be sick. Nobody wants their kids sick. So, that is something it promises.
Who doesn’t want to be wealthy or financially stable? You have a lot of independence. You don’t have to worry how you’re going to pay the bills. People want that. And then happiness. Who wants to be in conflict? Who wants to be fighting all the time with people? Who wants divorce and brokenness? We want to be happy and enjoying our life. Well, the prosperity gospel packages the Word of God and the life of Christ and the atoning work that he accomplished on the cross . . . everything about the Christian life, packages it up as this sort of “get rich, get healthy” scheme.
And if you do what the “anointed” leader says, you’re going to get all those things. So, the bait and switch, or, I would go stronger than that, call it a Ponzi scheme, really only benefits the guys at the top, while everybody else continues to pay into the system, so to speak, hoping to get the benefits.
Del Rosario: How did this thinking emerge, historically?
Hinn: [In the] mid to late-1800s . . . Phineas Quimby introduced new age ideas [like] you can speak things to existence. That’s where we get the idea of “name it and claim it.” Some people say, sort of tongue-in-cheek, “blab it and grab it.” This idea that whatever you think, whatever you speak, you can bring into existence.
Throughout the 1900s, you have characters like Smith Wigglesworth or Oral Roberts or Kenneth Hagin [in] the word of faith movement. Kenneth Copeland would propagate this idea. . . . You think it, you speak it, you declare it, and you’re forcing God. You can really control God, and God has to do it because he promised that he would bless you in his Word.
I’ll give you the lynchpin verse for the prosperity gospel: 2 Corinthians 8:9. “He became poor so that we might become rich.” Now, that’s not what that particular text means. [It doesn’t mean] that we’re all going to be healthy and wealthy because Jesus became poor. But [prosperity preachers teach that], just like we confess our sin, and we’re saved by faith, we can confess health and wealth and God will [give us health and wealth].
Del Rosario: Wow. And so, the idea of praying, then, of faith, even tithing, is seen as a means to manipulate God almost. Is that right?
Hinn: Absolutely. You see [in] 2 Corinthians 8:9, Paul’s message [is about] giving generously to others in the church and certainly to the Lord’s work. Jesus was so lavish and generous with his grace, for us, we should give with that heart. We should be generous to others, ready to share. Nowhere in that chapter or any chapters in the New Testament is there this idea that if you give to the anointed leader that God is going to make you rich.
Certainly, there are promises and principles in the New Testament with generosity where if . . . you are receiving from the Lord and giving generously . . . God certainly blesses that in a sense. But, it could also be blessings that aren’t material. Peace, joy, treasure in heaven. Imagine getting to participate in the harvest of souls. Those are blessings, [but] often the prosperity gospel says, “If you give to God this, you’re gonna get a hundredfold blessing, or a hundredfold return.” It’s like giving you the stock market and you’re going to hit it big if you give a big enough offering.
Escaping The Prosperity Gospel
During Hinn’s work in the movement, he began to doubt the motives behind healing crusades that were filled with atmospheric effects. Did faith really guarantee physical health and wealth as his own family believed? He wondered about failed healing attempts blamed on the sick for their lack of faith. He wondered about alleged prophecies that seemed to contradict Scripture. One day, the Lord led someone to give him a book that would help him navigate his way out to the prosperity movement.
Del Rosario: God led you to people and resources to help you find your way out of the prosperity movement. One of them was a little book written by our DTS chancellor, Chuck Swindoll.[4] Tell us about what role that played in your journey.
Hinn: Yes . . . the book [was] Church Awakening. There was a woman in our church in Canada [where] I was my dad’s associate pastor . . . She slips me this book . . . and goes, “Hey, keep going. You know, you’re on the right track.” And I’m like “What?” And she hands me this book like it was a drug deal, like it was secret, you know? And so, I grab the book. I devour it. And, brother, I’ll tell you, there’s a whole section in there where Dr. Swindoll says a few choice words about false teachers. We’ll leave it at that.
[But] it fit us to a tee . . . to a tee! I remember that being a moment where I thought, “You know what? Yikes!” The whole book is a call back to truth, back to the Word, back to the Holy Spirit, back to conviction, back to being faithful. . . . I could list out a dozen resources or people that God used to chisel away or put cracks in the dam. Eventually, this thing burst open . . . I’m thankful that people like Swindoll and many others have been busy about the Father’s business so that guys like me can be given a book by a secretive, unassuming, El Salvadorian woman in our church, and it would do something incredible in my heart.
Del Rosario: So, how did you ultimately make that definitive break and escape the prosperity gospel movement?
Hinn: One of my pastor friends calls it . . . [my] “grace awakening”—the name of another book Swindoll wrote. I was prepping for a sermon [on] John 5:1–17. My pastor mentor at the time threw me a commentary and said, “Hey, this is a commentary. It’ll help keep the train on the tracks.” And it was a [John] MacArthur commentary.
I’m making observations of the text in my study, and I see Jesus heals one [person] out of a multitude. It was like [I had] new eyes. I’m going, “That’s weird. I always thought you’d heal everyone. I just realized you healed one guy. Why’d you do that, Lord?”
So I’m allowed to finally ask questions of the Bible, which was liberating in and of itself, because in the movement I grew up in, you never questioned anything, or you’re “touching the Lord’s anointed,” so to speak.
[In the text], Jesus heals [the man] immediately. John records that. I thought, “[He healed] right away [with] no fanfare, no white jacket, no stadium, no music, no offering, none of it.” The man doesn’t even know who Jesus was. All that sends me into a spiral of confusion, but mostly because my old beliefs weren’t proving true. I grabbed the commentary, and it said, “Here is a prime example of Jesus as a sovereign healer.” Then [MacArthur] goes off about false teachers and says, “The cruelest lie of faith healers today is the people they fail to heal are guilty of negative confession, unbelief, etc.,” and I’m going, “Oh, my goodness, that is exactly what I used to believe and teach. It’s what we did.”
So I start crying, and it was a powerful moment . . . and it was over. My eyes were opened. Everything made sense. I wept. I repented. I realized the life I’d lived, the teaching I’d adhered to . . . I said “sorry” to the Lord for twisting the gospel, for believing a false gospel, and I vowed to preach the true gospel. So, I literally got up, ran over into my pastor’s office and—I was the associate pastor at the time—I kicked the door in [and] I started saying, “It was all a lie! The false teaching . . .” and I was just going off. I was telling him, “I’m going to do something about this. This is hurting people.”
And so . . . I lost my title of pastor . . . My pastor’s father was a DTS graduate and had thousands of books. John Walvoord began to line my shelves, and Criswell, and Gromacki, and many others on the work of the Holy Spirit, [and] interpreting the Bible, Zuck and many others on Bible interpretation.
I began to devour books on church history . . . a beautiful old set of Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology I just began to devour. And I was like, “Where has all this been?” It was about a four-year journey of lay training, biblical counseling, and then entering into seminary. . . . That’s how it all happened.
Recovering The Real Gospel
The real gospel is the good news about God taking the initiative to reconnect us to himself for eternity by means of forgiveness for sin and the offer of life in his indwelling Spirit through the work of Jesus. Hinn’s story highlights the idea that the real gospel is worth giving up everything to attain. Indeed, Jesus taught that the gospel of the kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field or a pearl of great price. There is joy in finding it like a secret, buried treasure. When you discover the true gospel, there should be no hesitation to give up all you have for it (cf. Matt 13:44–46). Still, even churches committed to the true gospel are seeing prosperity themes influencing their communities. We must recover the gospel, in all its fullness, in order to guard against false doctrine. Consider the following two key areas:[5]
First, contrary to many prosperity preachers, the Abrahamic covenant is not a means to material wealth. It is true that we benefit from God’s promise to Abraham when we accept the true gospel. This promise, which was preached in the Old Testament, should never be divorced from the true gospel—God’s promise realized (Matt 13:17). However, the point of the Abrahamic covenant was not to bless Abraham or his spiritual children with material blessings. Misunderstanding that can lead to disappointment with God and doubting the Scriptures. Although some use Galatians 3:14 to support prosperity theology, Paul was not talking about financial gain and material wealth. Rather, he was talking about the spiritual blessing of salvation.
Second, contrary to many prosperity preachers, Jesus’s atonement is not a means to physical health. Some Jews in Jesus’s day linked forgiveness with healing, but the cross does not ensure that Christians will be free from physical illness or that God will always choose to heal those for whom we pray. Nowhere does Scripture teach that the atonement guarantees physical healing or financial prosperity.[6] Rather, forgiveness brings a restored relationship with God (Eph 2:11–22). With forgiveness, God sends his Spirit to indwell, enable, and direct us. The earliest apologetic for Jesus as Lord and Messiah highlights the fact that the resurrected Jesus, who receives the Holy Spirit from the Father, gives the Spirit to everyone who calls on him (Acts 2:16–39; Rom 6–8; 1 Cor 15:1–19). The everlasting, spiritual blessings of our renewed relationship with God far outweigh the temporal, physical blessings on which many in the prosperity movement are focused.
Conclusion
Through a series of people and resources, God allowed Hinn to discover the theological bankruptcy of the prosperity gospel. When he left the “royal-family-meets-mafia” lifestyle of the prosperity movement to recover the real gospel, he discovered a much greater treasure that far outweighs the private planes, sports cars, and lavish dining experiences that characterized his old lifestyle. While God does not guarantee our physical health or financial prosperity in this fallen world, the spiritual blessings of the true abundant life do not disappoint: A restored relationship with God, a new life in Christ, and an eternal life of quality (not just duration) that far exceeds the physical blessings promised by “health and wealth” preachers.
Notes
- Peter Moore, “38% of Born Again Christians Believe Prayer Can Boost Your Wealth,” YouGovAmerica, August 27, 2015, https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2015/08/27/televangelism. Full study available: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/dxmhuwj6r1/tabs_OPI_Televangelists_20150826.pdf
- Bob Smietana, “Prosperity Gospel Taught to 4 in 10 Evangelical Churchgoers,” Christianity Today, July 31, 2018, https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/july/prosperity-gospel-survey-churchgoers-prosper-tithe-blessing.html.
- Bob Smietana, “Most Churchgoers Say God Wants Them to Prosper Financially,” Lifeway Research, July 31, 2018, https://lifewayresearch.com/2018/07/31/most-churchgoers-say-god-wants-them-to-prosper-financially/.
- Mark Bailey assumed the role of chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary after this interview was conducted.
- Although not directly related to a discussion of prosperity gospel, some of the following ideas appear here: Darrell L. Bock, “10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About the Gospel,” DTS Voice, January 29, 2015, https://voice.dts.edu/article/10-things-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-the-gospel-darrell-l-bock/. For a discussion on recovering the fullness of the gospel, see Darrell L. Bock, Recovering the Real Lost Gospel: Reclaiming the Gospel as Good News (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010).
- For discussion, see Ken L. Sarles, “A Theological Evaluation of the Prosperity Gospel,” Bibliotheca Sacra 143 (1986): 329–52.
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