By Olatokunbo Odunuga
As mentioned previously, Jim Bakker was among the founding fathers of prosperity preaching several decades ago and he shook the USA to its foundation in his heydays through his Heritage USA and PTL Ministry.
At a time, he built a sprawling ‘five-star’ resort with facilities to accommodate 500 partners to lodge for free holidays once a year! After God graciously converted him from the “nonsensical messages”, as Pastor Bosun Emmanuel termed prosperity and breakthrough messages, he admitted that some other teachings of Jesus, such as Luke 6: 24; Matt. 16: 24 showed the sharp contrast between his teachings and Jesus’, that he had erroneously been teaching that Christians could have the best of both worlds, of this world and heaven too.
He had tried to explain away Luke 18: 24 by modern scholarship, that the eye of the needle which Jesus spoke of was a low arch in the Holy Land and all a camel carrying a heavy load needs do is to get down on its knees to slip through the eye of the needle. He had heard such smart theory from other highly respected Prosperity teachers, and he just propagated it.
When the illumination of the Spirit flashed on him, he settled to study the meaning of Jesus’ word in the original Greek language and he discovered that Jesus was not talking about camels walking on their knees, but that the word used was one commonly used to describe a sewing needle, not an archway.
He admitted that the word meant exactly what it said and that it may not be impossible for a rich man to enter heaven, but apart from a miracle of God, he doesn’t stand a chance! The more he intensified study of the Bible at times beyond twelve hours a day, the more he had to face the shattering truth that he had been preaching false doctrine for years without realising it. He had been doing the opposite of Jesus’ word teaching people to fall in love with money and that Jesus never equated blessings with material things.
What interests me further was when he revisited 3 John 2. He looked up the meaning of the word, “prosper” in the King James Version and found that the word came from a Greek word ‘euodoo’, which is made up of two Greek root words, eu, meaning “good” and hodos, meaning, “road, or route, progress, or journey, and he found no single reference in the Greek to money, riches or material gain.
He conceded that John was not saying, “Above everything else, I want you to get rich. Above everything, you should prosper and make money”. To convince himself further, he set his attention on another ‘euodoo’ in Romans 1: 10, where it is written, “Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you” (KJV).
He admitted that it will be unthinkable for the apostle to say, “Please pray for me that somehow or other I might obtain wealth by coming to preach to you” or “Please pray that I will make a lot of money on this trip”. So Paul was simply saying, “I sure hope God grants me an opportunity to visit you soon. Please pray that I will have a good journey on the road as I travel to see you”.
For the first time, he began to understand what Paul meant when he wrote 1 Timothy 6: 9-11, which he said over the years, he had glossed over, ignored, made excuses for and tried to explain away, but that he now sees that the message was right there all the time and plain even for a child to understand. It dawned on him heavily that he had influenced so many people to accept a prosperity message and felt a responsibility to tell his friends of his new convictions.
He sent out an apology for preaching a gospel that places emphasis on earthly prosperity rather than spiritual riches- “I asked all who have sat under my ministry to forgive me for preaching a message that emphasized earthly prosperity. Jesus said, ‘Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth’. He wants you to be in love with only Him”.
In the concluding part of his apology, he said if a house, a new car, a good job is the evidence of God’s blessings, then movie stars, gambling casino owners, drug kingpins are blessed of God. I was hard hit to the marrow when he challenged us that it is time that the call from the pulpits be changed from invitation to the life of pleasure and good things, new homes, cars, material possessions to “who will come forward to accept Jesus and the fellowship of His suffering”, that Jesus calls us to come and die to ourselves and to the world, so He might give us true life. My God! All these from the mouth of capo di tutti capi of prosperity preaching!
Talk of sincerity, Jim Bakker is a portrait. This is the pedigree of a Christian leader to doff one’s hat for. In that book, he came out clean -no hold barred-. I recommend that book as my personal assessment of a chartbuster and a Christian classic. In spite of being 641 pages, I took time to read every line. Anytime I sight it in a Lagos bookshop, I will likely clear the entire stock to share with friends. It is unparalleled in its de-robing the masquerade inside prosperity messages.
No thoughtful person can read the book and be hoodwinked or ‘dry-cleaned’ any more by prosperity preachers. Some prosperity preachers who now denounce their messages, unlike Jim Bakker, often come out “half-heartedly”, speaking from both sides of the mouth. I quote appreciate their difficulty. They are in the realm or territory of the greatest power that contends with God in the entire universe, according to scriptures, not the Devil now, but Bishop so and so.
Please check his name yourself in Luke 16: 13. But Jim Bakker to the best of my knowledge was consistent for decades in his recant of prosperity preaching. Once again, I commend his deliberate thoroughness and sincerity in removing the blindfold from the eyes of millions of believers.
To me, if indeed, prosperity is all about wealth and glamour, where are the Christians who can match the Sultan of Brunei, who as at over a decade ago, had a palace with 1,778 rooms and 257 lavatories. In his compound, he had a personal fleet of 140 Rolls Royce plus other 1,998 luxury cars. Any evangelist, who blurts out at you to “receive it” must be a vampire, really out for your blood. Shalom! CONCLUDED