Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Costi Hinn- What is the prosperity gospel?

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

Jonny Ardavanis is the Dean of Campus Life at The Master’s University, a Camp Director at Hume Lake Christian Camps and hosts the podcast Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis. He is passionate about the Gospel and God’s Word and desires to see people understand and obey it. Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the BibleIn this episode Pastor, Author and President of For The Gospel Ministries, Costi Hinn answers the question: “What is the prosperity gospel?”Subscribe to stay up to date with each episode! Watch on YouTubeFollow on InstagramVisit Our Website

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this episode, I sit down with my friend and brother, Kosti Hinn. He's the pastor of Shepherd's House in Phoenix, Arizona area, and also the president and founder of For the Gospel Ministries, of which I'm a contributor. And I asked Kosti to tell us a little bit about the Prosperity Gospel Movement. Kosti's experience as the nephew of renowned prosperity preacher Benny Hinn provides a unique catalyst for him to tell

us biblically how we're to look at the prosperity gospel movement, but also how even those within biblically conservative gospel-saturated contexts can become dangerously close to what Costi calls prosperity light. You're going to enjoy this episode. Let's dial in. have an idea of the term, but have less understanding of what that actually means and how it's infiltrating much of the way that people approach the Christian faith today. So would you tell us just a little bit of your story and then extrapolate that into explaining what the prosperity gospel is? Yeah, so Backstory grew up in a prosperity gospel family, so to speak. I'll just sort of use some layman's terms here. In the center of the prosperity gospel world, I had an uncle who is like a famous televangelist on TV. If people

don't know what that is, it's like the guy that's on the nightly TV program. You're rich. Yes, fancy suit. He used to wave his jacket around and try to heal people, knock them over. And the idea is this. We're super blessed. We're super anointed. We're really powerful religious leaders. And we've got this understanding of God that you don't have, common man, but we can tell you how to be like us. That means we're healthy. We are wealthy. We're rich. We're powerful. And we're so happy. We're living the American dream. And if you just do what we say, and you have enough faith, and by the way, you give us lots of money, you will have all these things. If you've heard of a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme, the idea is the rich get richer. The guys at the top get everything. The people at the bottom buy in over and over and over and over again. So we did

ministry that way, like church ministry on donations. The last thing I'll say illustratively is this. I viewed God as a magic genie. If I rubbed him right and I did all the right things, I believed the right way, and I gave enough money or whatever, you say, follow this guy and do what they tell you, then he would give me all the things I wished for. So it's a big transactional religious activity, I would call it. So then guys like your uncle would feel like they received that anointing just because God has had a special calling in their life, or how did they receive that? Yeah, typically there's a big story attached to the way that they became what they are, and typically it can't be verified.

So you know how when you become a Christian or I become a Christian, we tell this testimony about who we used to be and what God has done, and all of a sudden we're changed and people verify it, and it's this verifiable story. Hey, I was a drunk. Hey, I was an immoral person. Hey, I was an abuser. I was this. I was that. And Jesus saved me. I was lost doing whatever I wanted. Well, in the prosperity gospel world, it goes more like this. I was sitting in my room one day, and Jesus appeared. Personally and physically. Totally, and the Holy Spirit came

also, and He told me, I'm going to anoint you. You are my special servant. I want you to tell these people these things, and if they do this, then this will happen, and I've anointed you, and I've called you. So what you have is very much like religious cults start. An angel or someone comes to a place no one is except that person. Like in the Muslim faith, like I was greeted by Gabriel. Or Mormonism, or maybe any other where there's this angel that comes or someone says something, and this anointed leader now goes out to lead the charge.

I think of a real common one now with that Netflix documentary, docuseries that's out on Scientology. This same idea that someone has been given this big-time revelation that no one knows. They've got the secret to life, the secret to happiness, the secret to healing and riches, and all of it. Well, the prosperity gospel is that, and usually leaders start with some sensational story. Why we call it the prosperity gospel is, well, prosperity, obviously, health, wealth, happiness, a super awesome American dream, fulfilled life. Then gospel, we attach that word because we say, well, the good news about Jesus is, like, the word gospel literally means good news. The good news is Jesus, He'll save you from your sin. He'll give you heaven, but guess what? You don't have to wait till heaven to have

a life like you'll have in heaven. You can live your best life now and have all these things if you do this, this, this, and this. That would be like donating money. Donating money, saying certain phrases like a religious chant. That's why the prosperity gospel, almost humorously people would call it, name it and claim it or blab it and grab it. Jesus is going to give me a Bentley. I declare it in Jesus' name.

I'm going to be 6'7". I'm going to be the next Mike Trout or, in Jesus' name, Hall of Famer Johnny Artavanis, in Jesus' name. I'm still holding out on that. You're still young. It can happen. You attach the magic phrase to the magic genie, if you will, and you get to live your dream life. Yeah. So then how do they qualify that with the obvious amounts of poverty of people that even will give you those things? Do people just leave ticked off later on and then understand it's a scam? Or are there people that are still going

like, man, maybe I didn't give enough or I didn't give with like a heart of faith or how would they? It's both. So it abuses the vulnerable and exploits the marginalized in our world, in our society, people living in the gutter that just want, they truly want just a decent life, a life where they have a home and they grow old and see their children run around. They're just wanting a job that's stable and to be able to pay the bills. So there's a lot of well-intentioned people that run after this stuff. They're usually the most abused because they don't get it, but then how in the world do they keep buying in is usually the question. Or how do people believe this stuff? Well, the quote, anointed leader will tell people, now if you didn't get healed or you

didn't get the blessing I'm talking about, you don't have enough faith. You've got to have more faith. And so now people are blamed, which is the perfect out. Because what can they do except blame themselves? But then what about people that it seems to work for? Well, you tell a rich person in first world America, if you go to church, if you give us money, and if you just have faith, God's going to give you a promotion, a new job, a new house, a new baby,

a new this, a new that, a new that. Well, where in the world and where in all of history have you had such a slam-dunk reality which we have in America? If you tell people that, what are the odds? Is there not a percentage of people in our country that are going to get a job promotion this week that are going to give money to our church and experience a baby. Shooting fish in a barrel. Yeah. We used to call it shotgun prophecy. You prophesy a whole bunch of stuff and like a shotgun

spray, you're going to hit something. And when you hit something, people will identify that as a gift from God. And you ride that train all the way home, telling everybody the story, making videos about it. It worked for them. It could work for you. And now we're into infomercial Christianity. So then the difference even from like a pastor, like would your uncle Benny Hinn say he's a pastor or an evangelist? How would he identify himself? They all use different terms. So he, Pastor Benny Hinn is still his title because he pastored a church in Orlando for decades, then left it and went to, he said God called him to the world to do a global ministry. But even legally, like IRS requires that there's a church. It has to be a church for religious practice, not just a 501c3 general parachurch. So his title still has to even be pastor.

So then like the difference between like a pastor in that environment versus like ours, like a pastor, you would get up on Sunday and encourage all the young men that you are just being faithful to what God has called you to do and that we're all called to be men of God. And he would say that you are not ever going to be me. Like I have a special anointing. All you can do is try to glean or receive what God has given to me and I can impute or transfer over to you by nature of the power he's extended to me. Is that accurate? Yeah, I would call it the holy man myth. And it's the idea that that's the holy man. I'm never going to be him. So he's a prophet. He is. And here's the challenge is, you know, are there men even even in the Bible preaching world, where we wouldn't say that they're prosperity gospel guys, where men are exceptionally gifted?

Like, I'm never going to be Johnny Artavanis. I know that. I've accepted that. As far as, like, partially cross-eyed and colorblind? Or your style, all, like, who you're preaching. But your brain operates and being dead serious at speeds that are way beyond. Are you recording? I've been around you and I've seen, you know, you're four or five steps ahead intellectually in your brain. You're telling stories. I'm like, where's he going

with this? You landed. I'm like, whoa, you know, that kind of thing. I'm not going to be that. Okay. But let's get honest. I can be just like you in following Christ. I can be just like you in growing in holiness. You can be just like me in the opportunity to declare the gospel to the world. We all have different gifts, different abilities, different things that make us unique as part of the body. But nobody, not Johnny, not Kosti, not anyone, has a lock on, I'm the man, what I got, you can't have.

So you need to come and I'm it. And I'm going to fill you up. And then you just kind of rest in your station in life. That is how cults and abusive systems thrive. And some people just use spiritual means. So people say, well, what are these guys? Well, they're not pastors. They're not Christians.

What is this? I just say they're religious entrepreneurs. They're building a brand. They're building a business. They're the CEO. They're not Christians. What is this? I just say they're religious entrepreneurs. They're building a brand. They're building a business. They're the CEO. They have it all. They're the quote prophet, and they're the rock star, and no one can be like them. You and I, I think when we want to be faithful, we're determined to say, hey, I may have different gifts than you. You have different gifts than me. You are excellent at this. I'm excellent at that. And together, we can all continue to serve the Lord, and you have a gift too. And God wants to use you for His glory, and He can. And it's not a formula to keep feeding my system. It's a process in which we follow Christ and be who we truly are. That makes sense. Yeah, totally. So like, let's say people have heard of your Uncle Benny Hinn, or let's say like another person in

that camp would be in some ways, Joel Osteen, even though he's not maybe healing as much, he would say, you might get healed. You're going to, you know, I can't do a Texas accent, but you're going to have the best day of your life tomorrow. You still sound British. Yeah. Every accent I have is borderline Australian and British. Yeah, it's the same. You're going to have the best day of your life tomorrow. Okay, so let's say there's Benny Hinn, there's Joel Osteen. But what are subtle ways that prosperity-oriented thinking infiltrates its practices and its philosophy into what might otherwise be a solid environment how does prosperity thinking kind of

have like a subtle grab of our hearts and even in the way that many churches and our own churches can conduct itself today I call this prosperity gospel light it is the diet version. It is not very obvious. It is subtle. It does not have the Joel Osteen swag. It does not have the Benny Hinn jacket. It does not have Bentleys and Ferraris. It is subtle.

It creeps into our hearts in the American church and even in the Bible church where we begin to think, I'm righteous. I'm not like those guys. I'm not like Joel Osteen. I'm not Kenneth Copeland on Inside Edition being weird with this or that. I'm not riding in Bentleys and flying on Gulfstream jets. I'm not Benny Hinn. And all of a sudden, very much like the Pharisee and the publican. You remember the tax collector in the Bible? It was that story. God, I thank you. They walk in the temple to pray,

and one guy is broken, humble, sinner. The other guy says, Oh, God, I thank you that I'm not like Johnny over there. Well, we can easily say, I'm obedient. I'm righteous. I'm faithful. I'm not like them.

So why wouldn't God bless me? Why wouldn't He do all these great things? Why wouldn't He use me mightily? And why won't He give me all these wonderful children and this beautiful home? All my blessings, I didn't get them from a Ponzi scheme like the prosperity gospel. I got them because I'm faithful. Now we start to buy the lie that we deserve it and that we can also get it if we do these things. And that potentially is more dangerous than the obvious, what we would call heresy or blasphemy, because this one is self-righteous. And now we've begun to put on our life a righteousness that is not from Christ. It's from our own good works and following. And I've got news for you, news for me, news for all of us.

Job, most righteous man that I can think of, faithful, holy, obedient, he went through it. In the book of Job, in the Bible, it's all about this storyline in which Job suffers. He gets all his stuff taken away, plundered. There's loss. There's death. This whole storyline. And in the end, he says, the Lord giveth and the Lord take it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. His wife at some point goes, you know, just curse God and die already. You know, get this thing over with. What'd you do to make him mad? Yeah. He said, I'm righteous. What's the illustration there? The righteous, we may be blessed. And that's God's blessing and kindness. We're to use those blessings for His glory and

His work to be a light to this world. But also the righteous may suffer. And we may not all be healthy, wealthy, happy. They're promised they will suffer. And more so this than blessing. So prosperity gospel light, the diet version, creeps into our churches when we think, we're doing great, no wonder we're blessed. And I'll add this addendum. Does God bless faithfulness? Sure.

But does that negate suffering? Never. We may be given more because we've been faithful with little. Well, what's the goal? To be faithful with more, all the same. never to be about ourselves and building our own empire but to be about him and his work and his glory kassi that's super super helpful so thank you for your time i think this will be a blessing and even a challenge for us to think through how even if we look at prosperity gospel as an us versus them and we're in a church that is solid doctrinally, we can easily begin to think like the tax collector and go, God, I thank you that I'm not like him.

God's blessing our church and God's blessing serves as a foster's boasting rather than foster's humility and gratitude. And that can be really dangerous. So thank you for your input. Great to be with you brother always