Theocast
The Prosperity Gospel Test
December 3, 2025
Summary
You probably don’t believe in the prosperity gospel, at least not the version that promises wealth and health in exchange for faith or donations. But what if traces of it still influence your Christian life? In this episode, Jon explores how transactional thinking subtly creeps into the hearts of even Reformed believers. We often assume God's nearness or blessing is based on our performance, which can rob us of joy and rest in Christ. This episode aims to expose hidden prosperity thinking and point you back to the comfort of the true gospel.
Topics
- Transactional thinking that still shapes Reformed believers
- Assuming God’s nearness rests on performance
- Exposing hidden prosperity thinking and recovering rest in Christ
Links
- Theocast Community
- Rest — free ebook on faith vs. faithfulness
- Partner with Theocast
Transcript
Edited machine transcript. May contain errors. Select a timestamp to watch that moment.
So, I have a question for you.
Do you believe in the prosperity gospel?
If you're a conservative Christian or Reformed Christian, you're probably going to say no, of course no.
That's ridiculous.
I don't believe that God's going to bless me physically and financially and give me influence based upon my faith or my seed gift towards him.
I don't believe in that kind of transactional faith.
And that's good.
And this podcast isn't necessarily for those who believe in the prosperity gospel.
It's actually for the reformed and Christian.
Hear me out.
The idea of the prosperity gospel doesn't just stop with physical or financial blessing.
We allow it to actually creep into our everyday life without even knowing it.
So, what I did today is I wrote down some questions to help us expose where the concept of the prosperity gospel, also known as pietism, can easily seep into our faith and start affecting our joy, the way in
which we treat one another, how we can have rest, we don't have satisfaction in Christ anymore because, well, our faith has become transactional.
We believe God moves towards or away based upon how we're performing.
So, hopefully, this would be helpful for you.
Stay tuned.
This is the moment in our episode where we take a moment and we turn our hearts and our minds towards Christ.
Let's look to Christ.
There's a quiet kind of exhaustion that settles into the soul.
