This update is related to the One Million Bibles: A Crossway Global Initiative campaign.
The Bible Is Needed to Stop the Spread of a False Gospel
I am seeing that the prosperity gospel is really a pandemic in the sense that there are a lot of new apostolic reformation teachings. Most of my work is to fight against the prosperity gospel.
—Allen Manzanares, Lead Pastor of Evangelical Covenant Church, Manila, Philippines
As COVID-19 has spread at rapid rates throughout the entire world, so has the church seen the prosperity gospel spread throughout congregations in every region of the world. Pastor Dennis Shoppere, Pastor of Living Home Ministries International in Kenya, has described it this way:
The prosperity gospel takes people away from Christ. We see Paul warn the Galatians of this as they are also hearing a false gospel. The prosperity gospel tells people they can be small gods of themselves. The prosperity gospel is actually anything that takes people away from Christ and shows people that something else is bigger than Christ.
The prosperity gospel surfaces what we all, in the sinfulness of our flesh, really desire: a kingdom that worships self. When people in places like Kenya and the Philippines hear the prosperity gospel message, how can they hold it up to the light of truth if they don’t have access to the true light (Ps. 119:105)? It results in a waterfall effect:
The distortion of the prosperity gospel in Kenya, I believe, may have come from the way many churches were first established. I’m a believer in the fact that the Lord has given the gospel to the church and the church to the gospel. The gospel creates the church and the people. And yet the gospel, in the way God has designed for it to be safeguarded, ought to be embedded amongst the people in their lives and doctrine. So the frameworks of the churches were weak when they were established. The framework that is explicit in the Bible for choosing leaders, the structure of leadership, and instructions for gatherings was ignored in the early days. Emphasis was only put on conversions, neglecting the vital discipleship that the Word calls us to after coming to faith. What has resulted are a lot of errors in the operation of the church.
—Ken Mbugua, Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Nairobi, Kenya
Although Emmanuel Baptist Church is well-equipped to reach people with the gospel, many other churches throughout Africa and Asia have not been sufficiently resourced as they seek to provide the truth of the gospel to their people through the Word of God. The devil thrives in those places where the Word is not accessible for the use of faithfully building up the body of Christ. Jalira, manager of Kabwata Baptist Church’s bookstore—one of the only Christian bookstores in Zambia—expresses the challenge in finding quality resources to provide to believers:
We get books locally, although they are not as sound as I would want them to be. We fall back on them because we need to have stock in the bookstore. They are cheaper, but they are not the kinds of books I would want to stock in the bookstore.
The One Million Bibles initiative is seeking to help believers like Allen, Ken, Jalira, and their churches as they fight against the spread of the prosperity gospel. Step one is to provide ministry leaders in the Philippines, Kenya, and other countries with Bibles they can distribute. Through this, they can place the Word of truth into the hands of those who may have never encountered the gospel message through an accurate translation of the Bible.
Every $50 you give delivers 10 copies of God’s Word to churches and believers in need. Would you partner with us to provide the most valuable thing this world affords?