It’s all really confusing. “Conventional” Prostetant views, Catholic , Orthodox Christianity, Evangelical Christianity, Prosperity gospel preached by Megachurces and Hypergrace expounded by other very successful ministries. Then you have the militant atheists and now the Naturalists & Humanists telling you we are all deluded.
This has lead me to read the Gospels and NT with much prayer and thought – using the NLT version. Simply because it is how we understand English today. And not to forget reason and rational thinking.
Let me share 2 verses –
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
There is always the danger of reading things out of context. That’s the problem with lifting and quoting verses.
So read things for yourself. For me, an understandable New Living Translation works well.
I must say I don’t see much promises of material wealth and health.
Instead I see grace, mercy, forgiveness & love leading to repentence and judgement at the end of it all.
And I think I’m still thinking rationally for now 🙂
