Wealth and Poverty within the Prosperity Gospel and the Gospel of Luke

The rise of the prosperity gospel movement within present-day America has brought the issues of wealth and poverty to the forefront of discussion within the Christian community. Its theology, rooted in interpretations of biblical concepts about the believer and God, teaches the enjoyment of material wealth as a privilege to be experienced not only in life after death but also within the kingdom of God on earth. Because its core teachings on material prosperity are founded on particular understandings of biblical promises, an analysis of Christian religious texts is useful in determining how issues of wealth and poverty were understood in the 1st century CE in comparison to how they are understood by adherents of the modern-day American prosperity gospel. In this paper, I will provide an exposition of the prosperity gospel and its development in the United States. Thereafter, I will analyze Lukan texts on wealth and poverty from the 1st century CE and compare them to the teachings of modern-day American prosperity gospel preachers and their followers, using Joel Osteen and his Lakewood Church congregation as a focal point