Is Prosperity a Gospel?

I have heard so much on TV about how Christians should all be rich and successful and that if you have enough faith you will be rich with this world's goods. These teachers rarely open a bible yet their churches are filled to capacity. They buy great houses, fancy cars, and live a sumptuous life off the backs of the people who give to them in hopes of having that kind of life. Are the rich who we are admonished to emulate in this world?

Today's scripture reading in the Office, among other things, speaks a warning for those rich in this world's goods. Jesus warned us in the Gospels that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Be careful what you wish for. Consider the lilies of the field....be content with what you have, trust in God, give and it shall be given...I could write on and on from both the Old and New Testaments with teachings warning about greed and trusting in money. Rather we should, as the epistle exhorts us, be rich in good works and share what we have with those less fortunate. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Universalis: Office of Readings:

Reading 1
Timothy 6:11-21

As a man dedicated to God, you must aim to be saintly and religious, filled with faith and love, patient and gentle. Fight the good fight of the faith and win for yourself the eternal life to which you were called when you made your profession and spoke up for the truth in front of many witnesses. Now, before God the source of all life and before Christ, who spoke up as a witness for the truth in front of Pontius Pilate, I put to you the duty of doing all that you have been told, with no faults or failures, until the Appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who at the due time will be revealed
by God, the blessed and only Ruler of all,
the King of kings and the Lord of lords,
who alone is immortal,
whose home is in inaccessible light,
whom no man has seen and no man is able to see:
to him be honour and everlasting power. Amen.

Warn those who are rich in this world’s goods that they are not to look down on other people; and not to set their hopes on money, which is untrustworthy, but on God who, out of his riches, gives us all that we need for our happiness. Tell them that they are to do good, and be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share – this is the way they can save up a good capital sum for the future if they want to make sure of the only life that is real.

My dear Timothy, take great care of all that has been entrusted to you. Have nothing to do with the pointless philosophical discussions and antagonistic beliefs of the ‘knowledge’ which is not knowledge at all; by adopting this, some have gone right away from the faith. Grace be with you."