Investigative Report: It’s not in the Greek Does Greater Ministries Misuse Scripture?

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

—Luke 6:38, KJV

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

—James 5:1-4, KJV

Greater Ministries bases its “Faith Promises Program” on two key scriptural passages, Luke 6:38 and James 5:1-4. Followers believe the Lukan verse, “Give and it will be given unto you,” guarantees that donors will receive twice as much money back as contributed. And they take James’s warning that “Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you,” to be prophesying an “end-time transfer of wealth” from the unidentified “heathen” to God’s specially chosen followers, particularly those organized under the Greater Ministries banner.

This exegesis does not much impress Wayne Grudem, professor and department chair of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.

Grudem told CT that “it will be given” only implies that God is the giver and does not specify what the blessings are or when they will be given. “Are they spiritual or material blessings?'” Grudem asks. “Are they given now or in the age to come? That’s up to God to decide.” Grudem says the verse gives no justification for a promise of material blessings here and now, in every case, without exception.

He is similarly unimpressed with the Greater Ministries approach to James 5. In a newsletter, founder Gerald Payne rephrased the text of verse 3, “Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days,” as “Ye have heaped a treasure for a Christian collection for the last days,” based on reading the word together to mean “specifically a Christian meeting.”

Grudem scoffs at this wordplay, judging it as nonsense. “There is no word meaning together in the Greek text, or any implication of a Christian assembly,” he says. “The word in question means ‘to store up treasure.’ When they claim the wealth will be transferred to some specific group (like themselves), they are reading something into the text that just isn’t there.” Further, Grudem asserts, “the phrase ‘for the last days’ is a King James mistranslation of the Greek, which more accurately reads ‘in the last days.’ “

Grudem is no more sympathetic to Greater Ministries’ take on the archaic term canker. “The Greek words for cankered (KJV) and rust have no meanings even remotely like the sense of their reading of ‘to send down’ or transfer.”

Grudem is troubled by such idiosyncratic readings. “These are not just innocent errors in interpretation,” he says. “They are distorting the Word of God for their own personal gain. They are like the false teachers in 2 Peter 2:3: ‘In their greed, they will exploit you with false words.’ “

Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Also in this issue

Are You Tolerant? (Should You Be?) Christians are seen as the pit bulls of the culture warsโ€”small brains, big teeth, strong jaws, and no interest in compromise. Is this indictment fair? It's time to deconstruct the gospel of tolerance.

Cover Story

Are you tolerant? (Should you be?)

Church Listens to the Profits

My Spice Girl Moment

Classic & Contemporary Excerpts from January 11, 1999

Can the Dead Be Converted?

The Hard Songs of Fernando Ortega

In His Steps: How to Become an Apprentice of Jesus

The Sky Isnโ€™t Falling

Churches Join 'Prayer Evangelism'

At-Home Dads Gather and Bond

Top Religion Stories of 1998

Angels of the Night

Religious Leaders Tell Clinton to Quit

Family-Friendly Titanic Irks Hollywood

Conservative Texans Form New Group

In Brief: January 11, 1999

Christians Killed, Churches Burn

Christians Want Shock Rocker Manson Banned

Relief Groups Struggle to Aid Churches

Raising Funds While Helping the Poor

In Brief: January 11, 1999

Communist Crackdown Stymies Growing Church

Wire Story

Orthodox Land Use Angers Laity

Poisonous Gospel

Are You Satisfied?

Letters

A Gospel Gold Mine or a Sinking Pyramid?

States Pass New Protections

Evangelicals Press Political Leader to Focus on Poverty Issues

Reconciling the World Through Painful Stories

Wire Story

Ecumenism: Orthodox Push for WCC Reform

Jonestown: Twenty Years Later, Cults Still Lethal

Editorial

Reconnecting with the Poor

Editorial

When Church and State Cooperate

The Coming Secular Apocalypse

Y2K Preparation Guide

The Bible Jesus Read

The Fatted Faithful

It's Hard to Hug a Bully

View issue

Our Latest

5 Lessons Christians Can Learn from the Barmen Declaration

How a wartime confession resisted Hitlerโ€™s Nazification of the German church, and why its principles are still relevant today.

The Russell Moore Show

Autocracy, Robots, and Outlaws

Russell Moore and Ashley Hales, CTโ€™s editorial director for print, discuss what theyโ€™re reading.

Facing My Limits in a Flood Zone

As a minister, Iโ€™m used to helping people during crisis. But trapped at home during Hurricane Helene, I could only care for who and what was in front of me.

News

Back at Shooting Site, Trump Supporters Pray for His Protection

Still shaken by the tragic attack, Butler, Pennsylvania, welcomed the former president back with cheers of triumph and a memorial for the previous rallyโ€™s victim.

News

JD Vance Says Trump White House Will โ€˜Fight for Israelโ€™

The candidateโ€™s message at an October 7 memorial rally was popular among Christian supporters.

Review

We Have Never Been Deplorable

A new book critiques elitesโ€™ incurious accounts of the American right and illuminates their complicity in our social breakdown.

You Are the Light of the Public Square

American Christians can illuminate our countryโ€™s politicsโ€”if we engage with moral imagination, neighborliness, boldness, and humility.

Where Ya From?

From Pain to Empowerment with Orsika Fejer-Baas

Orsika Fejer-Baas shares her story of resilience and overcoming domestic abuse.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube