When we lived in the Philippines we found that religious broadcasting to be very entertaining. It seemed to me that many of the prosperity preachers saw that as a market to be exploited. These people were poor so a message that said that if you come to Jesus then you will be rich was a message they wanted to hear. Maybe this was a way that they could break out of the poverty cycle.
These teachers often had stories that pulled at your heart strings. A widow who was down to her last dollar sent it to their ministry and then very next day an unexpected cheque arrived for $100. Then they would turn to the example of the poor widow from the Gospels to show that this is what they could expect. However, we do not know what happened to that woman. Did she receive one hundred times her gift or did she die in poverty. That is not the point of Jesus' teaching. The point is that God received glory.
2 Peter tells us that false teachers are marked by greed. Look at the lifestyle of these teachers and then draw your own conclusions.
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