Abstract
This chapter discusses how and why the Old Testament is of appeal to prosperity preachers. It opens by first considering the New Testament basis of the gospel of the Cross. It is only when we establish the New Testament position on prosperity that it can be discerned why the prosperity preachers prefer the Old Testament. This section is then followed by a discussion of the prosperity preachers’ use of the Old Testament. The chapter identifies favourite Pentecostal texts explaining how they are used to support the Pentecostal gospel of prosperity. The chapter depends on data collected from Pentecostal sermons from some Zimbabwean Pentecostal preachers.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The doctrine of ‘the Cross of Jesus’ teaches that since Jesus suffered for the salvation of humanity, his followers will also suffer in this world as their reward is in heaven.
- 3.
The internet as a source of academic material has both pros and cons. On the pros side is the fact that it is easily and always available as long as you have internet connectivity. However, it has the major weakness of not being reliable since anyone can post their own material on the net. Fortunately, the weakness of unreliability does not apply in the case of you tube videos analysed in this chapter. These are videos posted by the churches or individual members of the churches after the services, some of which these authors attended. The videos therefore provide an opportunity for our close analysis of the sermons.
- 4.
Compared to the lives of their members, most of the Pentecostal churches leaders live extravagant life styles. Uebert Angel, who boasts of owning not less than ten cars from Range Rovers to Bentleys, in February 2013 bought a Lamborghini car for more than US$200000 (nehandaradio.com/2013/.../uebert-angels-1-million-sports-car)
- 5.
Ezekiel Guti, however, encourages his followers to borrow money from banks only if it is for buying assets or starting businesses (see Chap. 6).
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Gunda, M.R., Togarasei, L. (2018). The Old Testament as a Source Book for the Pentecostal Gospel of Prosperity. In: Togarasei, L. (eds) Aspects of Pentecostal Christianity in Zimbabwe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78565-3_9
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