More on the Misquote
Thanks to Bene Diction Blogs On for getting us all on board with more correct information about that web site of St. James UCC in Pennsylvania. It seems it wasn't a hack but an honest mistake taken out of scriptural context. It's been corrected now and many of us are left with some egg on our faces. As Kevin at Church Marketing Sucks put it:

But beyond the whole hacker sidestory, the pastor of St. James UCC pointed out to me that this all could have been avoided if the original blogger who noticed the wrong quote had just let them know instead of broadcasting to the world. He compared it to seeing pie on a friend's face and telling the whole room before you tell your friend. Sometimes we'd rather point and laugh than actually help somebody fix something.

And we're all guilty of that. So my apologies to St. James UCC. Church marketing often sucks, but that doesn't mean we should just stand around and laugh.

To that I add my apologies as well. Mea culpa.

An Insight
Yet the flap over the misquoted quote caused me to do some other thinking and reflecting. The quote was:

Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours. (Luke 4:7; NKJV)

Sounded good until you realized that the quote was from Satan's temptation of Jesus. In fact it sounded so good I woke up thinking about it the other day. It was then that I realized why it sounded so good.

It is the message of a portion of the church. It is the promise of the prosperity Gospel. It is the topic of more sermons and essays and books than we can even begin to imagine. It sounds so good and great and promising coming from the mouths of preachers who guarantee that God wants us to be happy and wealthy. It sounds so good and great when made as the result of following and worshipping this God in heaven. All will be yours. You will have all you need. God will always give you more and more to overflowing.

But one look at history, the lives of the saints and martyrs, the times of persecution, the incredible joy that people have found in God without ever getting the mansion on the hill or the Swiss bank account- ONE LOOK- and you will know that the words and promises of such prosperity, no matter who preaches them, sound more like Satan than Jesus.

Yes that last paragraph was strong. I meant it to be. We fall prey so easily to the prosperity-promising gospel. People send their life savings to preachers who are no better than the Nigerian inheritance spammers. But because it is "for God" it sounds better.

But it isn't better or right or even Christian. It is misuse and abuse of the word of God and the people who come trusting that the church won't rip them off.