The majority of Christendom espouses — consciously or otherwise — a belief that if a Christian lives right, they will be blessed more, and if they live rebelliously, they will not be blessed as much. I think there’s a great deal of both truth and untruth seeded deeply into this axiomatic belief, and I want to tease them both out for our examination.
Let’s do it
First, as far as the idea of God blessing some Christians more than others, I want to first examine some possible defeaters for this view. Most obviously and immediately, Jesus’ teaching that the “sun rises and rain falls for both the evil and the good” comes to mind (Matthew 5:45), and it’s perhaps an even stronger case than one may realize: not only does this pertain to Christians, but it applies to the unregenerate sector of the world as well. So this principle — which we’ve all seen play out in real-time — seems to dismantle the “performance equals blessing” principle for Christians, as well as negating it for humans in general. After all, for every successful and “blessed” Christian such as Steve Green (Hobby Lobby) and J.C. Penney (JC Penney), there’s a successful and “blessed” unbeliever such as Hugh Hefner (Playboy) or any number of rich and famous Hollywood actors and actresses.
“But wait,” some might reply, “the real blessing isn’t material; it’s eternal.” I get that, and I’m with you. And the Scriptures agree with you: in this life, we may have tribulation, but we will rise again as Christ has, and there receive our true reward. Absolutely. But I’m speaking here not to the final destination of those who’ve either followed or rejected Christ in this life; I’m specifically addressing the popular belief that Christians who live right are recipients of God’s hand of blessing in a particular way, most notably having to do with success or prosperity (financially or otherwise) in their endeavors.
So let’s continue with another possible defeater: Not only has God arranged the world to provide sustenance and even wealth for both redeemed and rebellious people (this is often called Common Grace), but let’s take it one step further. Sometimes, the way it goes is actually directly inverse to our expectations: the wicked flourish, while the righteous suffer. Asaph in particular worded his frustration with this reality in Psalm 73 as follows: “I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the wicked prosper. They have no struggles, and instead, they have strong, healthy bodies!” And Asaph isn’t alone. The sobering reality is that sometimes what we would call “God’s hand of blessing” is firmly placed over those who would harm Christians and rebel against God.
In fact, that’s pretty much what half the Wisdom Literature section of Scripture is dedicated to teaching us: through the Job Scroll and by way of The Teacher in Ecclesiastes, we hear a startling contrast against “the way things ought to be” as displayed in the rather optimistic Book of Proverbs. The conclusion of Job and The Teacher is simple: living right does not at all guarantee material blessings and successes; on the contrary, it almost seems like it’s presented as tempting fate to have a fat bank account or a large number of children!
So I think it’s quite safe to conclude that simply living right and putting God first is far from a guarantee of success of any kind by material standards. In fact, Christ seems to promise the opposite multiple times: we wear a cross here, so we can wear a crown there. No two ways about it.
Well, that’s depressing
Now, if you’re beginning to wonder if I’ll ever take a look at the other side of this, take heart as we dive into that now. While I think we’ve seen that the transactional view of God’s blessings is woefully incorrect, I do think there’s yet an argument to be made on two fronts for God’s “hand of blessing” being upon the righteous in a particular way.
First, I believe that rather than magic or individual favoritism, God’s hand of blessing is manifest largely in principles that are woven into the fabric of reality as sure as numbers and physics. That is to say: We know that God designed our world so that (plainly speaking) what goes up comes down, and that one cannot divide zero by zero. But what if I told you that God also designed our world, our entire universe, with an inherent architecture of morality that parallels the kind of design that we see physically? In short, what if there’s a principle of success that’s just as certain (broadly speaking) as gravity or mathematics but isn’t quite as obvious because there’s not always instantaneous or homogenous results?
Go on…
Again, this isn’t magic, and it’s far from the favor promised by prosperity preachers. Rather, it’s a simple reality that if we align ourselves with the design that God has built into the framework of our universe, we will be generally more successful. Take for instance, the person who rises early in the morning and manages his money well — he is much more likely to be successful than the person who wastes all his money and sleeps until 11 o’clock in the morning. Now, if this sounds a bit like the Book of Proverbs, you’re not wrong. In fact, I submit to you that the Book of Proverbs is a collection of wisdom aphorisms that attempt to capture this very principle in action: the law of reaping and sowing, as it were.
The man who chooses to be faithful to his wife, not be a drunkard, and always tells the truth will have a less chaotic life with fewer “natural” consequences (the reason I bracketed “natural” is because it’s a bit of a non-sequitur to me; we say “natural” so as to demarcate it from “special” or “supernatural,” but I would probably contest such a divided nomenclature. But that’s neither here nor there, I suppose). Conversely, the man who cheats on his wife, uses drugs, and lies habitually will have more “natural” consequences than the former man. He will possibly have to pay child support (or bear the lifelong weight of murdering one’s child), deal with the long-term health issues of substance abuse, and eventually have to lie again and again in order to cover his other lies. These consequences are compounding, and they are real. And for what it’s worth, the longer someone gets away without having to pay the consequences, the worse they will be when they do catch up — in this life or the next.
“But,” one might again understandably object, “You just said that the Hugh Hefners of the world sometimes do prosper more than the man who is faithful to his wife and spends money wisely! So which is true?” And that’s really the tension we find in the Scriptures and in life: there is a very honest struggle between the Book of Proverbs and the Job and Ecclesiastes scrolls. Proverbs says, “these are the inexorable axioms of life” and then Ecclesiastes fires back, “yeah, but here’s how life actually goes.” And then Job chimes in to say, “maybe it’s a little bit of both.” Suffice to say, it’s not simple, and it’s not always clear, but there are very real rules in God’s world that ensure that, normatively and universally, you reap what you sow, sooner or later.
Wait, then what’s your point?
Well, I said there were two fronts by which I was going to build my argument, and The Natural Way of Things is only one of them. The other is plain: divine intervention, or — to some — Paternal Formation. By this I mean anything from a person being disciplined by God (Hebrews 12) to choosing to repent and obey God and being empowered by him to carry out that obedience as a result (Haggai 1-2). The God of the Scriptures neither shrugs off our rebellion or ignores our obedience — both are taken into account. And while I cannot promise that these are all taken into account to be reckoned to us in this life, I do believe that we’re meant to understand that both God’s chastisement and hand of blessing are primarily meant to be understood as something in the here and now — we don’t get to boot this idea into eternity simply because we can’t always understand how these play out.
Fact is, I’m not entirely sure the two fronts are altogether separate from each other. Just as I believe that God used an east wind (an arguably natural phenomenon) to part the Sea of Reeds (an arguably supernatural phenomenon) for Moses and the Israelites (Exodus 14:21), I am led to believe that God uses “natural” consequences and The Natural Way of Things to carry out his supernatural Paternal Formation. I hope that makes sense. I just don’t see this massive divorce between the natural and supernatural anymore, least of all here.
That’s kinda trippy, man
To properly understand this (and most other mysteries in Scripture), we must realize and accept that God does not operate in mere binary (on or off, up or down, now or then, natural or supernatural, free or chosen, and so on). I think a great example of this is in one of the text I already mentioned: Haggai. The people of God were not putting God first — they were were prioritizing their own flourishing to the detriment of obedience to God. The result? Agricultural disaster and economic disruption. So at once someone could say, “we are not doing well because it hasn’t rained for awhile” and also say, “we are not doing well because we have rebelled against the Lord.” If this latter half sounds primitive to you, I get it — but perhaps there’s more wisdom in the ancient ways than we modern Westerners assume in our hubris. I think they were on to something, and the author of Haggai did, too.
So when God allowed (caused?) this to happen, it was Paternal Formation. But on the other side of the same coin, it was The Natural Way of Things. “Time and chance,” to quote Ecclesiastes. Now consider one last aspect of this: when we read of God’s wrath in Scripture, we are almost always reading not of thunderbolts and earthquakes, but rather a surrender of the individual or group to “natural” consequences. It’s more a removal of divine restraints (which, by the way, we see symbolized in Revelation 20 toward The End of Time) than God doing any sort of smiting or slaying or striking. And yet, all the same, wrath is carried out. Because God does not operate in mere binary.
What does this mean for us?
Simply put, this means we are to put far from us the idea that if we just live a certain way, God is certain to bless us. If we increase our giving at church, we’ll get that raise or big contract. If we stop being angry or lustful or whatever, we’ll get that favor from God in that particular area of our lives. It’s just not that way. God is not transactional like that. Perhaps you’ve heard it this way: “God is not a divine vending machine.” And it’s true.
On the flip side, we also need to recognize that there is a certain way that God has ordained for us to live, and that if we walk in this way, we will generally be setting ourselves up for good success. If we do not, we are setting ourselves up for failure and chastisement. And by the way, success doesn’t mean “get rich” or “get married” or “have more kids.” It means success on God’s terms, not ours. After all, he really does know the way we take, and he really has ordained our steps (not that we shouldn’t also wisely volitionally take steps — remember, God does not operate in mere binary). And if this is true, then God knows what kind of success we need, even if it’s not the kind of success we want or had imagined.
Wrapping it up
I want to close with an illustration I hope is compelling. Let’s say a nation — oh, why not America — puts God first and spends taxpayer money wisely and avoids useless wars and follows God closely. No sexual deviations celebrated, no babies murdered, no blood shed for fools’ errands, no corrupt leaders, and so on. Tell me, do you not think we’re putting ourselves in a better position to, say, discover the cure for cancer (let alone get WAY fewer cases of cancer due to the righteous practices of the food industry and people actually taking care of their bodies and so forth)? Do you not think we’re more ready to innovate weather prediction or even control technology to reduce the deaths from “natural” disasters (I bracketed that one, too, but I’m not even sure where I’m at on that one yet)? Do you not think we’d be far, far more successful by every possible real metric despite there still being sin and injustice and individual tragedy in the world? I do. You could call it a natural consequence or The Natural Way of Things, or you could call it God’s divine hand of blessing — I think you’d be right either way, because I don’t think those two are divorced.
I hope all of this makes sense. And frankly, I hope that it calls you to repentance. To borrow from Haggai one last time: “Consider your ways.” Your choices have consequences, whether they be good ones or disastrous ones, each rippling outward from you to the ones you love most. Make wise choices that align with God’s Good Way for God’s Good World, and protect and provide for yourself and your family and your loved ones — or, as the Torah said, “that you may live long in the land.”
As always, my articles — that means every word in every sentence — are entirely and wholly ideated and written by me, never any LLM or “AI.” My use of LLMs is reserved for research purposes only, with no exceptions. Please join me in committing to never putting your name on any creative work that someone — or something — else created for you, in whole or in part.
