I Believe in the Prosperity Gospel... spiritually speaking.

Admittedly, most (if not all) of the people reading this entry were shocked by its title. No, this conservative Evangelical has not gone off the deep end, and no, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has not turned liberal in its theology (nor have I). I am not speaking of the Prosperity Gospel as it is known for its "name it and claim it" theology, I am speaking more of one that speaks of spiritual prosperity and sanctification through obedience.

A little bit of background...
In the beginning of this semester I was working on an exegesis project for my Hermeneutics class. We had to study Genesis 22:1-19 and create an outline of the passage. This outline was to be submitted to the grader who determined if the passage was broken down into the correct number of parts, if I understood the correct meaning of the text, and if my exegesis was sound (all of which are really subjective, but that's a whole other argument that we won't get into here). I was really excited to turn my outline in because I did a fair amount of research and felt like what I was turning in was sound. My excitement was somewhat diminished when I received the response from the grader. There was no positive feedback (which I was still ok with), but the very last comment that he made was that I lost points because I alluded to a prosperity gospel. My immediate response (admittedly it would have been disrespectful) was the desire to suggest to him that his Heremeneutical approach to my exegesis was faulty; thankfully, I didn't respond that way.

In all fairness to the grader, he only had an outline to go by, and an outline, without the necessary information to fill in the gaps, can sometimes lead to a faulty interpretation. The offender in my outline was the last point about blessing following obedience. It is clear by verses 15-18 that Abraham was blessed because he obeyed God. The blessing to which I am referring is not necessarily physical, though Abraham was physically blessed, but is more spiritual in nature. I did some self-searching, and poured through some of the gospels to see if I was wrong in my point. The following is based on what I found in Matthew 5.

Why I believe in the Prosperity Gospel (remember, not necessarily physical/material)...

Even if it is only the fact that obedience to God means that you are in His will, being in God's will is a far better blessing than being against it. If this was the only argument presented, I would be convinced; but Jesus taught in His sermon on the mount that there is blessing in obedience to God  The blessings of obedience to God mentioned here are not physical in nature, but are spiritual or relational. As this post already seems to be getting rather long, I will quickly break down each type of person that is blessed and their blessing

-The poor in spirit: those that recognize their position before the Almighty God, they are broken of themselves and rely on God for His grace.
-Those who mourn: those that are so broken by their depravity that they mourn their offenses to God, they mourn the limits of their earthly body and long for the day of salvation. (cf. 2 Corinth. 7)
-The meek: the obedient
-Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: those that so desire to be righteous in God's sight that they pursue it as much as food to eat and water to drink
-The merciful: self explanatory
-The pure in heart: those that God makes pure
-The peacemakers: self explanatory
-Those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake: self explanatory

The blessings:
-the kingdom of heaven
-comfort: spiritually comforted (ex. Jesus was ministered to by angels after his temptation in the wilderness)
-inherit the earth: I believe the inheritance referred to is in our everlasting life
-righteousness satisfied: for those listening to Jesus' sermon the permanent satisfaction had not yet arrived. We live in a time after the cross where Jesus met the satisfaction for us. We impute our sins upon Him and He imputes His righteousness to us (double imputation) at salvation.
-mercy
-shall see God
-called the sons of God (we are made into the likeness of Christ)
-the kingdom of heaven

These blessing are all spiritually prosperous to the child of God. For the sake of length (I realize this post is already outrageously long), I will cut my argument to the Beatitudes only, but suffice it to say there is other evidence in the gospels that supports my thesis.

There is, indeed, prosperity in obedience to God. If for nothing else, our continued sanctification means that we are prospering spiritually with spiritual blessings. While the blessings are not necessarily material in nature, there is obvious blessing in following God and obeying His will. The most basic of which is that we are spared His wrath.