Oral Roberts was a tremendous influence upon me life. I’ve heard people joke and mock his ministry, but I am a life that was positively impacted by Oral Roberts. I think that most of the critical comments arose from folks who never actually listened to his teaching. One area he was attacked was his teaching on prosperity. I realize that some people have stretched his lessons far beyond what he intended, but Oral Roberts taught a Biblical view of prosperity.
- God meets needs.
- God provides seed to plant.
- God multiplies what is sown.
- God grants increase.
- God gives prosperity.
Those seem like simple concepts but Oral Roberts endured a lot of persecution for saying them. In The Holy Bible: The Abundant Life Edition article titled “The Formula for Prosperity”, Oral Roberts clearly defined prosperity by connecting the words of Agur (Proverbs 30:7-9) and the words of Paul (2 Corinthians 9:8-11). Oral Roberts proclaims 2 Corinthians 9:8-11 as the “clearest definition of prosperity ever written” (The Holy Bible: The Abundant Life Edition, p. 25). Read the passages in the New Living Translation; can you see the connection?
O God, I beg two favors from you;
let me have them before I die.
First, help me never to tell a lie.
Second, give me neither poverty nor riches!
Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.
For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?”
And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name. (Proverbs 30:7-9 NLT)
And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. As the Scriptures say, “They share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever.” For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. (2 Corinthians 9:8-11 NLT)
[Prosperity] is the possession of everything that you need for yourself and your loved ones and enough left over to give to those who need help. It stands to reason that if you have only the bare necessities of life, you are not prosperous. And if you have all the sufficiencies of life, but no more, that is not prosperity, for you are still barely getting by. Your cup is not yet running over. You may still be subject to the temptations King Agur prayed to avoid. But if you have everything you need with something left over for the poor, that is prosperity. If, after you have paid the tithe of your normal income, you still have something with which you can send missionaries into the foreign field to preach the Word of God and to make it possible for Jesus of Nazareth to be taken, through his Word, to those who know him not, that is prosperity (Oral Roberts, The Holy Bible: The Abundant Life Edition, p. 25).
