Meet the first health and wealth preacher in the Bible
One of the most unpopular books of the Bible among some professing Christians is Job. That’s because Job, more than any other book, depicts the suffering of the righteous — and some people can’t accept the thought of God’s people being afflicted. If they are, some say, it must be their fault.
There’s the great irony: In believing that it’s not God’s will for believers to suffer unless they’re doing something wrong, they place themselves into the book they try so hard to distance themselves from. For in that book is a man who believed what they do.
Eliphaz was one of three “friends” of Job who tried to “comfort” him in his agony. His words — in what many believe is the Bible’s first book to be written — will show that he was the first preacher of the doctrines now known by various labels: word of faith, health and wealth, name it and claim it, prosperity. Eliphaz was the first hypercharismatic.
Related: Christian, you don’t need more faith to be healed
Like today’s health-and-wealthers, Eliphaz and his friends were certain that Job was suffering because he had sinned. Then and now, it’s the only explanation they can fathom for it. In Job 4, Eliphaz said:
7 Remember now, who ever perished being innocent?
Or where were the upright ever cut off?
8 Even as I have seen,
Those who plow iniquity
And sow trouble reap the same.
9 By the blast of God they perish,
And by the breath of His anger they are consumed.
Eliphaz assumed that the attacks against Job were God’s “discipline” (5:17). In chapter 15, verse 5, he told Job:
For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
And you choose the tongue of the crafty.
In his final accusation, he said (22:5):
Is not your wickedness great,
And your iniquity without end?
In chapter 18, Eliphaz’s friend Bildad goes so far as to say Job didn’t know God:
21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked,
And this is the place of him who does not know God.
In chapter 20, the third accuser, Zophar, adds to the verbal abuse:
4 Do you not know this of old,
Since man was placed on earth,
5 That the triumphing of the wicked is short,
And the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment?
Some of Eliphaz’s words resembled other aspects of the modern charismatic movement. These lines in chapter 5 sound like prosperity preaching:
21 You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue,
And you shall not be afraid of destruction when it comes.
22 You shall laugh at destruction and famine,
And you shall not be afraid of the beasts of the earth.
23 For you shall have a covenant with the stones of the field,
And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you.
24 You shall know that your tent is in peace;
You shall visit your dwelling and find nothing amiss.
In chapter 22, like some of today’s charismatics, Eliphaz told Job he could “declare” what he wanted, if he repented:
28 You will also declare a thing,
And it will be established for you;
So light will shine on your ways.
Related: When you pray, don’t claim, decree or declare; just ask
And in chapter 4, like today’s charlatan “prophets,” he claimed divine revelation:
12 Now a word was secretly brought to me,
And my ear received a whisper of it.
13 In disquieting thoughts from the visions of the night,
When deep sleep falls on men,
14 Fear came upon me, and trembling,
Which made all my bones shake.
15 Then a spirit passed before my face;
The hair on my body stood up.
God proves Eliphaz wrong
In this, Eliphaz also proved to be the first false prophet. He was dreadfully wrong about Job’s righteousness, which the book emphasized right at the beginning: he was “was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil” (1:1). In Job’s final defense in chapters 29 to 31, we see that he had an intimate relationship with God; cared for the poor, needy, orphan, and widow; was a respected leader; did not hate his enemies; and took responsibility for his sins. Twice the Lord said, “there is none like him on the earth” (1:8, 2:3). Job was the most righteous man in the world.
In the final chapter, God told Eliphaz, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has” (42:7, 8). Job’s righteousness was exemplified when he prayed for the men who had slandered him.
That should tell us what God thinks of accusing sufferers of sin. It should keep us from thinking that it’s always God’s will for us to have health and wealth. The beginning of the book reveals that it was God who initiated the whole story by directing satan’s attention to Job. It was God who gave the devil explicit permission to take possessions, health, and family away from a righteous man of God.
Related: You don’t need to work for any of God’s free blessings
Job knew that God was sovereign over his affliction, and the Lord had no problem with Job saying so:
Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong. (1:20-22)
“Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (2:10)
Related: The sufferings of faith
You can see why charismatics avoid this book like the plagues that struck Job. Some even try to effectively decanonize it, like Bethel’s Bill Johnson, who said, “I’m not a disciple of Job, I’m a disciple of Jesus.”
But as the word of God, Job is the word of Jesus. It’s Jesus who gives us this portrait of a righteous sufferer. It’s Jesus who defended him against his accusers. (Also read His parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, which depicts the lifelong suffering of a man who was carried by angels into eternity.)
So it’s Jesus who’s telling us, don’t think sin must be the cause of suffering. Accept adversity, as Job did, and say like he said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
See also: Biblical truths that led me out of the charismatic movement
