One of the most destructive departures from biblical teaching spreading around the globe today is what is known as the "prosperity gospel." Scott and Sean interview pastor Costi Hinn, nephew of the well-known televangelist and proponent of the prosperity gospel, Benny Hinn. Join us for an inside look at the prosperity gospel from someone who has been on the inside and has re-examined it, and left the movement.

Costi's book is titled God, Greed, and the (Prosperity) Gospel: How Truth Overwhelms a Life Congenital on Lies

More than About Our Guest

Portrait of Costi Hinn

Costi Hinn is Executive Pastor of Discipleship at Redeemer Bible Church in suburban Phoenix, Arizona.

Episode Transcript

Scott Rae: Welcome to the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture. I'm your host, Scott Rae, dean of faculty and professor of Christian ethics at Talbot School of Theology here at Biola University.

Sean McDowell: I'm your cohost, Sean McDowell, professor of apologetics at Talbot school of theology, Biola University.

Scott Rae: Nosotros're here today with our guests. Yous may be familiar with his family though you might not be familiar with him individually. Costi Hinn is a pastor and writer. He'south pastoring in Arizona, author of several books and the latest one entitled, God, Greed and the Prosperity Gospel. You may wonder what motivated him to write a book on this subject. Well I think when I say a little chip about his extended family, this might brand a little flake more sense. Costi is the nephew of the fairly well-known televangelist, Benny Hinn. For several years Costi was involved in the Benny Hinn evangelistic ministry building before writing his book God, Greed and the Prosperity Gospel as a way of, I think... Would it be fair to say distancing yourself from what we might call the family business?

Costi Hinn: Yeah, somewhat. I think, at least in my view, that that happened a picayune chip earlier with unlike manufactures. I had a weblog and nosotros were in our local church at that place in Irvine dealing with some of these issues because people would say, "Oh, Hinn, are yous related to Benny?" I would explicate information technology and was doing a lot of that locally. Then a publisher came and said, "Would you be willing to share the story then maybe add some teaching in your pastoring and go through seminary and all of that?"

I saw information technology as a gamble to tell the story but also equip people and really make sure that people that maybe didn't have a voice or they were out at that place in the heart of nowhere wondering if anyone ever has gone through the abuse they have or the defoliation they have, that at that place are a lot of us. Whether we're Hinn, Jackson, Johnson, Smith, whatever, there are a lot of people that have been exploited and injure by the so-chosen prosperity gospel. So, yes, I actually just wanted to achieve and equip and give people a tool for evangelism.

Scott Rae: Once again, nosotros appreciate you coming on with us. Costi has been a pupil at Talbot. In fact, nosotros just reconnected here considering I had sat with him at the introduction dinner when he was beginning starting his theological instruction here at Talbot. But I think for some of our listeners who may not be familiar with your uncle, tell us a fiddling fleck almost what information technology was like growing up in that family and what were some of the primary messages that came out of the Benny Hinn Ministry?

Costi Hinn: Growing upwards in it was full of comforts and privileges and too a lot of entitlement. I knew the Bible, like a lot of pastors' kids growing up. I grew up watching Christian shows like any other kid. I've oftentimes joked even with friends now that, I don't know if you guys think these, but I watched Superbook and McGee and Me! and The Donut Man and all these great shows. My kids lookout them at present. Scripture memory was on the tip of my tongue.

I went to private Christian schools, played sports, et cetera. And so you're normal kid in a Pentecostal charismatic stream of evangelicalism and everything was pretty copacetic in that regard. And then effectually 12 or 13, a lot of things started to change. My dad traveled a lot more with my uncle Benny, who if you don't know who he is and you were to Google him, a guy in a white suit would come upward.

There'd be a lot of theatrics and what take you, and then certain teachings. Those teachings are associated with coin and seeing God as a catholic banker or a magic genie. If you rub Him correct with enough faith or if you give the right offering or you chant the right phrases and cease those prayers with, "In Jesus name," and so anything y'all ask in Jesus name, he'll practise.

Every bit nosotros grew up in our teen years, my dad traveled a lot more with my uncle. My dad was a pastor in Vancouver, British Columbia, and started preaching a lot less on Sundays. Paychecks got bigger and bigger. My uncle left his local church building in Orlando and brainstorm holding worldwide crusades. Picture crowds filling the Honda Centre, movie crowds filling the United Middle in Chicago dorsum then, or American Airlines Arena in Dallas, and fifty-fifty having hundreds of thousands of people overseas in stadiums all trying to become healed.

I remember thinking in one case after a trip, my dad had made a very large paycheck from the trip in the tens of thousands of dollars. I thought, I tin can't wait to get a little older and stop riding on the coattails of this stuff like a niggling sidekick on trips as a young man, but start leading in this thing. We rolled with the entourage. Nosotros had family vacations to Europe and Mali and everywhere else you can recollect of. We drove luxury cars, had two homes, one in Canada, most 10,000 square feet. We had a second home in San Juan Capistrano overlooking the Pacific.

Yous can imagine effectually that flavor, the news media started coming to our door and they wanted to know too equally a lot of conservative evangelicals, how do you justify educational activity what yous teach, preaching what you preach and then living like rock stars or celebrities. We were flying on a Gulf stream jet. Nosotros were staying in the nicest hotels in the world. When I was working in the ministry, we stayed in the Burj Al Arab, the hotel in Dubai that shaped similar a sale, $25,000 a night Us for the Purple suite. We stayed in it.

That was our lifestyle. People wanted to know considering this wasn't the onetime should you pay your pastor a decent salary debate. The laborer is worthy of his wages or helping men in ministry building ensure the lights are going to stay on while they're serving the church building and they tin can focus on ministry. Which past the way is a very common reality in a lot of places around the world. This wasn't that word. This was pretty closed. You guys are living like LeBron James and a stone star band, but you're doing it all on donations then you're saying Jesus wants to exercise this for anybody.

How does that reconcile with the Bible? How does that reconcile with Christian ideals? It did non come up without controversy and information technology too came with a lot of confusion for me and other family members equally nosotros wrestled through a lot of those situations.

Sean McDowell: Yous talked virtually for a while in the book, ways that yous justified this in your heed, could you lot walk us through some of those means and then how you started to alter your perspective of that over time?

Costi Hinn: Yeah. 1 of the justifications was that nosotros were doing God's work and we were taking the healing, anointing power of God to the nations, and nosotros were seeing them restored and healed and set free from the bondage of sickness and demonic powers. For doing that, nosotros were living the blessed life. We were justified in that. Why would not God take intendance of his elite servants?

Why would not God bless lavishly the greatest homo of God in the world, which is what I was taught growing up. My father would often say, and we would talk about the reality and the perspective. My dad would say to me, do you realize your uncle, the man you know, y'all spend time with, you share a concluding name is the greatest man of God on planet globe correct now. We would all be wowed of form, and drinking the Koolaid so to speak. It's easy to justify. But also, when other questions came, for case, I'd see different scenes in crusades that most reminded you of those war movies where everybody's injured and screaming and the camera's panning really quick similar a saving private Ryan idea and y'all're just seeing Gore and horrific scenes everywhere.

It was like that at one of the crusades that we were at. It was in India and I remember crying after thinking, God, what is going on? Why doesn't this reconcile? Nosotros say it's your will to heal everybody. Nosotros say that if you only have enough faith, God will practise information technology. If they give, these people came by the hundreds of thousands, sat in a field all night and they merely want y'all to motility on their behalf. I was very dislocated and the way that I justified that detail issue is not something I'm proud of even now.

By the grace of God, I'one thousand saved and I know His grace covers. Only looking back, I'll tell you the guys, the honest truth, when you leave that arena or that field, you go to your hotel, you wake up in the morning. Your rear-end hits the leather seat of a Gulf stream jet and the Benz's and Bentley's and Maserati'south pick you upwards and the entourage and the stewardess or steward on the plainly brings out your favorite meal without you even asking and yous're dorsum off to orangish County to land there off Burch in the OC.

You forget and you start thinking, y'all know what? God's sovereign. So now we would appeal to his sovereignty. He's got that, he'll make it okay, we're just going to get alee and exercise our all-time and present the gospel and plant the seed of faith in those hearts. That's really how we justified it.

Scott Rae: Costi permit's go back only a picayune flake. Some of the primary doctrine or teaching that came out of these crusades is what'southward known every bit the prosperity gospel. Sometimes known as the health and wealth gospel, but some of our listeners might not be quite familiar with what's meant by the prosperity gospel. What exactly is taught by the prosperity gospel as your dad and your uncle taught that in these crusades?

Costi Hinn: It fits in the category of Galatians 1:6-12 where Paul says, something that'southward another gospel is actually non a gospel at all. The term that I would prefer anyway is prosperity theology, but that doesn't really have the aforementioned band. Prosperity gospel, literally prosperity skilful news, or the skilful news about prosperity is this. Believing in Jesus is going to lead to being salubrious, wealthy, and happy hither on earth.

Information technology was always his will and always is that you exist healed, that you lot be rich, that you accept astonishing relationships. Suffering is very taboo. Expiry is not something that we talked about. The Bible passages that the prosperity gospel preachers will emphasize are fixated on how if you do the right works, if you accept plenty faith, if yous give money, God's going to give you what you want.

And that could be healing, promotion, conservancy for a kid, a infant y'all've been trying to conceive. I'll give you ii quick verses that often get pulled out of context theologically. Y'all've got Romans x:nine, believe in your heart confess with your mouth and yous'll exist saved. Well, the concept is this. If you can confess your salvation with your oral fissure and past faith y'all can obtain salvation. Well guess what? By faith, you can obtain everything else y'all demand in life likewise.

Prosperity theology says Jesus on the cross definitely atoned for sin. Oh, he did that. But he also paid for sickness. He paid for death. All those tears that yous've cried and all that pain you've experienced. If you just have faith and you just receive the gift, he's already paid for, you lot're going to get information technology. Obviously nosotros sympathise that when we read the volume of revelation and we read but the New Attestation at large, a lot of the promises and guarantees that are wrapped upward in the atonement are sort of a now, but not nonetheless.

Similar our salvation, I'm guaranteed eternal life. I've got the assurance of salvation, I see fruit in my life and I'm walking with the Lord. Equally I persevere and get on to the stop and I dice i day, I have to die. Information technology's appointed to a human being wants to die and then I dice. Then all those other promises are unleashed. The abundant life of sky, the eternal glory. Christ is the ultimate treasure. On and on and on. Actually, when yous read the New Testament, we're guaranteed suffering and persecution more than we are health and wealth.

Terminal thing I'll say on that would be the reminder of residual here. 1st Timothy six, Paul speaking to Timothy says, instruct the rich to be rich in expert works, not fixing their hope here on earth or in their stuff basically if I were paraphrasing, but to fix their hope on sky. Be generous, ready to share. There's rich people in the church. Wealth is not a sin. It's a responsibility. We want to use information technology well, only the gospel is not a get rich plan. It'south a get saved plan. That's what nosotros want to exist focused on when nosotros're preaching faithfully.

Sean McDowell: To make sure I understand, you're not saying this thought of prosperity theology is just something Christians can agree to disagree over, but it gets to the middle of the gospel itself and compromises it. If so, why is prosperity theology then dangerous?

Costi Hinn: Well, first information technology demeans the character of God. God is good even when y'all're sick, fifty-fifty when you don't get healed, even when you're struggling working two jobs trying to brand ends meet. Even if yous are experiencing a flavour where you're not able to conceive a child. When your grades are good, when your grades are bad. When yous're buried in student loan debt, and when you're paying it off. God is e'er skillful. Information technology'due south who he is and the prosperity gospel emphasizes all that he tin can practise.

It also takes the Bible very clear passages that aren't even debated really and makes them mean something they were never intended to hateful. At present nosotros're into, I think in authority of scripture event and taking the Bible and God's Holy and Aaron precious word, and using it equally a means to our own finish. You have the demeaning of Christ. Some of these movements in prosperity gospel circles are starting to teach what Stephen J Welham explains in a great volume.

Yous guys probably read it in your systematic theology classes called God incarnate. It's about Jesus. The term they're using or he uses is Ontological [inaudible] Christology, which is this in simple terms. That Jesus came to globe, laid bated his divinity, and then did all his stuff as simply a man in correct relationship with God to model for us how we can do miracles, how we can live a supernatural life. He became poor so we could become rich so we could tap into all the riches of heaven now. He was actually just a stencil for us.

You can see it just continues to become downwardly the line. It'south man-centered and it'southward driving people not towards the cross, not towards repentance, non towards faith in Christ for who he is, just into a transactional and works-based relationship with a God that is barely recognizable, who is not really sovereign. Nosotros're sovereign, we're the puppet masters. He's the boob. Our faith and our money and our large declarations make him do what we want. I don't know about yous guys, but that just does not foursquare with the God of the Bible.

Scott Rae: Costi, let me go back to your ain personal story just for a moment. When did you lot first start to get disillusioned and re-evaluate the prosperity theology that your family was teaching? I'thou really curious to know how your family unit started to react when you started to altitude yourself from this.

Costi Hinn: Well, I was coming out of loftier school and my uncle had asked me to work with him and my family had encouraged it and I really believed that if I put a break on higher and on baseball game, which I played at the fourth dimension, so God would bless me and he would give me my desire to play professionally and all of that stuff. I planted a "seed" of faith in my uncle's ministry and I worked for him and took a year and a half off school, about two years.

I lived there in Dana bespeak. I drove an Escalade and lived the loftier life. I even lived with my uncle for a bit. What I ended upwards doing was going through that season, seeing all that so going to Saddleback higher first. I played baseball in that location and got first few years of college done with, and so I went to Dallas Baptist university.

I ended up in Texas. Information technology's a good D1 school. Coach Heefner, the man in that location starts talking to me about different things. I drove a Hummer. You can picture rolling onto an SBC campus and I'thousand driving a Hummer. I got a $10,000 lookout, I've got a big... The H2 on 22s and it's just Tv's in the headrest. Non a recipe for disaster at all. I curlicue onto this Baptist campus and motorcoach just started to give me the gospel.

He started to talk to me about the sovereignty of God. I day he told us when there was a scout in the stands, "You know guys, relax. Your God is sovereign. Everybody is really uptight." He quoted Proverbs 21:i. He said, The eye of the Rex is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wishes.

Then he said something, "God controls Kings. He controls Scouts. He'southward got the world in his hand. Boys don't worry about the future. God'south in command. He's sovereign. You just go out and control what you tin control, which is today. Play the game hard, go out in that location and have fun." I'm sitting in that location on the field thinking in my mind, what is this guy talking most? Sovereignty. God's in control. We practise zippo. This sounds similar crazy stuff.

I remember really arrogantly thinking... This coach I love him, just he drives a white Camry. Wears khaki pants and those onetime man runners every day to practice. I'm driving a eighty, ninety, $100,000 dollars automobile by the time all the customizations are washed. I've got a $10,000 lookout in my locker and I'chiliad thinking, coach, I know about sovereignty. I know about getting God to practice what I want. His beautiful petty platitude from the book of Proverbs didn't really land.

Simply I'll tell you lot guys what, a few years later, that was a crack in the dam that burst in my life. I later met a daughter after I graduated. She was from the Inland Empire, Christine. She was an Azusa grad. Very young in her faith and understanding of God. I know y'all guys forgive her for not going to Biola, but in the end-

Scott Rae: She's excused.

Costi Hinn: She collection a Yaris. It was blue color, putting herself through that school and very different. She started to question things. My family unit thought, well, we need to fix this girl if she'south going to ally in. She went through a season of spiritual corruption. One thing in particular that no affair what your theological background, a lot of people empathize and agree that you lot don't have to speak in tongues or operate in certain gifts of the spirit to exist saved.

They're not evidence of salvation so much as they are the out workings of the Spirit of God through the life of a saved individual. Well, she was told no tongues, no conversion. You don't take the spirit, you're not marrying Costi. She tried and so hard to speak in tongues. Well ane day nosotros came upon 1st Corinthians 12:30 and we were going through this tough season. I look and there'southward Paul saying, not all do they. Not anybody is going to operate in the same gifts. Not everyone has to operate in the same gifts.

Sure enough, clear as day at that place it was. We started to cry and figuring out what else nosotros needed to larn. That started a divide in the family. I ended upwards getting an opportunity to serve at a church in Tustin. While I was there, I take to preach a sermon. Sermon is the healing of the puddle of Bethesda. I figured I got it nailed because I'thou a Hinn preaching on healing is low hanging fruit.

Every bit I'grand studying, my pastor who became a dear mentor threw me a commentary. I'd never used i guys, never. Not ane fourth dimension in my life. I pull this commentary open after making observations of the passage. I'm seeing things for the outset time, even before opening the commentary, which is why I opened information technology. I encounter Jesus targets ane guy out of a multitude in John 5:one-17. Then he heals the homo immediately. And so he heals him on the Sabbath so the pharisees go all bent out of shape and they tell the guy, "Who told y'all, you tin can pick up your pallet and walk?" He goes, "The guy who healed me."

Then John records something very interesting and says he didn't know who Jesus was. I await up the word and I'm thinking, he didn't even perceive who Jesus was. Well, how did he have plenty faith if he didn't even know the guy? I'm dislocated every bit always. I opened upwardly this commentary and the commentator unpacks the passage and points to dissimilar other keys and so says this, God is sovereign in healing. He is a healer, but you tin't turn Jesus's ministry into a formula. He starts going on about the cruel lies of faith healers today, that the people who fail to get healed are guilty of negative confessions or unbelief.

That here is a man with no faith at all, let alone knowing Jesus who Jesus healed. There's other examples where people came to Jesus with faith and he's moved with pity. The takeaway there is y'all tin can't swing to either extreme. You must alive in the balanced tension of God is sovereign. Jesus is a sovereign healer. We enquire, we asking and so he moves according to his will and we trust and obey.

And so I'grand wrecked. I bawl my eyes out. I realized that I probably believe other things that are not right. Long story shorter, I go to my pastor'southward office, I tell him everything that was in my mind and my heart and he strips my title. I preach the sermon on Sunday and and so he strips my title and I become pastor in training. I stop up starting shortly afterwards taking some online classes through this not-accredited, just online resource center. Then he tells me, mind, y'all're getting the beginnings hither, merely you demand to become to existent seminary. So I'yard like, okay.

I finish upwardly at Talbot, taking Greek and learning and loving it, and and so my church building comes and says, "Hey, driving two days a week and simply leaving the role to go savour yourself there in La Marotta isn't going to fly because nosotros need you to do more. Tin you transition to more of a hybrid plan?" And then I did and seven years later, thankful to the Lord graduated and then also have just seen the Lord work through the state of affairs and we're simply trying to exist faithful to the truth.

Sean McDowell: Your story is just then fascinating and insightful and instructive on and so many levels. We accept a couple of questions for you, simply at present that yous have theological training, you've separated yourself from the prosperity gospel pretty clearly. Do you look back and say, you know what, at that place really is however some good in that. Like some of the accounts of healing. Some people have sworn to me it really happened, or do you think those are only not true at all? With this theological grooming where you are, how do you lot wait back on some of those events and say, "Perchance God did heal some people in spite of it." What's your have of that?

Costi Hinn: I want to movement beyond the weeds, and then to speak when I'm analyzing these situations as best as I tin equally a homo being. What I do guys is I stop upward just to God and his people. That's the view I have and go, could God and does God reach down and intervene in beautiful ways on behalf of... That'southward one of his. That'south his sheep in that location in a cause. God tin can supersede and transcend any false instructor and any religion healer.

To say that anything happening in an arena, any person'due south experience is not valid because they had information technology at a healing crusade where my uncle was in that location is actually to drag the authority and ability of that false teacher or that faith healer above God'south. God tin can movement at whatever fourth dimension. He's the creator of every man life and he'south holding human hearts in his hands.

Where I landed after theological training and allowing God's word to be the filter for my experiences, non the other way around, I landed very similar to where Talbot has landed. I view healing as for today, God does heal. He is a supernatural God, the greatest miracle of all, no doubt beingness healing for the soul, salvation. Just we ought to pray and he does heal and he does do keen things, only nosotros're praying like Jesus did in the garden. Not my will, but yours exist washed. Trusting him in the midst of trial.

Then beyond that, I would say I see a more than of a non-normative blueprint where we don't have Peter and Paul coming to all our churches and only healing people left and correct. They're not clearing hospitals and they're non going around saying silver and gold have I none, that which I accept give I thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk. We're non seeing that similarity exactly like the New Testament picture.

I would exist of the position that Christians going around wielding signs and wonders and only doing miracles at will in hospitals or whatever would be the non-normative pattern. I don't similar some of the extremes that different scholars go to. I prefer to live in balance and but allow God'due south word do the talking. If it matches scripture, I'm looking at it through the lens of scripture. If it doesn't, I'1000 going to wait with a cautious lens and I'm going to only say, I can't discredit the experience, although I tin can't affirm it because I wasn't at that place.

I want to be really fair. I'm a pastor, I'm not a professor, parenthesis still. Maybe one day it'd exist a joy as I grow older a bit to get involved in seminaries and unlike places to train. Merely overall I'thou a pastor so I'm on the ground floor with people working this out. They're non going to work on Monday and doing the taxes for some person at H and R cake, brand or intermission moment. Gosh, if I don't figure out this big cessationism contend, I'thou going to get fired from H and R block.

These precious people are but trying to become and live the Christian life. That'south where I'chiliad at. I'k walking with people through that, actually trying to point them to God'south word as the standard. Then I recollect at that place'due south other forums for those other kind of discussions, if that makes sense.

Scott Rae: Information technology does. I think that's a really healthy balanced view of how nosotros need to practise this. Costi, my agreement, I'm non exactly certain where I've gotten this from, simply I've heard through the theological grapevines is that your uncle is backing away a flake from the prosperity theology that's been so characteristic of his ministry building for a long time. I approximate my start question is, is that true? And if and so, why do y'all think that's the case?

Costi Hinn: Yeah, he came out with a statement recently proverb that he was sick and tired of it and he thinks God is. Putting numbers to the miraculous. In other words, requite $i,000 tonight, nosotros would say that. There's an anointing hither. There's a $1,000 anointing or there's an anointing for conception God wants to give. How many of you... Will say heighten your paw. How many of you are believing God for a infant? Raise your hand. You'll go people raise their easily. How many fifty-fifty know someone? Considering you want to go more than easily so you demand to manipulate the room.

"How many of you know someone who'southward believing God for that." Now you got about of the room lifting their hands because everybody knows somebody who maybe is trying or whatnot. From in that location you say, I believe that God has an anointing tonight, but he wants you to requite $i,000 seed and you can make a miracle happen with your money. Money is the thing that y'all love the about. If y'all'll give that up, God will requite you what you want. That's the commitment.

He repudiated that and said he won't do that anymore. I applauded that. I sent him a message right abroad, I said I'm so proud of yous. Thank you. I'm so excited y'all took steps in the correct direction. Then... I'll be honest with you guys, the residual of my bulletin to him, I said, "I pray and encourage you to keep going down this route and exist willing to pay the cost and count the cost and follow Christ no matter what." I told him I'd be the first i at his door no matter what friends I lose or what people remember. I don't intendance. If Zacchaeus is having his moment, I desire to go take dinner with him. I desire to exist right at that place when he comes out of the tree.

There'south that. The other side to it though is there'southward been some stalling on moving further than that argument. There'due south a lot of bad press most the prosperity gospel right at present. There'south a lot of tension with it and some of it tin can go political and existent sticky. Nosotros got to exist really careful jumping to conclusions virtually things. Only overall, my prayer is that it's full repentance. Information technology'southward not just remorse because of bad press or family pressure and that all out repentance and becoming accountable to faithful leaders.

All in on Jesus, no matter what the cost. Paul the apostle and Zacchaeus style is what this turns into, even if it means taking a break from ministry. That's where I'm at at present. That's how I would encourage him and how I talk with family unit. I beloved him. I pray for him often. My dad said it best when I asked him not long ago where are things at? Because they talk. They're pretty shut and he would open up to him more than me or others right at present.

My dad just... He used an Arabic phrase, which is [strange linguistic communication]. Our family unit speaks Arabic and so I understand a good bit and he says, [foreign linguistic communication] ways merely easy, easy. Take it easy. Just go dull. Allow him go through a process, discern and examination. Examine yourself, examine him. Simply wait and run across and permit God do his work and we'll run across if it's 18-carat. I thought that was a good wisdom. I'k almost 36 years old this year, simply I'm still entrapped when my father spits good wisdom. I tin't say anything to that. I am going to [foreign language] and take it easy and just let time practice the heavy lifting.

Scott Rae: I recall that'southward okay to take good wisdom from your father. In terms what y'all've described already, equally long as it's consistent with what the Bible is teaching and consistent with scripture. One terminal question. Costi, in one sentence, what can we learn from your journey in and out of the prosperity theology movement?

Costi Hinn: I've said it before, so it'due south easy to remember. If y'all accept everything merely you don't take Jesus. Yous have nothing. If you have nil only you have Jesus, y'all take everything. He's worth it.

Scott Rae: Wow. That's really well put. That's a drop the mic moment. This is such a practiced way to cease this. Costi, we so appreciate the journeying that you've had. Your faithfulness to Christ as you've come out of the prosperity theology movement. Your want to see everything you lot do framed by faithfulness to scripture. We wish you lot all the best every bit you continue to pastor, proceed to be faithful. We pray for your family as I'one thousand sure you do and long to see them come up back to the same kinds of biblical faithfulness that yous're experiencing in your own life.

Again, many thanks for coming on with us. It'southward a fascinating story and I recall for your life, there'south still a lot of the story that's still left to be written. Nosotros wait forwards to seeing what God will do in the time to come through your own ministry building and how He will use the groundwork that you've had to increase your touch for Christ. Thanks again for coming on with us.

Costi Hinn: Give thanks you lot guys. Appreciate you.

Scott Rae: This has been an episode of the podcast. Remember Biblically: Conversations On Religion and Civilisation. To learn more most the states and today's guest Costi Hinn and his book, God, Greed and The Prosperity Gospel. To observe more episodes, go to biola.edu/thinkbiblically. That's biola.edu/thinkbiblically. If you enjoyed today's conversation, give us a rating on your podcast app and please consider sharing it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening and recollect, think biblically almost everything.