Perhaps the notion will be foreign to you, but I’ve met Christians who presume that material wealth and personal success are proof of God’s blessing. It doesn’t take much thought to realize how unbiblical that proposition is. Many unbelievers are financially prosperous and quite successful. Conversely, many believers have next to nothing. They aren’t poor or persecuted because they don’t have enough faith or because they haven’t sent money to a television ministry. They are poor for a plethora of reasons, some of them quite complex and systemic to their political and cultural situation. But if they are faithful, they are also blessed.
Frankly, the poor and persecuted believers across the world resemble the early church more than believers in the American church. The Epistles don’t portray early believers and their fledgling congregations as unusually prosperous, influential, and relatively carefree. It’s exactly the opposite.
It is hard to miss the early believer’s social status if one spends any time reading the New Testament. Paul started numerous churches. Poverty and personal need was not unusual in them (2 Cor. 8:1–2; Rom. 16:2; Phil. 4:19; Titus 3:14). Paul and the apostles themselves were poor (2 Cor. 6:10; Phil. 4:11–12). James’s words indicate that poverty was common (James 2:2–6). The church at Jerusalem—surely loved deeply by God—was notoriously poor, so much so that Paul collected offerings for Jerusalem almost everywhere he went (Acts 2:42–47; 3:6; 1 Cor. 16:1–2; Gal. 2:7–10; cf. Rom. 15:26–28; Acts 24:17).
First century believers also suffered severe persecution. The New Testament is filled with such descriptions. Despite the claims of modern religious hucksters, the apostles suffered, even though they were the very people one might suppose to be the most prosperous if God’s blessing leads to a life without hardship. The apostles were beaten (Acts 5:27–42), and the godly were martyred (Acts 7:54–60). Paul suffered with almost unbelievable regularity (Phil. 3:8–10; 2 Cor. 5:21–29). Most of Peter’s first epistle is about enduring suffering for faith in Jesus (1 Peter 2:19–23; 3:14–18; 4:1–19; 5:9–10).
Perhaps the most poignant contradiction to the notion that wealth and prosperity defines the blessing of God is Jesus himself. Jesus was homeless and dependent on the support of others (Matt. 8:20; Mark 15:40–41). His torture and crucifixion for crimes he did not commit is the highest example of suffering for believers (1 Peter 2:19–23; 4:1; 5:1).
The message is simple but direct: believers can, do, and will suffer for no just cause. Such suffering is no more a reflection of divine disdain than the suffering of Jesus. And an ultimate blessing and reward awaits those who follow in Jesus’s steps.