Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20)

Poor Jesus had no place to sleep. Even the animals had it better than he did. This is what the religious phonies want you to think. They claim that Jesus said he was homeless. And since he was homeless, he was poor. And since he was poor, we should be poor too. All these points are fraudulent.

Jesus was not homeless in the sense that the anti-prosperity preachers claim. First, presumably he had a home in Nazareth. He could have returned to his mother and brothers. They wanted to take him home anyway, because they did not believe in him and thought he had lost his mind (Mark 3:20-21, Luke 8:19-21, John 7:5). Second, disciples welcomed him into their homes. Peter had a home, and Jesus healed his mother-in-law there (Luke 4:38). Lazarus and his sisters had a home (John 11-12). Jesus even had dinner with them. Think about that. He even had food to eat. Amazing. Third, strangers welcomed him into their homes. He did not even need an invitation, because he would invite himself: “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19:5). If we are talking about shelter, Jesus had more places to stay than we do. He could eat anywhere he wanted. He could sleep anywhere he wanted. As he said, “No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields — and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30).

He had hundreds of places to eat and sleep. So his statement had nothing to do with lacking shelter. The context shows the intention and the meaning. Someone said to Jesus in the previous verse, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go” (v. 19). Jesus was telling the man to consider what he was saying. The Lord had no long-term residence, not because he was poor, but because he was involved in an itinerant ministry. He was constantly traveling. Anyone who followed him had to be prepared to lead the same kind of life. He did not mean that everyone who followed him spiritually or who believed in him had to lead this kind of life, and could not settle down, get a job and a home, and so on. He meant that anyone who followed him physically would have had to adopt the same traveling lifestyle.

Jesus could have been rich or he could have been poor, but his statement had nothing to do with it. It had nothing to do with what God has promised when it comes to prosperity or what can be obtained by faith for everyday living. On several occasions, I had no place to lay my head for many hours, because I was stuck in an airport while traveling — in business class. He had “no place to lay his head” by choice, and he was telling the man to think before making the same choice. Those who use Jesus’ statement against a prosperity gospel are extremely stupid and biased, because there is no direct relevance to the topic. Perhaps they have been indulging in such luxury themselves and so removed from useful ministry that they cannot conceive of anyone living with any sort of inconvenience unless he is poor. They cannot fathom willingly walking into uncomfortable situations for the sake of ministry. They cannot get in touch with reality even in their imagination, and they have so much time and interest to make pretentious judgments against people.

Paul called himself “homeless” in the same sense (1 Corinthians 4:11). It happened by choice, just as he was “brutally beaten” by choice (v. 11) — not in the sense that he asked to be beaten, but in the sense that he put himself in that situation for the sake of ministry. He was suffering as a servant of God under persecution, and not suffering as a victim of life under everyday circumstances as a result of a lack of faith. He also suggested that his experience was extraordinary (v. 10). It is a gross injustice to seize an example of severe persecution due to heroic ministry to justify everyday suffering due to feeble faith and character. The religious hypocrites wish to make the apostles unique in everything, but in this one thing where the Bible suggests that they might be different, these people want to make their experience universal. This is how unbelief works. This is how demons use the Bible. Don’t be a self-righteous schmuck. Shut up and go do some real ministry. Now if you are going to follow Jesus in having no place to lay his head, although he had hundreds of places to stay, then also follow his miracle ministry of healing, and his example of multiplying food for the hungry. If you hate prosperity so much, you don’t even have to enjoy any of it. Just do it for the sick and the poor.

Jesus was “homeless” only in the sense that he was traveling, and that by choice for the sake of ministry. And the fact that he was “homeless” in this sense does not tell us whether he was rich or poor. There is often no place to lay your head in the VIP lounge at the airport. In any case, money was never a problem for Jesus, because he did not even need money. He would multiply food, and he would make more than necessary (Mark 8:19-20). After he reminded his disciples of this, he asked them, “Do you still not understand?” (Mark 8:21). For all their flaws, the prosperity preachers understand this, but their high-minded critics still do not get it. It seems they don’t even realize there is anything to understand. You see, with God, money is never a problem. He can give you more than enough, and he doesn’t mind you having more than enough. Understand? But some of you still don’t get it. Some of you still think that’s wrong. You think God is not Christian enough for you. When he’s all “honey and locust,” you think he’s weird, and when he comes healing and blessing, eating and drinking, you think he’s a health and wealth heretic (Matthew 11:18-19).

Jesus did not need money to survive, but he definitely had some money, and probably more than most people imagine. Among other indications, the Bible lists some women who followed Jesus and his disciples (Luke 8:1-3). Some of them were probably among the wealthy and powerful, such as “Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household.” The women were helping “to support them out of their own means.” They were workers and financial backers, and there were “many others” in addition to those listed. The ministry took in enough money to finance a staff of more than twelve people. This is a conservative way to put it. There were the “many” women we just mentioned. And did the ministry support at least some of the seventy disciples it sent out? The ministry had enough money that there was a “money bag,” and Judas was the treasurer. There was enough money that Judas could steal from it (John 12:6). There was enough in it so that he was not immediately caught by the other disciples, and he remained the treasurer. There was enough money to support a sizable operation, and on top of that to give to the poor (John 13:29). There is no need to think that Jesus lived in luxury, but he did not have nothing.

Even if Jesus was not drowning in money, he was not nearly as poor as some people want us to believe. If we must portray him as poor, the most we can claim is that he was poor in a relative sense, that is, compared to his preincarnate state. However, it still does not mean that we should be poor, because Jesus was not just a teacher or a prophet, but a redeemer who came to save us by suffering in our place. Evangelicals should know this, but it seems that in their conspiracy against success, and in their demonic obsession to attack health and wealth, they would throw Jesus himself under the bus in order to make their point. The truth is that Jesus was much poorer than his preincarnate state, but much richer than most religionists claim. Thus he suffered poverty in our place and modeled prosperity for his people at the same time. This is the genius of the life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus had “no place to lay his head,” but he could sleep anywhere he wanted. It was not a matter of wealth, but a lifestyle by choice. People refer to his example, severely misrepresenting it, because they want an excuse to be poor. They don’t want to have faith in Jesus. They just want to use him. They refuse to make his suffering a foundation for their faith, but they wish to exploit his suffering to excuse their failures. But you don’t need an excuse to be poor. You can be as poor as you want. You can starve yourself to death if you want. You can suffer as much as you want, in as many gruesome ways as you want. You can be a deviant and masochist if you want. Just don’t interfere when other people have faith in God’s promises, that God is for all of life, that God can make their lives better in every way, that he will bless their family, their community, and their nation as they have faith in him — and along with that, persecution, probably from you (Mark 10:30). You are such a religious sicko not because you are holy, but because you have too little faith and too much pride. If you must be this way, if you must harden your heart (Mark 8:17), at least let God’s people have a chance to be better. Let his people go. Let them have faith in him and worship him.

Nevertheless, if you must chase down God’s people to make them slaves again, you must improve your methods, because right now you are wasting everybody’s time. If you want to bash the prosperity preachers, then learn what they are really saying. You don’t care about the truth. You just assume that they are wrong about everything you don’t like, no matter what. You often misunderstand and misrepresent them. More importantly, learn what the Bible says. You bash people for teaching unbiblical doctrines, when half of the time they are in fact more biblical, and the other half of the time you are unbiblical even when they are also wrong. Before you rape the Bible, read it. The Bible might surprise you.

What is happening? You pretend to occupy the intellectual high ground, but you are intellectual frauds. You are not any smarter or any better. Your expositions are not more accurate, but only more complicated and convoluted, more deceptive. You are not more honest, but you are just running a different scam. With so much more training, although your training comes from people who are like you, you are not better theologians and interpreters. You accuse people for using a proof-text method, as they take verses out of context to make their point, but you do the same thing. (The proof-text method is in fact not wrong, and the Bible itself uses it frequently. However, one must not distort the meaning of the texts he uses.) Sometimes you do not even read the whole sentence before you throw a verse at people. You do not correct other people’s mistakes, but you only replace them with your own errors. Other people do not pretend to be Bible experts, and they are not as interested in attacking you as you are in attacking them. This is why you have been left alone.

The Pharisees pretended to obey the word of God, but they concocted all kinds of schemes in order to do the minimum, and when they could not, they replaced it altogether with their tradition. They did this by nitpicking over the details, pretending to be precise, but really seeing how much they could get away with. When God commanded, “Love your neighbors,” they said, “Ah, so we can hate our enemies!” and “Well…who are our neighbors anyway?” Jesus said, “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Matthew 23:24). You are like them. What they did with God’s commands, you do with God’s promises. When the word of God promises healing, you say, “Yeah…but it doesn’t say when.” It does. Jesus already took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses, and you can receive it by the prayer of faith (Matthew 8:17, James 5:15). When it promises food, you say, “Yeah…but it doesn’t say how much.” Jesus always made too much, not just barely enough for people to survive (Mark 8:17-21). When it promises clothing, you say, “Yeah…but it doesn’t say shelter.” It does — hundreds of places of stay “in this present age,” but with persecution from religious psychos like you (Mark 10:30). It promises that God will add to his people all the material things that the pagans run after (Matthew 6:32), and they run after a lot of things.

You have a “Yeah…but” theology. You are Satan’s “Did God really say?” (Genesis 3:1). You are the hiss of the serpent. Why do you nitpick at God’s promises? Why do you reduce them to the minimum? Does he need you to hedge for him? No! You are hedging FOR YOURSELF! Always for yourself. Rather than judging your experience by the word of God, you judge the word of God by your experience. Instead of changing your life by faith to match the promises of God, you are changing the promises of God to match your life. You reduce God’s promises to the minimum to make it easier for your tiny faith to handle, and to make your unbelief less obvious. In contrast, a person who desires all of God for all of life would believe for the maximum, even if he must stretch and grow to attain to it. Even if he is wrong on some things, he is already a better man than you are, and if he is willing to change, he will become even better.