The word ‘content’ occurs three times in the Pauline corpus in my NRSV:

‘Therefore I am content (eudokō) with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong’. (2 Corinthians 12:10)

‘Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content (autarkēs) with whatever I have’. (Philippians 4:11)

‘… but if we have food and clothing, we will be content (arkesthēsometha) with these’. (1 Timothy 6:8)

In each case, a different Greek word is translated with the same English word. In each case, we are given an introduction to how Paul understands the basic posture of the gospel-soaked heart. And in each case, Paul bears witness, albeit not explicitly, to the faithfulness and generosity of God that he points to more explicitly elsewhere (Rom 10:12; 1 Cor 1:9; 10:13; 2 Cor 1:18; 8:9; 1 Thess 5:24; 2 Thess 3:3; 2 Tim 2:13).

All of which brings me to something else. James K.A. Smith, who blogs at fors clavigera (a great blog), has a wee 2-page piece in Forum (a publication of Calvin Theological Seminary) titled ”What’s Right with the Prosperity Gospel?’ wherein he writes:

‘[I]mplicit in the prosperity gospel—and buried under all its perversions and distortions—is a lingering testament that God is concerned with the material conditions of the poor. And God’s economy does not just envision some “bare minimum”  survival, but a flourishing, thriving abundance. The New Jerusalem is not some spartan, frugal space but rather a city teeming with downright luxury—a luxury enjoyed by all. In a similar way, the marriage supper of the Lamb doesn’t have to observe the frugality of a downsized corporate lunch policy! Creation’s abundance is mirrored and expanded in the new creation. Prosperity has a biblical ring to it’. — James K.A. Smith, ‘What’s Right with the Prosperity Gospel?’, Forum 13/3 (Fall, 2009), 9.

Smith avoids falling into the trap of being a ‘preacher with an economic hobby’, a crime of which Forsyth warned us. He also avoids trumpeting a divine preference for middle-classness. And he notes the tension explicit in the biblical narrative itself: that we are presented with ‘a picture of abundance and overflowing generosity as part of the warp and woof of God’s creation’ and that ‘in our fallen, broken world, the prophets consistently denounce those economic systems which concentrate wealth and abundance in the hands of the few, and often at the expense of the many’. Rejecting the habits of ‘ascetics who are just waiting for an abundance to come’, Smith proposes a response which revolves around how we inhabit time: ‘An intentional asceticism or abstinence which voluntarily chooses to forego abundance attests to the persistent injustice of current economic systems, expressing solidarity with the poor and refusing the idolatry of materialism’. But such an approach, he writes, ‘can run the risk of spurning God’s abundance and can unwittingly fall prey to a logic of scarcity. On the other hand, an absolute enjoyment of abundance in the present almost inevitably lives off the exploitation of others and is prone to idolatry’, and he cites Colossians 3:5 in support.

Drawing upon the kind of ‘rhythm of fasting and feasting’ underguirding the church’s own time economy – and given shape to in the liturgical calendar – Smith contends that the ‘two problematic options’ with which it seems we are confronted by in the Bible’s own witness is ‘not either/or if we think about this dynamically with respect to time … The rhythm of fasting and feasting calls the people of God to bear witness to both of these realities at different times and in different seasons: we rightly celebrate and enjoy God’s abundance, but we also rightly lament and resist injustice and poverty. During days or seasons of fasting—which, in a way, should be the “default” habit of the church’s sojourn—we say “no” to abundance as a witness to the fact that so many lack not only abundance but what’s needed just to survive. [Presumably there are other reasons too for why we ‘say “no” to abundance’]. But during days and seasons of feasting, we enjoy a foretaste of the abundance of the coming kingdom’. I found Smith’s way of speaking here very helpful, not least because of the way it helps us to bear witness to the impregnable relationship between ethics and worship.

Still, while he alludes to it, and while it is only a short piece, one might hope that Smith had devoted (or might subsequently devote) — not least given Forum‘s readership — some more ink in this piece to what it might mean, what it might look like, for those who claim to be Jesus’ disciples to pull their boats up on shore, leave everything and follow him (Luke 5:11), to be those whose very being is reconstituted by their participation in the way of the cross, and whose joyful anticipation of the ‘abundance of the coming kingdom’ is described in terms of the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, those who have leprosy cured, the deaf hear, the dead raised, and the good news is preached to the poor’ (Matthew 11:5//Luke 7:22). (To be sure, Smith gives some indication near the conclusion of the piece about the shape that such a life may take, naming regular fasting, the observation of a ‘Sabbath rest from global economic systems and local markets’ and the restoration of a Sunday feast), but I wanted to hear more. This is an indication of my apprecaition for what Smith is trying to do, and an invitation to him to say some more.) This is not to ‘fall prey to a logic of scarcity’ so much as to recognise that the currency of the divine economy still remains unaccepted at all of this world’s foreign currency exchange depots, and not merely on regular non-Sabbath days. Still, Smith’s argument betrays a confidence in One who is both the abundantly-generous fountainhead of every blessing and creation’s just Sovereign, and calls us to faithful stewardship unencumbered by the paralyses of shame and motivated fully by the holy love of God — themes hard-wired into Smith’s (and my own) Reformed DNA. Again I was reminded of Forsyth’s words:

‘[Jesus] discarded a piety like Judaism, which had become one of the professions, and which must be a religion for the well-to-do, because it was so expensive to keep up, owing to the amount of alms, observances, and attention it required. He had no sympathy with wealth which was not inwardly rich toward God. A plutocracy would find nothing in Him; and it finds Him now a tutelary God only by editing and perverting Him. Riches were to Him no sign of God’s favour. God did not exist to secure property, the existing order, and the county families. And “between modern comfort and the comfort of the gospel there is little in common but the name.” He despised wealth that was secured to the conscience of its possessor by a doctrine of “ransom”; wealth which was settled by God absolutely on its owner in tail, on condition of a tax paid out of it for alms; wealth which was entirely a man’s own except the portion earmarked as a toll to God in philanthropic uses. He held no terms with property consecrated to a man’s selfish use by a bargain with God on the basis of a fraction devoted to religious or charitable purposes. Of his whole wealth a man was but steward. She who gave all she had gave more than all the large benefactions. That was the class of poor that caught Christ’s eye and moved His speech. On the other hand, His blessing on poverty was not on poverty as such, but only because of the facilities poverty offered in His day for the true wealth of the kingdom. If Christ had said blessed are the merely poor, then the poorer the more blessed; and the paupers would be either saints in being or saints in the making. But with a poor democracy, set upon soup and circuses, beer and football, He could have no more in common than with a plutocracy whose tastes are at heart the same’. (Socialism, the Church and the Poor, 60—1)

Finally, Smith’s (and Forsyth’s) piece reminded me of a sermon preached early last century by E.A. Burroughs wherein the very reverend gentleman noted that ‘Prosperity has always been an excellent passport, and well-doing often seems to weigh less with one’s next-door neighbour than an obvious ability to do oneself well. But that is only in life. The advent of death forces even shallow contemporary judgment to take up the measuring-rod of eternity to see the man we consorted with yesterday as posterity will see him, should his name survive’.

So, content with the status quo? No way! Content to trust myself to a ‘faithful Creator and continue to do good’ (1 Pet 4:19)? I’m trying! Enjoy all that this faithful Creator has given us so ungrudgingly to enjoy. Unequivocally yes! Understand that at least part of such doing good means joining in with the prophets who ‘consistently denounce those economic systems which concentrate wealth and abundance in the hands of the few’. Definitely!

[BTW: If you’re into this stuff, you might like to check out Andrew Denton’s interview with Hillsong attendee Tanya Leven about her experiences of Pentecostalism, charismania and the prosperity gospel]