Joseph Prince Lies Against Jesus & Takes Scriptures Out of Contexts – by Rev George Ong (Dated 1 Oct 2021)
In Joseph Prince’s most recent sermon last Sunday on 26 Sep 2021, he taught about faith and healing. There is nothing wrong as both faith and healing are major topics found in the Bible. What is wrong is that he lied against Jesus in Matthew 25:29 and took Matthew 25:29 and Luke 8:18 out of their contexts to support his faith and healing teaching.
Using texts and taking them out of contexts to prove his grace doctrine is what Joseph Prince frequently and unrepentantly does. That’s how he is able to prove anything – even a dog can be proven to be a cat. The grave implications of such a tactic are that he can prove what is false to be true and what is true to be false.
Here are the excerpts (3-minute video) of what Joseph Prince said in his sermon on 26 Sep 2021 (please click to view):
Now Jesus said something very interesting that used to puzzle me for a long time until He opened this up to me. And this verse is mentioned by the Lord in a few teachings, like when He taught on the parable of the talents, He brought this verse up. He shared this verse. And then when He talked about the Sower and the seed, He also brought up this verse. So if we can just penetrate into the nuggets of revelation the Lord has for us, it’s going to change our life like He changed mine when I pursued the Lord concerning this verse because it’s like a mystery. Look at this verse:
Matthew 25:29 (NKJV): ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.
The Lord said “For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will have abundance…” It used to puzzle me, “… everyone who has, more will be given…” Now I like “more will be given”. But what is this has? “to everyone who has”? Has what? He (Jesus) doesn’t tell you what you have. But He says, “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away (Matt 25:29 NKJV).
Now, I don’t want that to happen to me. I don’t want what I have to be taken away. So the Lord is saying “… even what he has will be taken away,” if he has not. Umm! It’s like a mystery. And He (Jesus) shared this also in the parable of the Sower and the seed.
… Do you get the principle here? Everyone having. The Lord says “If you say you have it” and the word ‘have it’ is a present active in the Greek which means you say, “Yes, I have it. I have it.” The Lord says “More abundance is coming your way. More, you’ll have more.” And the Lord says “But if you say, no, I don’t have it. I don’t have it because I don’t feel I have it. I can’t see it. I don’t believe it.” Okay, even what you have, actually you have it. The Lord has answered you more than you know. You have it but you’re waiting to feel it. You don’t even know you have it. So the Lord says, “Even what you have will be taken away.” We don’t want that to happen. So, this is the principle of faith. In fact, in the Sower and the seed, He (Jesus) says it like this in Luke 8:18,
Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.” (Lk 8:18 NKJV)
“Therefore take heed how you hear…” It’s important when you hear God’s word, how do you react to it? When the Bible says “With his stripes we are healed” we must say “We have it.” We’re not trying to get healing. We have healing. But then your body screams out, “You’re a liar? You don’t have healing. Look, there’s pain here. There’s this symptom here, there’s that symptom there.” But we are functioning in the greater reality beyond that which is sight and sense. Okay, we are walking by faith and faith is the reality.
… In Luke He (Jesus) says:
Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.” (Lk 8:18 NKJV)
“Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has…” So here we go. If I hear that I am healed; the Bible says with his stripes, the stripes that Jesus bore on His back. With His stripes I am healed (Isa 53:5 KJV). And I say “I have it.” The Bible says “More healing is coming your way. More health is coming your way.” But even though the Lord has done it for me, “With His stripes I am healed,” if I say “I don’t have it,” the Lord says, “Even what you have and what I have is healing, purchased by His stripes, by His blood, by His broken body, even what I have will be taken away.”
Joseph Prince claimed that Matthew 25:29 is a mystery that puzzles him. There is actually nothing mysterious and puzzling about this verse. If you read the context in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30, the lesson in Matthew 25:29 is crystal clear. It is about being faithful and responsible with what God has given us. If we are, more will be given. If we aren’t, even what we have will be taken away from us.
So why is Joseph Prince saying that Matthew 25:29 is mysterious and puzzling to him? It is to set up the excuse for him to read Isaiah 53:5 and the issue of healing into Matthew 25:29, as part of his so-called new revelation of the scriptures (which isn’t permitted as that would be out of context).
Joseph Prince further said that ‘what he has’ in Matthew 25:29 is not stated because Jesus didn’t mention it.
Joseph Prince said:
But what is this has? “to everyone who has”? Has what? He (Jesus) doesn’t tell you what you have.
But He says, “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away (Matt 25:29 NKJV).
Joseph Prince is telling a lie against Jesus when Prince said “He (Jesus) doesn’t tell you what you have.”
If you read Matthew 25:14-30, and specifically verse 29, it is so clear what Jesus meant by ‘what he has’. Jesus meant whatever talents or financial resources that person has been given.
Next, Joseph Prince has craftily only shown you Matthew 25:29 but he has hidden the next verse, Matthew 25:30 from you. This is his usual ploy of deception – just telling you one half of the truth or verse that seems to support his doctrine but hiding the other half that contradicts it.
Matthew 25:29-30 NKJV
29 ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Joseph Prince failed to show you Matthew 25:30 as that would contradict his grace theology that you are once saved forever saved even though you may not have repented from your lifestyle of sin. (Please click here to view a related article)
(This is discernibly different from the Perseverance of the Saints’ doctrine which insists that for one to be once saved always saved, there must be fruit to prove he is a Christian. Anyone who is still living a lifestyle of sin (according to the Perseverance of Saints’ doctrine) cannot even be considered a believer in the first place. Not that I fully agree with this doctrine but I am just highlighting the difference between Joseph Prince’s once saved always saved and the Perseverance of the Saints’ understanding of the same doctrine.)
You must understand that, generally speaking, Matthew 25 is a continuation from Matthew 24. Jesus talked about His second coming in Matthew 24:1-41 (He was talking to his disciples who were believers). In Matthew 24:42-25:46, the focus of Jesus was in warning believers to be prepared for his second coming (He was still talking to His disciples who were believers, not unbelievers). And if they, believers (and us), weren’t prepared for His coming, this is what would happen to them in Matthew 25:30 (and also in Matt 24:51; Matt 25:10-12,41,46). Just remember, this is not what I said but what Jesus said.
Furthermore, Matthew 25:29 (please read the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30 for context) has nothing to do with faith and healing which Joseph Prince links them together with. This is the same with Luke 8:18. Luke 8:18 (please read Luke 8:16-18 & Luke 8:4-18 for context) has nothing to do with faith and healing either.
What Joseph Prince does is that he takes Matthew 25:29 and Luke 8:18 out of their contexts and used them to shore up his teaching on faith and healing. By constantly taking verses out of their contexts, he can virtually prove something out of nothing. He can prove something false to be true and something true to be false.
Next, Joseph Prince (in this same sermon on 26 Sep 2021, last Sunday, which is not reflected in the 3-minute video excerpt and his other sermons and writings) constantly uses the straw man argument against us. It is that just because we don’t support his out of context ploy of proving his healing doctrine, means we are against healing. Just because we don’t stress on healing every other day as he frequently does means we don’t believe healing is for today.
It gives the egoistic impression that only he and his followers are those who can and have experienced healing; only he is the guru on healing while the rest of us are just novices on this matter.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Many in the evangelical churches, which Joseph Prince or his supporters call ‘law churches’ have experienced healings. But they don’t parade them as loudly and endlessly as Joseph Prince anxiously does in the many healing testimonies Sunday after Sunday and week after week, as if he has something to prove, or overcompensating for something that he is trying to hide.
I, personally, have experienced God’s healing on many occasions in my life. Let me share with you just one example.
On 5 Nov 2019, while eating, I discovered I had a small chicken bone stuck in my throat. I tried hard to cough and even vomit it out many times but to no avail.
I then tried to drink as much water as I could (cold and hot water) to clear and ‘push’ it down the throat, but I didn’t succeed. I found that it was a 3-pin bone as I could feel it poking at the 3 ends of my throat.
What is worse is when I spat out my saliva many times, there were traces of blood in it. It is obvious that the poking of the bone on the veins of my throat had produced the internal bleeding.
Since 11 years ago, I have been on aspirin due to a major stroke that I suffered. For those who are aware, when one is on aspirin (which thins the blood), a slight abrasion of the skin or a near cut could easily produce the bleeding.
What could I do except to pray? I prayed that God would heal me from this ‘throat disturbance’. I prayed somehow, He would push the chicken bone down my throat or cause it to ‘dissolve’.
Normally, for such a case, I would visit the emergency ward of a hospital to deal with the problem.
I remembered one of my friends who encountered the same problem had to have a throat operation in the hospital to remove the bone. But I was led to move in faith and trust God to heal me (one can still move in faith and visit the hospital) and decided not to visit the hospital.
Please don’t follow my example blindly unless you are specifically led by the Holy Spirit to do so and you’d better be hearing clearly and correctly.
Thank God that the bleeding in my throat stopped within a few days. And over the next one week, the bone ‘dissolved’ or shrunk little by little. I could feel it getting smaller and smaller by the day. And about slightly more than a week later from the point the bone got stuck in my throat, I could swallow with no more trace of the bone bothering me.
The Lord, indeed, heals. I did not have to take the Holy Communion, as postured by Joseph Prince. I just prayed a simple prayer. Praise be to God.
There are two more episodes (much more serious than the chicken-bone incident) of my life where I experienced God’s healing.
One was when I was hit with a major stroke. Another was even more serious than that – when I collapsed and my head hit the concrete floor. And as a result, there was bleeding in my brain and blood clots were spotted in many parts of my brain. My eyes became ‘half-blind’ (double and blurred vision).
Again, God healed me on both occasions without me resorting to taking the Holy Communion.
At a convenient time, I will share these 2 episodes with you all.
Finally, I do hope that NCCS and especially pastors in Singapore would view Joseph Prince’s 3-minute video and read this article. This article has given one more piece of evidence that Joseph Prince is a heretic. One who dares to lie against the Lord Jesus by claiming that Christ didn’t say something which He clearly did (Matt 25:29), just for the sake of proving his grace doctrine (which is false anyway), cannot be a true prophet.
On the issue of Bible interpretation, one may argue that taking verses out of context is what other pastors also do occasionally (out of their ignorance) from time to time. But don’t people know that the high frequency, the deliberate manner and the blatant way which Joseph Prince interprets texts out of contexts is a different matter altogether.
Joseph Prince is constantly exhorting people about the importance of interpreting a text in its context.
Here are five instances:
In ‘Destined to Reign’, Page 66, Joseph Prince wrote,
“Let me give you a Bible study tip: When you read the Bible, be sure to read everything within its context because when you take the “text” out of its “context”, what you are left with is a “con”! Many believers are hoodwinked into believing “cons” and erroneous teachings when something is lifted and taught out of its context.”
In ‘Destined to Reign’, Page 95, Joseph Prince wrote,
“I hope that by now, you can see the dangers of lifting the Word of God out of its context. We have to be careful not to take a verse out of its context and build a teaching or doctrine around it. Bible teachings have to be confirmed by several supporting verses and these have to be studied within their proper contexts.”
In ‘Destined to Reign’, Page 136, Joseph Prince wrote,
“It is important to always read Bible verses in their context. Many people end up misinterpreting Bible verses because they fail to do this. One way to read Bible verses in their context (and this is a key Bible interpretation principle) is to identify who the verses are talking about.”
In ‘Unmerited Favour’, Pages 29-30, Joseph Prince wrote,
“One of the things that I always remind my Church is this: Always read a verse in its context because when you take the “text” out of its “context,” it becomes a con! Don’t let anyone con you out of God’s blessings in your life.”
In ‘Unmerited Favor’, Page 188, Joseph Prince wrote,
“When reading the Bible, always look at the context of the verses. When you take the “text” and interpret it out of its “context,” all you are left with is a “con”! So don’t be conned. Read everything in its context.”
Besides, these five times in his books, I’ve heard him say the same thing many times in his teaching videos/audios.
But what insincerity and pretense when Joseph Prince blatantly breaks the same rules without batting an eyelid time after time that he is exhorting others to observe.
What do you call a person who commits the same error repeatedly and unrepentantly that he is constantly warning others of? What do you call a man who accuses others of being a con man when he is the guiltiest of being one?
A habitual hypocrite – pure and simple!
Jesus treats the sin of hypocrisy of the Pharisees with utmost severity (Matt 23, especially V 23,25,27,29). No habitual hypocrite can ever be a true teacher of God’s word and a Christ-centred preacher.
I’ve proven time and again that Joseph Prince is not a person of integrity when it comes to Bible teaching and interpretation. And if he does not possess even the basic integrity in such a high calling of teaching and interpreting the word of God, how can he not be a wolf in sheepskin? How can he not be a heretic?
Rev George Ong