We should heed what this respected scholar has said:
My title will appeal to those who know a bit about three things: theology, Gordon Fee, and the H&WG. I just recently posted a piece on Paul’s thorn in the flesh because someone asked for my views on it. While I have 100 pieces on the teachings of the H&WG, I had not done a specific piece on the matter of Paul’s thorn. That piece is here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/12/07/on-pauls-thorn-in-the-flesh/
And more can be said. But for those not in the know, a very brief description of what the H&WG teaches is this: God wants believers to be healthy and wealthy. If they are not, it is because of sin in their life, or a lack of faith. That is the bare-bones overview of this gospel.
Despite the fact that there is now a growing library of books assessing and critiquing the H&WG, and my own unfinished 186,000-word PhD thesis, one cannot really do much better than a little 22-page booklet that Fee had written on this issue.
I refer to The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels (The Word for Today, 1979). It is very significant for at least two reasons: 1) Fee was one of our greatest New Testament scholars, and 2) Fee was fully Pentecostal, being an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God.
As to this very helpful booklet, the first half of it deals with the prosperity teaching, while the second half has to do with their claims about health and healing. The very first thing that Fee says about this movement is this:
“American Christianity is rapidly being infected by an insidious disease, the so-called wealth and health Gospel—although it has very little of the character of the Gospel in it.” (p. 1)
In his section on health, he says this early on:
Since I am obviously on the side of miraculous healing, I hesitate to try to combat this distortion, lest I sound like one who is against it altogether. But not so. I firmly believe that gifts of healing belong in the church. But I also believe that this overzealous attempt to bring glory to God is in fact a distortion of truth that has created a number of neurotic believers because they don’t seem to be able to muster up “enough faith,” and has kept the church as a whole from being open to the gift of healing. Therefore, although my sympathies lie with the evangelists here, I must protest the bad biblical interpretation and theology of this movement. (p. 13)
And Fee looks at the “faith” passages so often appealed to by the H&WG proponents. He reminds us of the biblical view that “sees the Fall as permeating the whole fabric of the created order. The Bible is much more realistic – and much more genuinely hopeful.” (p. 17)
He continues:
Thus the Bible records many of Elisha’s miracles, including healings; yet quite matter of factly, without judgment, it also records that he “was suffering from the illness from which he died” (2 Kings 13:14). In a similar manner it records that James was martyred and Peter delivered (Acts 12) – and Peter’s deliverance was surely no direct result of his or the church’s great faith!
Above all it is the Apostle Paul who presents problems for this point of view. On the one hand, his ministry was accompanied by “signs, wonders and miracles” (2 Corinthians 12:12; Romans 15:19); yet neither he nor his associates always experienced perfect health. And never is their sickness attributed to lack of faith, nor their recovery to great faith. Epaphroditus fell ill and nearly died, and in his case “God had mercy on him” (Philippians 2:26); yet Trophimus is left sick in Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20). For the sake of his frequent stomach disorders, Paul does not tell Timothy to pray or exercise faith for his healing. Again very matter of factly he urges him to take wine for his sickness (1 Timothy 5:23). Why is it, one wonders, that the evangelists do not make this Scripture a part of their healing ministry?
Some have argued that in all these cases, and especially the latter, Paul was exhibiting a lack of faith. But such an approach must be vigorously resisted, because it means to sit in judgment on the Holy Spirit Himself. If we believe all of Scripture to be inspired of the Spirit, then He inspired “wine for the stomach” in Timothy’s case, just as He inspired the laying on of hands and oil in James 5:14-15. (pp. 17-18)
The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospelsby Gordon D. Fee (Author)
Fee devotes some time to the issue of Paul’s thorn:
More troublesome yet are Paul’s own physical illnesses and sufferings. His own body was weak, or sickly (2 Corinthians 10:10). Indeed, he says he always carried about in his body (4:16), longing to replace his present earthly tent with the heavenly dwelling (5:12). He preached in Galatia as a direct result of illness (Galatians 4:12-15). which almost certainly was some kind of ailment of the eye. Whether or not this was also his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7), there can be little question that the problem for which he thrice sought deliverance was a physical one. Some, to be sure, have suggested that the “flesh” here is Paul’s sinful nature and that some “person” (= messenger) from Satan was attacking his sinful tendencies. But that is to play havoc not only with this text and its context, but also with Paul’s theology of life in the Spirit (Galatians 5; Romans 8).
The most common way to “get around” these texts has been to argue for a distinction between suffering and sickness. Suffering is something external to us, which comes as the result of our following Christ. This, it is argued, is what Paul suffered, and we may expect to as well. Sickness and disease, on the other hand, are a part of the Fall and the curse, and these have now been overcome by Christ.
But this is a distinction that cannot be sustained biblically. It is not that the biblical writers did not, or could not, know the differences; they simply do not make such distinctions. The clearest evidence of this is the fact that in both the Old and New Testaments the most common word for sickness is in fact the word weakness, so that frequently only the context alone tells us what kind of “weakness” is involved. (Compare, for example, the differences in the NIV and the NASB on 2 Kings 1:2-3).
The obvious reason for this usage is that all evil is seen to be the result of the Fall, not just sickness. And God can and does deliver from all evil, not just sickness. But in neither case does He always so deliver. Just as Satan was responsible for Paul’s “thorn in the flesh,” so also Paul was hindered by Satan from returning to Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 2:18), yet there is no hint in either case that he or God “failed.” Sickness, therefore, is not some unique part of the Fall, deliverance from which is ours on demand; it is simply a part of the whole of fallenness. We are promised healing; yet there is also a place in the present age for “a little wine” for one’s frequent ailments. (pp. 18-19)
Fee closes with these thoughts:
A final theological word. Again, as with the wealth side of their “gospel,” the preaching of perfect health tends to put the emphas’is on the wrong syllab’le. Healing ultimately resides in God, they will affirm. Yet in actual practice it is the result of man’s faith. Indeed, they see God as under obligation to us in this matter.
Healing, therefore, instead of being a gracious expression of God’s unlimited grace, is something He has to do – at our bidding. By way of contrast, the first sentence of a sound biblical theology may well be, God must do nothing. God is free to be God. He is sovereign in all things and is simply not under our control. The second sentence of a sound biblical theology will be: Although God must do nothing, in grace He does all things. No healing has ever been deserved; it is always an expression of God’s grace. Some have asked, If God must do nothing, then why pray at all? Why not simply wait for Him to act sovereignly? The answer is simple: Because God answers prayer. The mystery of faith is that there is a wonderful correlation between our asking and trusting, and what goes on about us. God doesn’t have to answer prayer, but He does. God doesn’t have to heal, but He graciously does. Healing, therefore, is not a divine obligation; it is a divine gift. And precisely because it is a gift, we can make no demands. But we can trust Him to do all things well! (pp. 21-22)
I am neither a gung-ho Pentecostal nor a New Testament scholar, so those pushing the H&WG might not be inclined to pay attention to anything that I have to say on this. But Fee of course was both, so he needs to be listened to very carefully indeed.
