Satan’s Personal Envoy says Gimme Money!
Chooses Worship Of Money Over Worship Of Jesus
Now we know that Pat Robertson really worships Mammon, not God. What else are we to think when he places so much importance on tithing to the church? Hardly a week goes by that we don’t facepalm over something stupid that Robertson has said on his 700 Club show. But this one is really detestable.
On his show last Friday, Pat Robertson advised an elderly woman who phoned in with concerns about her husband’s health that the problem stemmed from her not tithing properly. The woman explained that she and her sick spouse were retired and living on a small pension and their Social Security, that nearly all of this income went to the husband’s medical bills. She wondered if it would be wrong to use the money she’d normally tithe towards those medical bills. Instead of offering comfort or assuring the woman that she should not worry about putting her husband first, Pat Robertson offered this gobbledygook:
What. The. Hell? The “devour?” I think he means “devourer,” as in the devil. He’s got that wrong, though: the person eating up their money is him. Then again… he may accidentally be right.
Pat Robertson: prophet or profit?
Though he says he is citing the book of Malachi, he does a bit of “oralgami” to get to where he ended up. To wit:
Malachi 3:10 (KJ21) (in context:
10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and put Me to the proof now herewith,” saith the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open to you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field,” saith the Lord of hosts.
Why on earth would Pat Robertson even hint – by citing this part of Malachi – that this poor woman was under a curse? That her husband was sick because she wasn’t tithing enough? He might not have said it specifically but, in context, what else is this woman to think: she says that she has been tithing faithfully yet she’s told that God thinks she has robbed him? Unbelievable! And if she has been tithing all her life, where is that huge blessing? I’m pretty sure that living in poverty with a pile of medical bills doesn’t qualify.
Brothers in Christ
There is also the point that these verses deal with the tithing of material goods such as meat and harvests, not necessarily money (though some versions, like the Amplified Bible, do parenthetically add that a tithe is 10% of one’s income). That is where interpretation comes into play. And Pat Robertson, like so many of his kind, prefers to interpret it to mean that he gets the money.
Would a real Christian want this woman to choose Pat Robertson over her ailing husband’s health?
It may just be me, but any interpretation of the Bible that would make an old, poor and very worried woman feel that she has to choose between her husband’s health and a man who is fantastically rich (somewhere around $30 million) is a failure. But that’s how Pat Robertson rolls: no matter what dire straits someone is in, they should put sending him a portion of their income, no matter how meager, above all else. Above food, rent, medicine… because Pat Robertson is more important.
This is simply reprehensible. Anyone who would tell the poor that their problem stems from not giving him enough money should be in jail for fraud. I sincerely hope that this woman gets some better advice from a more godly person. She is suffering enough without having to digest what Pat Robertson is telling her.
Here’s the video:
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