The One Who Became a Doctor

What is this page about?

This church is not real. The man who writes this site made up the story to ask a question. The question is about a pattern: a way of doing things that any church could fall into.

The church in the story says the prosperity gospel is wrong. But maybe it is doing the same thing in a hidden way. The prosperity gospel says: “Do this, and God will give you money.” This church seems to say: “Join our programme, and your children will have good jobs.” The prize is different. Is the promise the same?

This page is not against doctors. It is not against the young woman who became a doctor. It is not against parents who want their children to do well. All of these are good.

Six points

1. One good result does not prove anything. In almost any group of thirty children, someone will do very well. Showing only that one is not honest.
2. It uses God to get something. The Bible warns about people who think being godly is a way to get rich or get ahead.
3. It is like the prosperity gospel. “Do this, and God will give you that.” Only the prize is different: a good job for your child instead of money.
4. It turns Jesus’ story of the lost sheep upside down. Jesus’ shepherd goes to find the one sheep that is lost. This church celebrates the best one and forgets the lost ones.
5. God does not promise good jobs. In the Bible, many faithful people were poor or suffered. Many good parents had children who went the wrong way.
6. Being happy for someone is good. The Bible tells us to be happy with people who are happy. It also tells us to cry with people who are sad.

Look at all the children

Imagine thirty children who grew up in the church. (This page chose these numbers to make the story clear.) Ten years later:

• 22 do not go to any church.
• 7 go to a church, this one or another one.
• 1 is studying to be a doctor.

On Sunday, new parents hear about only one of the thirty. They do not hear about the other twenty-nine.

Some of the children who left also did very well. One is an engineer. One is an accountant. One is a nurse. The church never talks about them, because they left. So the church does not show the children who did well. It shows the child who did well and stayed.

One good result does not prove anything

A very old story shows the problem. More than two thousand years ago, a man named Diagoras visited a temple. On the walls were many pictures. Each picture was from a sailor who prayed in a storm and did not drown. A friend said, “See? The gods save people who pray!”

Diagoras answered: there are no pictures of the sailors who prayed and drowned. (The Roman writer Cicero tells this story.) The drowned sailors could not hang up pictures. So the wall showed only one side.

The church in our story has one picture on its wall: the doctor. Where are the pictures of the other twenty-two?

Here is another way to see it. Imagine twelve churches. None of them has any special programme. In each church, every child has a small chance of becoming a doctor. After ten years, more than half of these churches will have a doctor to talk about. They did nothing to make it happen. So one doctor does not prove that a programme works.

A false balance is an abomination to Yahweh, but accurate weights are his delight.

Proverbs 11:1 · World English Bible

In simple words: God hates it when people cheat with their scales. He loves honest weights.

In Bible times, a seller weighed things on scales. A cheat used one weight when he bought and a different weight when he sold. The church in the story does something like this. When a child does well, it counts as proof that the programme works. When a child leaves, it does not count, or the family gets the blame.

Using God to get ahead

Paul wrote a letter to a young pastor named Timothy. He warned about some teachers. They thought being godly was a way to make money. Paul said there is a better kind of gain:

But godliness with contentment is great gain.

1 Timothy 6:6 · World English Bible

In simple words: Loving God, and being happy with what you have, is worth more than anything you could get.

A job as a doctor is a good thing. But think about a church that says, in a hidden way: “Come to all our meetings, and your child will get a job like this.” Now the church is using God to get ahead. That is what Paul warned about.

The church also gains something. More families join. The church grows. Paul warned most of all about teachers who used religion to gain something for themselves.

What Paul threw away

Paul came from a very good family. He studied with the best teacher. He was more serious about his religion than anyone his age. Everyone admired him. Then he met Jesus. He wrote:

However, what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.

Philippians 3:7 · World English Bible

In simple words: All the things that made me look important, I now count as nothing, because I have Christ.

A few lines later, Paul warns about people who think only about “earthly things”: things of this world, like money and status. A church that shows off a child’s important job as proof of its success is showing the kind of thing Paul threw away.

The same shape as the prosperity gospel

Look at the two side by side.

Only the prize changed. Everything else is the same.

A Christian teacher named Augustine lived about 1,600 years ago. He said that if God gave good things in this life to everyone who asked, people would serve God only to get things. That would make them, in his words, “not godly, but greedy.”

The lost sheep

Jesus told a story about a shepherd:

Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?

Luke 15:4 · World English Bible

In simple words: A good shepherd with a hundred sheep goes to look for the one that is lost.

When the shepherd finds it, he has a party. The party is for the lost sheep that came home. In our story, it is the other way round. Most of the children are lost. The church has a party for the one who did best, and nobody goes to look for the lost ones.

The Bible does not hide when people leave. When Jesus taught something hard, many people stopped following him. The Bible says so (John 6:66). Paul writes the names of people who left him. One was Demas, who “loved this present world” (2 Timothy 4:10). The Bible tells the whole story, not only the good parts.

Some children in our story say the church itself pushed them away. A good shepherd would go and ask them why, and listen.

Who should get the credit?

Why did the young woman become a doctor? Many reasons. She was clever. She worked very hard for years. She had good teachers. Her parents paid for extra lessons. She made good choices. She had some good luck. Maybe the church helped too. But one story cannot show that the church programme made it happen.

Paul said that he and another teacher, Apollos, both worked. But the growth came from God:

I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.

1 Corinthians 3:6 · World English Bible

In simple words: People do the work, but God makes things grow.

If God gave her this, then the church programme cannot promise it to other families.

Heads the church wins, tails the family loses

Look at how the church explains things. If a child does well, the programme gets the credit. If a child leaves, the family gets the blame. With this way of thinking, the programme can never be wrong. Nothing could ever prove it does not work.

And what about the doctor’s brother? Same parents. Same home. He left. The church cannot blame the family, because they are the doctor’s family. So it does not talk about him at all.

Job’s friends in the Bible thought like this. They said Job was suffering because he had sinned. God said they were wrong (Job 42:7).

What the children learn

Parents want their children to do well. That is good. But a church can use this wish to bring families in. The Bible warns about teachers who use people for their own gain (2 Peter 2:3).

Once, a big crowd followed Jesus because he gave them free bread. Jesus told them the truth. In simple words, he said: you are looking for me because I gave you bread to eat (John 6:26). He did not give them more bread to keep them. He taught them something hard, and many of them left.

The children are listening too. If the church holds up a good job as the reward for faith, children learn: “Faith is a way to get a good job.” What happens when the good job does not come? Many children will think faith did not work. Jesus said that seed on rocky ground grows fast but has no roots. When trouble comes, it dies (Mark 4:16–17).

And the young doctor now carries a heavy load. She has become the church’s advertisement. Nobody asked her if she wanted that.

God does not promise good jobs

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 · World English Bible

In simple words: The fastest runner does not always win. The cleverest person is not always rich. Things happen to everyone.

In the Bible, many faithful people had hard lives. Jeremiah was thrown into a muddy hole. John the Baptist was killed. Hebrews chapter 11 lists faithful people who were poor, hurt and badly treated (Hebrews 11:36–38). God still called them faithful.

Good parents in the Bible sometimes had children who went the wrong way. The prophet Samuel was a good man, but his sons loved money and took bribes (1 Samuel 8:3).

Some people read Proverbs 22:6 as a promise: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” But Proverbs gives wise advice about how things usually go. It is not a promise. And it is about the way a child goes, not the job he gets.

What does “doing well” mean?

When the Holy Spirit works in a person’s life, what does it look like? Paul tells us:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22–23 · World English Bible

In simple words: A person who belongs to God becomes loving, kind, patient and good.

None of these is a job. A plumber who teaches children at church is doing well. A mother at home with three small children is doing well. A young man who looks after his sick father every evening is doing well. In God’s eyes, all honest work is a way to serve him. Paul even says the church should give more honour to the people the world honours least (1 Corinthians 12:23).

The other side

Some people will disagree with this page. They have good points:

• We should be happy for people. The Bible says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice” (Romans 12:15).
• Church can really help children. One study of more than 5,000 young people found that those who went to church as children were happier as young adults.
• The church may never actually say that its programme made her a doctor.
• Young people leave for many reasons. It is not always the church’s fault.
• Parents are responsible too.

These are fair points. But look at them closely. They all say it is good to celebrate. They all say the church is not to blame for everything. None of them says it is good to make a hidden promise. None of them says it is good to stay silent about the children who left.

And the verse about being happy has a second half:

Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.

Romans 12:15 · World English Bible

In simple words: Be happy with people who are happy. Be sad with people who are sad.

What does this show?

It does not show:

• that any real church does this
• that church leaders who do it are bad people
• that it is wrong to celebrate
• that church programmes are bad for children

It does show:

• that one good result out of many does not prove a programme works
• that offering a reward in this world for joining a programme is like the prosperity gospel
• that the Bible does not promise good jobs to faithful families
• that the Bible tells the whole story, including the people who left

Questions to ask when you hear a success story

1. How many others went through the same thing? How did they turn out?
2. Is God getting the thanks, or is a programme getting the credit?
3. Would they tell this story if the person had become a plumber, a nurse, or a parent at home?
4. Has anyone asked the people who left why they left?
5. Am I being promised something that God has not promised?

Check it yourself

1. Read 1 Timothy 6:3–10. What does Paul say is real gain?
2. Read Philippians 3:4–8. What did Paul give up?
3. Read Luke 15:1–7. Who is the party for?
4. Read Ecclesiastes 9:11. Does hard work always win?
5. Think of the young people you knew at a church or school ten years ago. Write down what happened to all of them, not only the ones people talk about. What does the full list tell you?