Phil Pringle, the influential leader of the C3 Movement, has stirred controversy yet again with his recent Instagram reels and YouTube video series on finances. Despite his charismatic preaching style, Pringle is proving to be stale, offering nothing but recycled material, echoing the same teachings found in his numerous books and past sermons. What’s more concerning is his resurrection of a contentious concept: sowing a financial seed – to magically grow a money tree?

While not explicitly teaching one should sow a financial seed to grow a money tree, Pringle alludes to sowing a ‘guitar seed’ to obtain a ‘guitar tree’ so he and his family can keep receiving free guitars. This past teaching has raised eyebrows, reflecting the shallowness of his teachings. His recycled rhetoric calls into question the substance and originality of his messages, with some followers questioning the authenticity and credibility of such claims.

SUMMARY OF ISSUES WITH HIS TEACHING ON MONEY:

The advice on finances provided in the transcript appears to have several problematic aspects:

1. Prosperity Gospel Emphasis: His teachings on money with the specific scriptures used, should alert his listeners to his “prosperity gospel” ideology, suggesting that financial abundance is a direct result of one’s giving. This ideology implies that giving money will lead to increased wealth, which is a contested interpretation of biblical principles.The Bible does speak about giving, but it emphasizes the attitude of the heart and does not guarantee financial prosperity in return. For instance, in Luke 21:1-4, Jesus praises the widow who gives only two small coins, highlighting her sacrificial heart, not the amount given. This differs from the notion that monetary giving will directly result in material gain.
2. Manipulative Tithing: The emphasis on tithing as a means of ensuring financial stability and suggesting it’s a mandatory requirement for God’s favor can be seen as manipulative. It pressures individuals to tithe a specific percentage of their income with promises of financial blessings in return.The New Testament does not enforce tithing as a strict command for Christians. Instead, it emphasizes cheerful and purposeful giving without prescribing a specific percentage (2 Corinthians 9:7 – Pringle even reading this scripture out). Jesus criticized the Pharisees for their legalistic approach to tithing in Matthew 23:23, highlighting the importance of justice, mercy, and faithfulness over blind adherence to tithing laws.
3. Misinterpretation of the Seed-Faith Principle: The notion of sowing and reaping being solely tied to financial giving can lead to a narrow interpretation of biblical principles. The teachings here apply the idea of sowing and reaping predominantly to financial offerings.The concept of sowing and reaping in the Bible extends beyond financial aspects. While Galatians 6:7 speaks of reaping what one sows, it refers to broader moral and spiritual principles rather than just monetary blessings.
4. Quality of Giving: The advice indicates that giving shabbily or less than the best will result in an inferior return, linking the quality of the gift to the quality of the blessing received, which might create feelings of guilt or inadequacy.The Bible emphasizes the heart behind the giving rather than the material quality. Jesus commended the widow’s meager offering in Mark 12:41-44, highlighting the significance of the giver’s sacrifice rather than the size or quality of the gift.

In summary, while the transcript encourages giving, it distorts biblical principles by overemphasizing a transactional approach to giving and receiving, often tied to financial prosperity. This can lead to misunderstandings about the true nature of giving and could exploit individuals by leveraging their faith for financial gain.

Transcript below.

Source: How To Have Financial Freedom in 2024! (youtube.com), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KUztxUIjwA, December 10, 2023. (January 09, 2024.)

TRANSCRIPT

I know in the world there’s a lot of advice about how to manage your money, about how to earn more money, and there’s a lot of get-rich-quick schemes which never really work at all. But I’ve got answers from scripture for you and I want you to understand the laws of provision.

Number one, we need to understand the will of God is to provide for you. He is a provider, there’s no doubt about that. It’s his culture—God’s culture is generosity, giving is his way. In Philippians 4:19 in the New Testament, it says, ‘My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.’

But the point here is that the Philippians had sent Paul a really generous gift, so he was responding to them. Now, the local Romans had not sent him a gift at all; he was in the prison at Rome, and they didn’t want to be associated with Paul. But the Philippians, who he had won to Christ and built a church there, magnificent in amongst a lot of persecution, they had been his first supporters in Europe and then continued to be a continual support to him even while he was in prison—sending him gifts and looking after him.

So now he writes back to them and he says, ‘My God’s going to supply all your needs according to his riches and Glory ’cause he’s El Shai, the mighty provider.’ Understand, God is Not El chipo, he is El Shai—a very generous, abundant provider. Look at creation—so many things that we don’t need, but he created them. It’s his nature to be oversupplying.

David said, ‘My cup runs over.’ I mean, imagine, he’s sitting there and here’s the Lord pouring in the cup, pouring in the cup, and it starts flowing over. You go like, ‘Hey, whoa, it’s too much.’ He says, ‘No, this is my nature.’

When the fisherman caught a catch of fish, it wasn’t just one or two, and that wouldn’t really be a miracle, would it? It’d be like, ‘Yeah, well, that was going to happen anyway.’ But it’s actually the miracle is in the huge abundance when they hadn’t caught anything all night. Now, this is their business, and so they are desperate. They haven’t caught any fish—fishermen catch fish, that’s what their business is, and they hadn’t caught any. They had nothing to take to markets. They looked to God, and he helped them. Jesus guided them to where they would actually prosper and have an abundance.

So God supplied. When they were feeding the multitude, they had a little boy’s lunch, and the boy gave it, and Jesus took it, blessed it, broke it, and distributed it, and it fed 25,000 people—they count of 5,000 men, and we could give them all a wife and maybe three kids—well, at least it’s going to be 10, 15,000 no matter what. That little lunch bag was never going to do that, feed them, but there were 12 basket fulls left over. What a waste of spiritual power!

Jesus— all those fish, all that bread left over, the wine spilling over the cup—I mean, 180 gallons of wine he provided at a wedding near the end. I don’t know what you’re going to do with that much wine at the beginning of a wedding, let alone at the end. And it wasn’t poor quality wine; it was the best, amazing.

This is God’s nature: to provide in abundance, to provide in the first place and an abundance in the second. So having faith in him requires us to get our theology straight and understand that God is not a god of lack; he’s not a God who holds back.

The devil accuses them of that in the garden, says, ‘Oh, God hasn’t given you everything.’ Well, God had given Adam and Eve everything, just one tree he said, ‘Don’t touch that.’ So the devil guided their focus to what they didn’t have, to lack, not to the abundance that they did have. So they started to see God through withholding. ‘Oh, God’s holding out on us.’ No, he wasn’t. He wanted them to enjoy the abundance of the entire Earth that you and I find ourselves in today.

So, ‘My God shall supply,’ not might supply, could supply, shall supply. Getting our faith in line with the word of God is the first step to relieving ourselves of financial pressure and stress. Believe—believing that God is—it’s his will that you do well in life, that you don’t just scrape by.

That religious thinking—it’s like a poverty spirit in people’s minds. And religion and poverty love each other, they just hang out with each other. So very religious people will try and make you feel bad if you’re doing well in life, as though they’re superior because it’s more pious to be poor.

But how are you going to help anybody if you’re poor? I mean, that Good Samaritan that Jesus said, ‘Who’s the neighbor?’ and they all said the Good Samaritan. But the Good Samaritan couldn’t have done a thing for that half dead person on the side of the road if he had no money, ’cause he took him to the inn, he paid the bill, and he said, ‘Whatever else he owes you, I’ll fix that up when I come back.’ Whatever—he didn’t say, ‘I’ll cap it at this much.’ He said, ‘Whatever.’ He was super generous. And this is how you and I are called to be. And it is the sign that you and I have met Jesus, that we’ve become generous.

When Zacchaeus, the little tax collector, greedy for money, so greedy, loved money, greedy for it all day long, served as a tax collector for the Romans. And he was the chief tax collector—the other Jewish people hated him. He’d sold out to the Romans, the occupying Army, and was taking money off his fellow countrymen to support this occupying army. They hated him. But Jesus went and had lunch with him and he got converted. He came out of that lunch saying, ‘I will give away all my, I’m going to give away everything that I’ve taken by fraud. I’m going to pay it back four times, and I’m going to bless all the poor in this city.’

I mean, there was revival in that city because he’d been knocking on the door, and people say, ‘Yeah, Zacchaeus, oh, he’s going to take taxes off me.’ He said, ‘No, I’ve come to give you four times back what I took off you by fraud.’ So he fixed things up and he blessed all the poor in the city, and they all said, ‘Wow, Jesus has changed this guy.’

Let me give you some of the laws of provision out of 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 9:6 says, ‘But this I say: he who sows sparingly will reap sparingly.’ That’s a law. If I am not generous and if I withhold, that’s what’s going to come back into my life: nothing much at all. ‘But he who sows abundantly will also reap abundantly.’ Paul is writing these principles, the laws of the harvest, to the Corinthian Church, who were involved in giving to a project that he had initiated. And now he’s coming to them because they’ve made a pledge, and he’s reassuring them and building their faith in their giving.

So, he says in verse 2 Corinthians 9:7, ‘So let each one give.’ Everybody should be giving in the house of God. ‘Let each one give as he purposes in his heart.’ It’s not like you have to hear from God, although He does speak sometimes about an offering that we’re to make. But more often than not, it’s our calculation. It’s our intention. It’s our decision to determine what we are going to give. So, as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly, don’t give with a grudge. ‘Oh, I’ve got to give.’ Keep it. God doesn’t need our money; we need to be giving. So, not grudgingly or of necessity, giving to pay the bill on this dishwasher or something like give joyfully to the Lord, regardless of what it’s for, because then it says, ‘For God loves a cheerful giver.’ The Amplified Bible says, ‘He’s unwilling to do without a cheerful giver,’ and it says He loves, loves, loves like over and over again. He loves a cheerful giver.

I mean, isn’t it a delight as a parent when one of your kids is unselfish with what they’ve got and they give joyfully to another person? Say, ‘Here, I know my little granddaughter, Charlie, she’s only like four years old, but she always wants to share whatever she’s got in her hand with everybody around. She says, ‘Yeah, would you like some? Would you like some?’ And it is such a delight to me as a granddad and, I’m sure, to her father, my son as well, just to see sharing. But when you see a kid hanging on selfishly, ‘It’s mine, it’s mine,’ you want to try and teach them, ‘Hey, be generous, be a giver.’

So, once we’ve gotten through that verse, there it says in verse 8, ‘And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.’ I think this might be the biggest verse in the Bible. There’s another verse almost like this as well in Ephesians talking about, ‘God will do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.’ But both of these are the biggest verses in Scripture. And this one says, ‘And God is able to make all grace, all the empowering ability, all the favor, all the high favor of God. He’s able to make it all abound, not just dribble out, but abound in abundance toward you so that you always, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, morning, evening, and night, on January, February, March, 23, 24, 2025, 2026, all your life, all time, that you always, having all sufficiency, you have enough of everything in all things – clothes, cars, every material thing, every spiritual thing, every emotional thing. He is wanting this abundance to be in your life.

Jesus said, ‘The thief comes to destroy, kill, and steal. I’ve come that you might have life, that you might have it more abundantly.’ Having all sufficiency in all things, having an abundance, an overflowing amount, more than enough for every good work, so that you think, ‘Oh, I can’t give to that, can’t help those people out because I’m helping this person.’ Don’t think, ‘I can’t do anything there.’ And so, you’re not restricted. He’s wanting you and I to get to a place where we can contribute, whether it’s finances, whether it’s time, whether it’s help, whether it’s influence, whatever, in all sorts of situations. And we will find that whatever we sow is going to come back to us.

So then it says in 2 Corinthians 9:10, ‘Now may He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness.’ To the Hebrew mind in the Old Testament, righteousness meant giving; it meant generosity. The two were synonymous.

Let me just give you quickly five laws of provision.

Number one: Measure sparingly or bountifully. So, the measure you sow is the measure that’s coming back. If I sow seed, if I sow ten seeds in an acre of ground, I’m going to get ten plants. If I sow ten thousand seeds, I’m going to get ten thousand plants and multiply all the seed that comes out of those ten thousand plants. So, generosity is like- it’s a form of freedom. I’m not going to consume or eat the seed I’ve been given; I’m going to actually sow it. The Bible speaks about giving as sowing, which we just read. ‘He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly.’ So, giving is like sowing. And the only other thing that is spoken of as sowing is the word of God in Luke 8, Mark 4, and Matthew 13. We read of the parable of the seed and the sower. So, sowing the word of God is one thing; giving is also sowing a seed. So, learning how to be generous sets us free. Absolutely, a good spirit is a free spirit. It’s a generous spirit, which means I’m free-spirited and abundant. So then, we actually learn what it is to have a cup that’s running over because we’re running over into other people’s lives.

Number two: What you sow is what you reap. Jesus said, ‘Give, and it will be given to you.’ A long time ago, maybe 40 years ago, after we just received Jesus, not long after, we gave away everything we had. We wanted a fresh start, a clean start. But I did have a beautiful guitar that I was playing. We gave away stereos and everything else, so we didn’t have any music except what we could play on that guitar at night.

And then somebody came around and said, ‘Man, I like that guitar.’ Well, I felt like if a person likes a thing, I said, ‘Here, you have it if you like it so much.’ And I did, and it is amazing. Very soon, I was given another guitar. Every year for about 25 years afterward, 30 years afterward, I was given guitars. Then it stopped coming to me. My kids, Daniel and Joseph, both musicians, started getting given guitars, sometimes very expensive guitars. People would just give them. I planted a guitar seed way back there, and I started to reap from a guitar tree. So what we sow is what we reap, and that’s the truth of it. We’re going to find ourselves blessed when we sow.

Principle number three: If we’re sowing all the time, giving and generous every day of our lives, we’re going to be receiving blessing all the time in our lives. The time to sow is always, being a generous person every day. Try and give something every day to somebody else.

Number four: The quality of what we sow is what we will reap. According to His riches and glory, God supplies according to His highest quality. Sometimes, people in a good heart would bring leftovers from home renovations to church. They’d say, ‘Pastor, we’re just renovating our house. Got this old carpet, maybe the youth can use it.’ Or an old computer that doesn’t work well. But don’t give shabbily. Malachi rebukes the people when he says, ‘You’re bringing the sick, the lame, and the blind as offerings.’ No, you can’t do that. Bring your best, and you will reap God’s best. No doubt about it. The quality of what we sow is the quality of what we reap.

Number five: Where we sow is where we reap. If we sow everywhere, we’re going to reap everywhere. A farmer doesn’t expect to reap in a field that he hasn’t sown in. If we’ve sown in this field but not in that one, nothing’s going to happen. So, sowing when we are giving is going to return to us in abundance.

Now, let me give you this understanding as well as I come to a close. Tithing is not giving; tithing is something that belongs to God. If I gave you these glasses and said, ‘Can you look after these for me for a while?’ Then I came back and said, ‘If you’ve got my glasses,’ and you said, ‘Yeah, I’d like to give them to you.’ No, you can’t give them to me; I own them. After you’ve given what is mine, then you are able to give beyond that. A tithe is 10% of our increase, our income before the Lord. We should give it in our local church where we’re being fed: to the pastors, elders’ wages, rent on the building, maintaining that house of God. We need to be tithing, a principle that God will respect immensely. It’s the cornerstone of your financial stability. Beyond that, an abundance starts to come into our lives, which we can give. If we observe these laws of the harvest, we’re going to find ourselves with abundance for every good work.

HT – The Framework (Reviewed here: Part 1, Part 2)

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“Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?” Galatians 4:16

Categories: C3 Church

Tags: C3, C3 Church, C3 Global, C3Church, Christian City Church, False Apostle, false prophet, finances, financial freedom, Phil Pringle