In Christian tradition, the love of money is condemned as a sin primarily based on texts such as Ecclesiastes 5:10 and 1 Timothy 6:10. The Christian condemnation relates to avarice and greed rather than money itself.

Founder and leader of the Perez Chapel International, Bishop Charles Agyinasare has admonished Christians not be comfortable in poverty as according to him, staying in poverty does not guarantee one will go to Heaven.

The popular Ghanaian pastor and Chancellor of the Perez University College, says contrary to what has long been keyed in the minds of Christians, money is not evil.

He has since charged them (Christians) to go for prosperity.

“A lot of the time, the world wants us to believe that once you’re a Christian or if you’re a pastor, you should only be teaching the people about poverty and they go as far as saying: ‘As poor as a church rat’ but God never had that in his concept when he had a church,” he said.

“It’s important that, as Christians, we stop making people feel that because they are poor, they are holy. Being poor doesn’t make you holy, otherwise, all the poor people we have in the third world would be holy, there’ll be no need to preach to them, they will go to heaven.

“So, we shouldn’t make people feel that because they are poor, they are holy. It doesn’t work like that. You can be poor and be a sinner just like you can be rich and also go to heaven.”

Bishop Agyinasare explained that people often misquote the Bible by saying ‘Money is the root of all evil’.

This, he said, is misconstrued, pointing out that what the Bible says in 1 Timothy 6: 10 is that: ‘For the love of money is the root of all evil’.

“They take the scripture where Jesus said: ‘It will be difficult for a rich man to go to heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle’ as another proof of their argument. So, they say that anybody who is rich cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. “...Well, there are two kinds of people who can go to heaven: One of them is Lazarus, who was poor with sores around him [and] dogs licking his wounds; he went to heaven. And then there is Abraham, who also went to heaven and Abraham had silver and gold while he was here on earth. And if you ask me: ‘Among the two, who do I like to go to heaven like?’ I want to go like Abraham,” Bishop Agyinasare added.