How Kenneth Copeland Defines Prosperity, In His Own Words

No word follows Kenneth Copeland more closely than “prosperity.” Episode 4 of his weekly podcast, titled “What Even Is Prosperity?!” and released June 18, took the question directly, recorded from the home office chair where he writes his monthly Partner Letters. 

His granddaughter and host Courtney Copeland framed the stakes at the top: Some listeners believe in the prosperity message, some hate it, and some have no idea what it is.

The 19-minute episode was Copeland’s answer to all three groups.

What Does Kenneth Copeland Mean by Prosperity

Copeland started with a dictionary older than his ministry. Reading from Webster’s 1828 edition, he defined prosperity as “advance or gain in anything good or desirable” and “successful progress in any business or enterprise,” a definition that spans arts, agriculture and national economies before it ever mentions money.

His own summary went further. True prosperity begins with being born again, he said, then extends to family, mind, body and finances. “I like to call it holistic prosperity,” Copeland said. “Whole meaning every area, nothing missing, nothing broken.”

His scriptural anchor is 3 John 2, the apostle’s prayer that believers “may prosper in every way,” body and soul included. He paired it with 2 Timothy 1:7 and its “spirit of power, of love, calm, well-balanced mind, and discipline, and self-control.” His verdict on that verse: “That is very prosperous.”

Money enters the teaching, he argued, because a shortage stops so many people from acting on their calling: More people are unable to do what God has called them to do for a lack of funds, he said, than for a lack of health. His proof text is Deuteronomy 8:18, which he read on air:

“It is God who gives you the power or the authority to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant.”

A Covenant Not To Ask

One detail in the episode explained a practice Partners of Kenneth Copeland Ministries have noticed for decades. Copeland said he and Gloria made “a positive covenant with God that we would never ask for a place to preach. And we would never ask for money except to receive an offering,” without pressure. 

Courtney, who is also the chief marketing officer of her grandfather’s ministry, confirmed the discipline from the editing side: She has watched her grandfather crumple a draft of his Partner Letter and throw it out because it read like a request. 

That letter follows a fixed rhythm. Copeland writes it at the same lap desk on the 20th of each month, a practice he has maintained since 1967, and prays until a foundational scripture surfaces.

Sometimes the scripture comes quickly, he said; sometimes it takes half a day. Oral Roberts set the standard early, holding up a Bible in his office and telling him, “It’s letters! And they’re just as anointed today as they were back then.” 

From a Riverbed to a Denny’s Booth

Two scenes in the episode traced how the teaching of true, holistic prosperity became a global operation. In the first, Copeland, then a student at Oral Roberts University, felt a disturbance in his spirit, walked into a dry Tulsa riverbed, and heard one word repeated: nations.

Years later, he said, the meaning landed as he prayed the Lord’s Prayer and sensed, “Kenneth, your daily bread includes other nations.” 

A second scene put the call into motion. Driving to the couple’s Arkansas prayer cabin, Kenneth and Gloria stopped at Denny’s, and he looked at her over the menu. “Gloria Jean, you thinking what I’m thinking?” 

She was.

“How do we do it?” he asked. “I don’t know, but we’ll do it on Monday. We’re going on TV.”

Neither had a plan beyond the decision, he said. That broadcast ministry now reaches 165 nations and territories, according to the ministry’s 2025 Covenant Partner Report. 

The Curse and the Critics

Copeland did not dodge the criticism attached to the prosperity message. He aimed his sharpest words at preaching that leaves believers under a curse: He recalled hearing a minister claim God would break a leg just to prove He could heal it, a teaching Copeland flatly rejects. 

His counterargument runs through Deuteronomy 28, the chapter of blessings for obedience, and Galatians 3, which he reads as redemption from the curse of the law. “Gospel,” he reminded listeners, means good news.

The blessing catalog he read on-air covers city and field, family and business, “your basket and your kneading trough,” and he paused on the storehouse blessing to make it practical: “Now, do you have a storehouse? How’s He going to bless it if you don’t have a storehouse?” 

Courtney added the family’s own boundary: “Nowhere in our family do we think that prosperity and everything you just read is only pertaining to finances.” Copeland’s full argument appears in The Laws of Prosperity, the 1974 book that remains one of his most circulated titles. 

Where It Started for Him

The episode’s most personal moment stepped away from doctrine entirely. Copeland recalled the night he was converted: 8 p.m. in Little Rock, Ark., after flying an executive of the Arkansas-Louisiana Natural Gas Company home from Shreveport.

“That night I accepted Jesus Christ as my LORD,” he said. He learned afterward that Gloria had made the same decision two weeks earlier. “But that’s when my life began,” Copeland said. “I became a new creature in Christ Jesus.”

The Definition, on the Record

Critics and supporters of Kenneth Copeland have debated the prosperity message for decades, often without a primary source that clearly states his definition. Episode 4 now supplies one: prosperity as wholeness across every area of life, funded ministry without solicitation, and money as a means for calling rather than an end.

New episodes arrive every other Wednesday morning on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Similar Stories