Blessing or Curse: You Can Choose, Derek Prince

Book review by John Rim

After winning the World Series in 2004, a player from the Boston Red Sox was asked by a reporter if he agreed with fans that the "curse of the Bambino" was over. He was referring to the decades of mediocrity and bad luck suffered by the team since one of their star players, Babe Ruth, was traded to the New York Yankees in the early 1900's. The player promptly responded: "There's no such thing as curses".

The "curse" of the Red Sox most likely started as a story line for an overly-imaginative journalist, but the response of the Boston Red Sox player demonstrates the attitude that is generally held by North American society when it comes to curses and the spiritual realm. Even among Christians living in North America, "blessings" and "curses" are rarely ever taught or discussed. Derek Prince's book Blessing or Curse: You Can Choose deals aptly with this much-avoided spiritual topic.

Prince correctly observes that while most people will not object to being blessed by others, the notion of curses is seen as ancient and irrelevant. In my own personal experience, when most people hear of curses, the picture that usually comes to mind is that of pins being stuck in voodoo dolls. Seen in this light, it is easy to see why most people disregard curses as superstition. However, Prince notes that the word curse appears over 230 times in Scripture.

With great insight, Prince teaches us about the reality of the spiritual realm and cautions us that success in life depends on being able to apprehend both the visible and invisible world. He explains how most curses come into effect through our very own words and describes how we often do this inadvertently without understanding the significance of our actions.

Perhaps the best illustration of this Biblical reality is shown in the testimony of Prince's wife Ruth. She describes how she had received an unusual prayer from her husband when she asked him to pray for her ailing legs. Instead of praying for God to heal her, Prince prayed and 'spoke' directly to the legs, thanking them for carrying Ruth throughout her life. Ruth testified that although she thought the prayer was unusual, the pain in her legs immediately disappeared. The reason, as was explained to her later, was that Prince had undone a curse that Ruth had pronounced on herself decades earlier in high-school when she said: "I hate my legs" after comparing herself to a classmate in the locker room.

Prince delves deeper into Scripture to provide a comprehensive study on the numerous causes of curses. Many of the causes could be categorized as obvious or predictable, but Prince does a formidable job in revealing the not-so-obvious causes by expositing difficult passages of the Bible that most untrained readers would skim over without understanding fully. In the same way, Prince provides excellent balance by presenting God's lessons on blessings in a way that is both insightful and easy to understand.

The effectiveness of the first section of the book in teaching about blessings and curses is matched only by the encouragement in the chapters that follow. Prince joyfully teaches about the immense power that Christians have in breaking free from all curses in Jesus Christ. The most enlightening chapter of the book is appropriately titled: The Divine Exchange. In this chapter, Prince skillfully explains the core gospel message of Jesus' sacrifice. As he exposits key verses of Scripture, Prince describes how Jesus truly is the Saviour and how his death not only restored man's relationship with God, but also provided the ultimate means of healing for all of man's distresses. Presenting Him in all His glory, Prince explains how Jesus suffered humiliation, rejection, physical pain and even death so that He could reverse these infirmities in the objects of His immeasurable love: man. As a result, Christ's power not only provides the opportunity for eternal life – the abbreviated version of "salvation" as most know it - it also provides the means for healing and restoration of every kind. I have never read or heard it taught better.

Despite its prevalence in Scripture, there is no doubt that many people, even Christians, will have difficulty believing the impact of blessings and curses. However, I am confident that any reader who reads Prince's book will find himself in a far better position to understand.

I believe Prince's book to be one of the most illuminating and useful books I have ever read and I highly encourage everyone to see for himself.