America’s Most Popular Pastor Doesn’t Know The Bible

The Daily Caller ^ | 9-19-2014 | Tristyn Bloom

[servo1969]

Mega-church pastor Joel Osteen may lead the largest Protestant church in the United States, but a recent Facebook post shows he might need to go back to Sunday school.

A Monday post to his verified Facebook page, Joel Osteen ministries, read: “God said in Numbers 11:23, ‘Moses, is there any limit to My power?’ He was saying, ‘Moses, you saw Me part the Red Sea, stop the sun for Joshua, keep three Hebrew teenagers safe in a fiery furnace, don’t you realize that I can bring water without rain?’ There’s no limit to God’s power.”

Post by Joel Osteen Ministries.

As of Friday afternoon, the post had over 317,000 likes and 52,000 shares.

There’s just one problem: According to the Bible, Moses was dead before Joshua asked God to stop the setting of the sun, and long before the three Hebrew youths were burned in the furnace.

The Old Testament Book of Joshua explains that God appointed Joshua as Moses’s successor after Moses’s death (the first sentence literally begins, “After the death of Moses…”), who led the Israelites into battle against the Amorites, during which he commanded the sun and the moon not to move. “So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies,” (Joshua 10:13).

The story of the “three holy children,” as the Hebrew youths are sometimes known, is told in the Old Testament Book of Daniel. According to the passage, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned around the 6th century B.C. (long, long after the projected time of Moses), ordered his people to worship a large golden idol, “and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace,” (Daniel 3:6). The three Hebrew youths refused to worship the idol and were thrown into the furnace, but were not burned.

In many Christian traditions this passage is particularly important because it is understood to prefigure Christ — when the king asked whether the three were burned, one of his counselors replied “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God,” (Daniel 3:25).

Some of Osteen’s followers noticed the error, with one commenter asking “Bro, do you even Scripture?”

Osteen, who has neither a bachelor’s nor a divinity degree, lives in a $10 million dollar mansion in Houston, Texas, and has an estimated net worth of $40 million. Nearly 50,000 people attend services at Lakewood Church every week, and millions more watch his televised sermons. Lakewood, whose “central campus” is a 16,000-seat arena, is notable for its total lack of crosses and other Christian symbols or imagery.

[Bryanw92]

The bible is just a prop for Joel Osteen.

[joethedrummer]

Yep, Osteen is filty rich... WHAT do I care???

Nobody FORCES ANYONE to subscribe to him.

HOWEVER, our Federal Government is also getting filthy rich (personally) off of us -and we have NO say about it.
Yeah, yeah, I know... let our voting do the talking...

Have we nothing better to do than bash Joel Osteen DAILY here???

I’m no way an Osteen guy, but sheesh.. He’s second only to obammy for negative articles here!

Again, NOBODY forces ANYONE to feed Osteen’s wealth or power. He will come and go - that’s GOD’s business.

We have bigger fish to fry.

[Fido969]

Phony.

[Politicalkiddo]

I guess the Devil can also misquote scripture.

[dware]

Don’t hold back, now. Tell us how you really feel! =)

[GeronL]

I won’t even call that a church

[Buckeye McFrog]

Either he doesn’t know it or delegates his Facebook postings to an ignoramus.

Either way it’s not encouraging.

[PapaNew]

Yes, he makes gaffes. He’s human. Very few ministers are under the kind of microscopic scrutiny as the Pharisees have on Joel Osteen. When you find the perfect minister who never stumbles in what he says once in a while, I’d like to know who he is. Because you’ve missed something becasue that person doesn’t exist.

What the Pharisees don’t get, is God called him, against his will. He didn’t want to do this. There was no megachurch at the tine, only his pastor dad who had just died. After saying a number of times (to his dad and his wife before his dad died) he didn’t want to preach in front of a bunch of people (he’s naturally and shy introvert type that like to work behind the scenes), he felt God telling him he needed to step up.

Whatever formal training the Pharisees accuse him of not having, they need to take that up with God, not Joel. Joel was never planning on doing this, but unknown to Joel, God was. As a result, many including myself are blessed and have had their lives changed for the better, because Joel’s is not a teaching ministry but a ministry of encouragement.

[prisoner6]

Yeah, there are almost daily Osteen bashing threads.

Don’t like him, don’t listen.

Why not bash...oh I do’t know...Earnest Angely (sp?), Peter Popov, or any number of Catholic priests, bishops, Presbyterian ministers and others...Dolan comes to mind.

I’m not very happy with Pope Francis but I don’t bash him daily.

As you said there are bigger fish to fry....WAY BIGGER.

[OneWingedShark]

The Joshua one's easy to miss on; after all it's quite early on in the book and you could possibly get confused with the Moses raising-his-arms-battle. The story of Shadrac, Meshac, and Abdnego and the Fiery Furnace though? That's Daniel, which is after a long time has passed from Moses.

[truth_seeker]

I have a BIL that has been chasing the greenback all his adult life.

It used to be AMWAY, but now it is Osteen.

[johniegrad]

C'mon, Joe, it's the FR way.

You find a mistake ... Point it out ... Ridicule him ... And then feel good about just how much better you are than him

Now, of course, you've gotta point out that it's all for the good of others, so they don't get led astray. And you gotta try to show that you're smarter, you know, cut and paste a bunch of stuff.

But in the end, you're justified in being all outraged and stuff ... Because you're saved and he's not, except you never say that. Too obvious.

It's all about who's in and who's out. And who's smarter and who's dumber. It's a competition.

[prisoner6]

Oh I see I made a mistake.

“Don’t like, don’t listen.”

Should be If YOU don’t like him don’t listen.

I listen to him for a few minutes a week and mostly enjoy him. Not going to send him money.

I also find nothing wrong with his daily prayers.

Guess that means I’m doomed.

So be it.

[Alex Murphy]

Mega-church pastor Joel Osteen may lead the largest Protestant church in the United States, but a recent Facebook post shows he might need to go back to Sunday school.

A Monday post to his verified Facebook page, Joel Osteen ministries, read: “God said in Numbers 11:23, ‘Moses, is there any limit to My power?’ He was saying, ‘Moses, you saw Me part the Red Sea, stop the sun for Joshua, keep three Hebrew teenagers safe in a fiery furnace, don’t you realize that I can bring water without rain?’ There’s no limit to God’s power.”

....There’s just one problem: According to the Bible, Moses was dead before Joshua asked God to stop the setting of the sun, and long before the three Hebrew youths were burned in the furnace.

Joel Osteen Heresy Gauge:

[Vigilanteman]

Who needs to know the Bible when you are a celebrity and sell your own books? < / sarcasm >

[Resolute Conservative]

Claiming to be a Christian pastor it is odd he avoids any messages that deal with the Cross and Jesus’ atonement and God’s Word on homosexuality, adultery, and idolatry. I guess those are in a subscription membership to his church.

[Sequoyah101]

Beat me to it!

Fake, flake and a floozie.

[hamboy]

Did Joel Osteen really read Numbers 11:23 word for word, or just paraphrased it?

Who is Tristyn Bloom anyway? Agigator? Atheist?

AFAIK church pastors whether mega church pastor or just big congregational church, the pastor dwells in the pastoral house that may not even theirs. Do the DailyCaller contributor really sure if it’s Joel Osteen’s privately owned $40 million house or it’s pastoral house?

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Please. God exists outside of His creation which includes the human concept of ^time^.
These separate items are well within the purview of God to reveal to anyone.
Although I do not agree with much of what Osteen “preaches”, this issue is moot.