With great bravado, he impugns biblical characters, including a hapless paralytic in the Gospel of John. In Osteen’s twist of the text, Jesus encounters a man by the pool of Bethesda just “lying around feeling sorry” for himself. In response to Jesus’ “simple, straightforward question,” the paralytic begins “listing all of his excuses. ‘I’m all alone. I don’t have anyone to help me. Other people have let me down. Other people always seem to get ahead of me. I don’t have a chance in life.’” With nary a hint of mercy, Osteen continues: “Is it any wonder that he remained in that condition for thirty-eight years?” In sharp contrast, Osteen says his sister Lisa arose from the ashes of a painful divorce and remarried. Unlike the paralytic, she “wasn’t going to sit around by the pool for thirty-eight years feeling sorry for herself” (Your Best Life Now, 148–149, 151).
‘Stand up, Chuck.’