Posted on 12/17/2014 4:32:23 PM PST by Gamecock
Not a shock: megachurch celebrity tv star preacher Joel Osteen doesn’t know the Bible, reports the clever and energetic Tristyn Bloom of The Daily Caller. (The story’s several weeks old but I just saw it so pass it on for those of you who hadn’t.)
In 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.”
As of Friday afternoon, the post had over 317,000 likes and 52,000 shares.
One normally hesitates to criticize ministers from another tradition, but Joel Osteen perverts Christianity in a way that will keep people from Christ. He preaches a Christianity without a cross. As one commenter put it:
Joel Osteen is a motivational speaker who pretends to be Christian in order to make money. He and his wife live in a multimillion dollar mansion, and in return sell a gospel of false promises, bad theology, and gross consumerism. It is unsurprising that he fails to quote Scripture accurately, because adherence to Scripture has never been a priority of his.
What is truly unfortunate about him and his operation is that through their false teaching they mislead millions. I hope and pray for his repentance, before his final judgment and damnation.
I don’t know about “pretends.” I have no idea what Osteen thinks he’s doing. He does not speak as a Christian preacher but as a motivational speaker who exploits Christian language and Christianity’s continuing cultural authority to bring people (and their donations) in. There’s nothing like the message to the rich young ruler in his preaching, no take up your cross, not even a watch with me.
The Christian life is a constant struggle to move closer to Christ, against the flow of our natures. We’re swimming upstream. With God’s help, making progress, but only because He helps us keep pushing against the current. Osteen offers a pleasant ride on a warm spring day down a wide slow-moving river lying on a well-stocked raft. He presents this as if it were grace and not the easy choice of our fallen natures. “God wants you to do what you want to do” is not the Gospel.
I’m sure God wants us blessed, however, worldly goods are not blessings of any true value.
Yeah, I met with a group that used all of those for while. Jim and Tammy Baker were big at that time. Nuff said? I’ve studied much since then. Charlatans all. False teachers. Prosperity gospel.
You must be a sad individual, who has never come to understand that Salvation, and a personal relationship with Christ was to make you look up and Praise God, and not at your fellow Christians to find a reason to judge them:
http://www.openbible.info/topics/blessings
In my humble opinion Mr. Osteen should have quoted the Bible Numbers 11 23 The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” then put in his explanation.
Osteen is a charlatan. Scripture warns us about his type.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
2 Peter 2:1-22 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly
Matthew 7:15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
What happened with Baker and others, who got into the ‘prosperity doctrine’ is God’s responsibility...not yours or mine to criticize. Their problem was how they used donations, that is not what Osteen is doing.
All people have a ‘blind side’ or ‘weak side’, for some it’s money, for some it’s some kind of sex, for others it’s a need to be in control, and for some it’s criticism....we are supposed to get ourselves so close to Christ that we can keep that weakness from destroying us.
No doubt, NO DOUBT...you have a weakness that only Christ can help you control completely...that’s why the Bible tells us not to judge one another....
Just because God wants to bless us, it doesn’t mean we are all going to be rich in money, it’s about those blessings that are more than jut money. Although I got one heck of a blessing today, and it was totally unexpected. However, like JOB we go through experiences where we have to endure for a long time, years for some, before that blessing is released to us. No Christian is perfect, only Jesus.
Joel Osteen has a job to do and that’s to encourage the down and out, the JOB Experiencer’s, and the sick so that they look for something from God. Even God told Abraham to visualize the sands of the sea....his generations of descendants. We must see it in our mind’s eye, before we can reap the blessing. The gift of ‘encouragement’ is what Joel Osteen is operating and when you face poverty or illness, that’s what is needed to get through it.
Sin begins in the mind, so does the blessings....Our soul is made up of our mind, will, and emotions...that’s us. The flesh and the spirit war after the soul. You aren’t taking this body to heaven, but you are your soul...guard your mind...
Even when I get upset with Obama, the Holy Spirit will warn me ‘don’t hate’. So God is concerned with the condition of our hearts and minds toward others.
Let God bless Joel Osteen all he wants, it’s his talent in writing that gives him the millions that he spends on his family, it’s not Church donations. He has a salary, and his own independent authorship of many books...you don’t have to buy them. Jealousy comes out of people in the meanest ways....and it’s not justified. HE and his wife are doing the best they can, and I can tell you his father is one reason he is blessed so much. If they fall, then we are to still follow Jesus...no one human being is perfect.
I trust you would agree that there is a difference between enjoying Earthly blessings in the form of a Joel Osteen prosperity gospel (which is the context in which this conversation is taking place) and enjoying eternity with Christ, which seems to be lacking in Osteen’s teachings.
Since Osteen attended Oral Roberts University, the chances are good he heard the prosperity message a few times, even though he was not a religion student. He studied marketing, and at that he’s certainly a whiz. But I digress.
This man is not a very good Bible teacher. The main points of the OP are still out there to be addressed after well over 100 posts. It’s not surprising he isn’t a good Bible teacher since he hasn’t been ordained and he does not consider himself to be a theologian.
It is possible that Joel Osteen may make some people aware of God’s love. God can use anyone for that purpose. But what is missing in Osteen’s message is meat, pure and simple. True Christian happiness, and salvation, does not come from the material. It comes from a saving faith in Jesus Christ, which Osteen rejected on national television.
Some other thoughts on Mr. Osteen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th9rzFiXeSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhaqr4q_ItQ
Watch with an open mind.
Make all excuses or rationalizations you want. The “prosperity gospel” is a different gospel than the apostles taught.
Well big mouth are you going to answer the questions in post #85 or not? You going to just kinda avoid those questions......like your false idol fraud dances around the truth?
From the numbers verse:
23 The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”
You seem to be saying that since the boys met the firey furnace after Moses was dead, that any mention of subsequent miracles are off limits when analyzing this or any other particular ancient bible verse.
God’s message to Moses means that his power is not just for today. But for all eternity. I don’t think you would disagree with that statement.
God’s power is not just for the moment at hand, which seems to be what you are saying. God’s words to Moses applies to everyone in the future, including the three in the furnace in the future, doesn’t it?
If you don’t care for Joel’s messages, just don’t turn on the program and let God, and not man, sort it out.
I have listened to Joel Osteen on and off, and I do not find Osteen in any way a Charlatan or false prophet, that is so bogus....
He has a call at the end of every service and asks people to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. Anyone saying he denied Christ is wrong, if he misspoke or didn’t realize what he said, that’s where God’s Grace comes in...people are NOT perfect, NO ONE.. not you, not me, not Joel or his wife.
If they fall away, I will still pray for them, not criticize a man of God trying to fulfill the gospel. And as of right now they are in good standing with God.
Heresies:
Jehovah Witnesses
Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene
Those who accept things God has said is an Abomination
Any one who denies Jesus Christ as the Son of God
Those who worship idols
Witchcraft
http://www.openbible.info/topics/blessings
Osteen’s quote was that God told these things to Moses, who was dead before two of those events ever happened. That’s poor teaching, and placing people in need of salvation under such poor teaching should be alarming to anyone concerned with salvation.
As another poster told you, that might be God’s message to ME, in a later time, but it could not have been God’s message to Moses. He’s attributing error to God, who is incapable of error. That’s not good.
As I mentioned earlier, God can use anyone to get people’s attention, even Joel Osteen. However, according to everything I’ve been taught all those under whose ministry I have sat, Osteen’s message is incomplete, his prosperity gospel is heretical because it embraces idolatry, and he preaches a gospel not centered on Christ but rather on material well-being.
Christians are called to reject false teaching.
“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” - 2 Timothy 4:1-3
And no, I have no plans to be any part of Mr. Osteen’s ministry.
“If you don’t care for Joel’s messages, just don’t turn on the program and let God, and not man, sort it out.”
So Christians shouldn’t sound the alarm when sinners are being ushered to eternal destruction by a very public false teacher? I don’t think you can find much biblical support for that notion.
What part of “false teacher” do you not understand? Joel Osteen would have been laughed out of the Church 50 years ago. It is only a Biblicly Illiterate generation that would tolerate his “prosperity” gospel that only uses the bible for a pre-sermon mantra prop.
Funny, Jesus spoke about repentance, judgment, turning from sin, tribulation, bearing crosses. He would not be allowed in most churches, including Joel Osteen’s. He was much too negative. How do I know? His Word is never opened during the sermon...only used as a pre-sermon mantra prop!
In Joel’s letter he apologized, that stands for itself. I said if he misspoke, the we should give grace...SO I answered and you just did not get it.
Bible says ... if we do not forgive others he will not forgive us.
Quote from Joel Osteen’s letter:
“Many of you have called, written or e-mailed regarding my recent appearance on Larry King Live. I appreciate your comments and value your words of correction and encouragement.
It was never my desire or intention to leave any doubt as to what I believe and Whom I serve. I believe with all my heart that it is only through Christ that we have hope in eternal life. I regret and sincerely apologize that I was unclear on the very thing in which I have dedicated my life.
Jesus declared in John 14; I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. I believe that Jesus Christ alone is the only way to salvation. However, it wasn’t until I had the opportunity to review the transcript of the interview that I realize I had not clearly stated that having a personal relationship with Jesus is the only way to heaven. It’s about the individual’s choice to follow Him.”
Unquote
JESUS IS LORD!
Do me a favor okay? Ping me when he says abortion is allowed. I want to do the honors in posting it.
If we do not expose false teachers, we are guilty of the same sin as the Pharisees. You would have been very uncomfortable when Jesus whipped people in the temple and drove them out.
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