Posted on 06/23/2005 6:41:22 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Tonight, Joel Osteen, evangelism's hottest rising star, pastor for the biggest congregation in the United States.
(snip)
KING: But you're not fire and brimstone, right? You're not pound the decks and hell and dam nation?
OSTEEN: No. That's not me. It's never been me. I've always been an encourager at heart. And when I took over from my father he came from the Southern Baptist background and back 40, 50 years ago there was a lot more of that. But, you know, I just -- I don't believe in that. I don't believe -- maybe it was for a time. But I don't have it in my heart to condemn people. I'm there to encourage them. I see myself more as a coach, as a motivator to help them experience the life God has for us.
KING: But don't you think if people don't believe as you believe, they're somehow condemned?
OSTEEN: You know, I think that happens in our society. But I try not to do that. I tell people all the time, preached a couple Sundays about it. I'm for everybody. You may not agree with me, but to me it's not my job to try to straighten everybody out. The Gospel called the good news. My message is a message of hope, that's God's for you. You can live a good life no matter what's happened to you. And so I don't know. I know there is condemnation but I don't feel that's my place.
KING: You've been criticized for that, haven't you?
OSTEEN: I have. I have. Because I don't know.
(Excerpt) Read more at transcripts.cnn.com ...
The message being preached leads people to Christ, that's all that matters. And once they're with Him, He will take care of where their station in life should be, regardless of what ANY teacher says.
The message preached or taugth by any christian should be the undiluted, unreserved Word of God.
If the message didn't matter, we wouldn't have this from Paul ...2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
3 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;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Timothy 3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
If I follow only the Word of God, then I am following correct doctrine. I am not saying I am perfect, I am saying that God's Word is perfect. Will I occasionally misunderstand what the Bible is teaching on a subject? Sure.
My point was that if someone is teaching something that is not Scriptural, they should have that error brought to their attention so that they may come to know the Truth.
Then you are agreeing with me that Osteen's positive confession is not sound - my mistake, I thought you were supportive of his doctrine.
I just wanted to stress that just saying something out loud and believing it in your heart does not earn you the right to have it. The Lord gives and takes away - period. That is why what happened to Paul and his malady is still very relevant today. Job was also a godly man and was allowed to be tormented by Satan to God's glory. Our pastor's wife is ill with cancer and we all take comfort that He can heal her and that he can take the glory of her experience if He chooses not to.
By the way, I believe you are blessed more when you walk closely with God, but that is because you are then praying in His will and your wants are his wants.
I agree completely and the Bible does state that those in authority, such as pastors and teachers are held even more accountable than the rest of us sheep.
A large congregation is of no consequence - there are more members of the Jehova'a Witnesses than there are of Joel O's church!
I guess I may be something of an atypical evangelical in that I'm not really interested in what's "the largest church in America" and what isn't, or viewing pastors of such churches as "Protestant popes".
You must attend Joel Osteen's church.
So has yours :D
It depends on if youre interested in the overall Christian "community". Its just an area of news and such to stay interested in or not.
I agree, whoever has the largest does not matter to me...hopefully now you know who this particular guy is and if interested, you can learn something about this fella.
He's in the news enough that I wanted to find out about him. I woudnt go to his church, its not for me.
Yep.
I did get sent this article this morning:
Ashamed of the Gospel by Steve Camp
Joel Osteen on Larry King Live
http://a1m.org/page.php?page=template1.php&pageid=29be7ec8b7957b97ef67ff8c8519519c
and the follow-up is very interesting --- actually gives me hope for the smiling preacher...
The Joy of Humility
A personal letter from Joel Osteen
June 27th 2005 - After Joel's appearance on Larry King Live. last week I wrote an article with accompanying transcript for the A1M website. I sent a personal copy of the article with a note to Joel extending an invitation to speak with him about his troubling interview. Much to my delight he called me back later that same day. We had a very good, honest and profitable conversation about his interview, ministry and the gospel. Joel demonstrated great humility and teachability in all we discussed. I don't know many evangelical leaders of his reknown that have ever published a letter seeking others' forgiveness for mistakes made so quickly and desirous to do so. That speaks volume of his character to me (and others have noticed as well).
[JOEL OSTEEN ISSUES APOLOGY
http://albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=137]
Though significant doctrinal and theological differences remain, I am very encouraged to know that Joel is a humble man willing to seek the counsel of others to help understand his own failings.
Please keep him in your prayers that the Lord will continue to strengthen him with boldness in sharing the gospel, and that he would unashamedly proclaim the whole counsel of God.
Grace and peace,
Steve
(Col. 3:10-13)
thanks for posting that.
Hopefully it will strengthen his confidence in Christ and allow him to preach in clarity, devoid of any ambiguity of the Truth.
I posted it as a new thread here:
JOEL OSTEEN ISSUES APOLOGY
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1434686/posts
I've only watched him a couple of times, only to see who he was since my wife's grandparents are devout followers of his. Those two "sermons" were nothing more than telling people that God wants them to be greedy; that all things they wanted, God wanted them to have, houses, cars, etc.
It's not surprising that my wife's grandparents berated and insulted her the entire time she was there just because we don't have as much material things they thought we should have. To them it was a sign that God loved them more than us. The reason my wife was there? To help her grandmother because she has pancreatic cancer. She went up to help and give of herself and only got insulted. No, I'm not surprised at all that they follow Osteen.
Her grandparents attend a church populated by the other local upper middle class union democrats. My wife went once to be polite and brought back a sermon guide. Not once did it mention Jesus. It had a couple of feel good quotes by recent men. It also had a section of gossip. It was surreal.
Thanks for the post.
lol
Look how much it took for Jim Bakker to say "I was wrong" -- as compared to Joel Osteen. Never mind, at least he finally admitted it.
Hopefully Osteen will follow through on his apology.
still have to define prosper.
And the problem is Sin. - sometimes specific sins, and sometimes just the entire phenomenon of sin -- Even spirit filled believers have it. The whole earth is in bondage to corruption and will not be released until the Lord's return.
I love that tagline. Very illustrative of something that happened to me over the last two months at our church.
I'm describing my personal experience with the Lord, and a lot of what Osteen has talked about, I experience (barring the semi-resolved controversy over in the other thread)
I just watched this guy tonight with his latetst big crusade.
I did not like it....at all.
Apostate.
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