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Thoughts on Joel Osteen

Willie T said:
He is not the monster most here seem to want him to be. He just does as he says he believes he was called to do.
They want him to breath fire and to condemn people, and he just doesn't feel that is what God called him to do.
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And even if he did breathe fire and condemn people to match people's fancy, he would fail at it, because it isn't in his calling. He would be outside of his anointing, pleasing religious men by his own works and power, and it would all come crashing down.

Olsteen's ministry is an elementary ministry. That's why it's so large. His congregants are people who are still on the milk bottle, probably a majority are new Christians. As they mature God will lead them towards more meaty preaching and teaching. Granted there are probably plenty of people in his congregation who are long-time congregants and are satisfied with where they are, but that isn't Joel's fault, complacency is a spiritual sickness.

Folks are essentially upset because they want Joel Olsteen, the first grade teacher, to start lecturing college Christianity 401 to a bunch of children. They aren't ready for the meat. If they are Christians who desire the meat of the word then they will be led into a new ministry, or else they are simply complacent and have no desire to advance. Let God do His work. The Spirit is always calling and nudging and promoting and prompting.

A lot of times, we destroy any chance for our own ministries by judging another's.
 
Blake said:
Folks are essentially upset because they want Joel Olsteen, the first grade teacher, to start lecturing college Christianity 401 to a bunch of children. They aren't ready for the meat. If they are Christians who desire the meat of the word then they will be led into a new ministry, or else they are simply complacent and have no desire to advance. Let God do His work. The Spirit is always calling and nudging and promoting and prompting.

A lot of times, we destroy any chance for our own ministries by judging another's.
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Nah. Sometimes people just see things for what they really are. Preaching for personal profit.
 
The Orlando Sentinel is not a "rag", and I doubt they would open themselves to liable with an article like this. By the way, if Osteen owns a fleet of jets, (or, even one...) why do you guys make a big deal out of his wife getting into trouble on a regular "po' folks" airline? Why would she even BE on a cheap ol', common airline like the rest of us?

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...n29_1_osteen-lavish-lifestyles-televangelists
 
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smaller said:
Ah, yes. Joel does need a fleet of jets and a series of huge mansions, so that the message of the Gospel can go forth!
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How many of each does he have?

smaller said:
After all, without money, there can be no Gospel.

What a crock.
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Right....not on TV. It costs thousands of dollars to be on TV.
I was saved through a television evangelistic ministry, so don't bother trying to convince me it's a waste of money.

smaller said:
Anyone who buys that story deserves to fork out their money to him.
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I personally do not support his ministry. My burden lies elsewhere in the body of Christ. But that hardly means it is not a legitimate ministry that no one should support. But that is how we humans tend to operate. We project our own thoughts and feelings on everything and everybody else because we think they should think like us and be like us if they aren't already.
 
Bro Jethro, it's so awesome and interesting to me that you were saved through a television ministry. Would it be too personal to ask who's ministry it was?

When I was 19 or 20 or so, after a couple years being some combination of drunk and high for almost 2 whole years, God reached me while flipping through television. It was a Gaither gospel promotion. This song came on:


I bawled there in the living room in the middle of the night.

Then this song followed:


I tell ya, it was a sealed deal at that point. I could feel the graces and energies of God all throughout the room with me. A few buddies came the next evening to pick me up so that we could ride over to the party house and drown ourselves in a few fifths, roll up some blunts and snort some xanax, but I was dressed in a blue polo shirt and some khakis. They laughed at me, "Is that what you're wearing today man?"

"Yup. To church. I'll see y'all later."
 
smaller said:
1 Timothy 6:9
But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
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Yes, we all know greed and covetousness are sins. But does someone else's greed nullify God's promise to pay back bountifully the one who sows bountifully?

"...he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." (2 Corinthians 9:6 NASB)

Yes, or no?

Why do Christians say God, or Paul, is lying in the above scripture?
 
Lewis said:
Pastor Shane Idleman's Thoughts on Joel Osteen

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2015/08/13/pastor-takes-big-ministries-to-task-for-watered-down-truth/
We live in the age of “church growth,” a time when many pastors and church leaders focus on marketing tactics meant to fill pews and stuff coffers. Writing for the Christian Post, Pastor Shane Idleman of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, exhorts his colleagues to rethink their approach to ministry.
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My thoughts are these people are dogs who feed off the scraps under the masters table, but they never get any real meat.
 
Blake said:
A lot of times, we destroy any chance for our own ministries by judging another's.
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If your judgment is correct I don't think you have anything to worry about. This is what John had to say about a bad apple in the church...

"Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. 10 So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church." (3 John 9-10 NASB)
 
Let's be clear on some things. Whatever critique I might apply is NOT to Joel Olsteen, whom I BELIEVE IS SAVED.

We do have many scriptural warnings about the deceptions of riches and the likewise evils that attend to the love of money.

God in Christ didn't call anyone to a soft bed of material comforts as His End Game or any of that being the measures of who is blessed by God in Christ, and who is not. IF it were God in Christs intentions to pack our wallets with cash, THEN everyone who calls upon our Lord would have wads of same. That is simply not the case. The prosperity Gospel is a preposterous gospel, when it turns to the 'love of money' so we can be happy happy and comfortable, though I admit it does have a worldly appeal that people love to hear, and will apparently pay dearly, to hear.

Ephesians 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

James 5:
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
 
So, I might (and have) asked myself many many times. IF the message of God in Christ is to have more money, then HOW can one NOT then pursue money, and love money, since that seems to be the quest of the prosperity Gospel? Believers who go this direction are very ill advised if they think they do not have work for money or work to 'eat', and that God is just going to hand it over to them, 100 fold, if they 'sowed' into a prosperity preacher.

The only people this happens for are the people who preach this message as 'their work.' No believer has to or should "pay these preachers" if they think that is the case. There is a world of impoverished to sow money into, if we want to "test" God in this matter. No believer needs an intermediary preacher to do this. IF these preachers were sowing their money into their own claims, they obviously would not be taking HUGE PERSONAL SKIMS off the top to buy mansions and jets and lavish cars.

That alone should tell anyone, it's a financial scam for personal gain, hiding under the auspices of 501C3 tax free corporations.
 
2 Peter 2:
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you:
 
Here is the value of silver and gold:

Isaiah 2:20
In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

Here, is how much silver and gold Peter had, when ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit:

Acts 3:6
Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

All the silver and gold in the world can not BUY what we have in Christ.
 
Christ_empowered said:
I don't think its terrible for popular teachers+preachers to be well-compensated. I mean, they're not called to a vow of poverty, am I right?
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I think it depends upon where the demand for the compensation is coming from. If those he/she serves is pushing to compensate generously, then I agree. But, if the demand for the compensation is coming from the one doing the serving, that's a whole other ballgame.
 
Playing on the emotions of old women, who the church is scripturally responsible for, just does not fit in my mind as proper...
 
Is someone saying Osteen does this?
In case it was overlooked, here is an excerpt from The Orlando Sentinel....
Osteen lives a much different life.
He has not taken a salary from his Houston megachurch for two years. He owns one house -- the same one he and his wife, Victoria, have lived in for 13 years -- and until recently he drove a 9-year-old car he inherited from his late father. Osteen pays his own hotel bills, and there is no private jet.

Although the upbeat minister does take collections at services, netting an estimated $43 million a year, Osteen does not ask for money on his broadcasts, which reach an estimated 7 million viewers weekly in the U.S. and 100 other countries. Nonetheless, an additional $30 million comes through the mail. His most recent book deal earned him a $13 million advance.
 
wow. I didn't know all that about Joel Osteen. That's pretty cool.

Sometimes, I wonder if Christians as a group...we kind of confuse harshness with "Real Religion," fire+brimstone with "good preaching." I mean, yeah, Hell is very real and Jesus is really good about talking about it throughout The Gospels, but...

Christianity is about love and forgiveness. I think there should be room for a softer approach.
 
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