Hi all
this is a short clip of Joel Osteen on Larry King Live

He’s the pastor of one of the biggest US churches and popular seller,
I noticed today he is in the recommended reading stand at Koorong.

Has anyone had much to do with his teaching? Waht are it s strengths weaknesses, concerns?

How do you go about dealing with his gospel of health wealth and prospertiy with a person who thinks he’s pretty positve, cool and influential?

How do you get nice teeth like his?

regards
Shane

if you are wanting a longer look this is a fascinating piece by 60 minutes.

Shane Rogerson - 18 February 2008 05:55 PM

Has anyone had much to do with his teaching? Waht are it s strengths weaknesses, concerns?

How do you go about dealing with his gospel of health wealth and prospertiy with a person who thinks he’s pretty positve, cool and influential?

I found an interesting take on this topic recently in these radio messages/discussions from the White Horse Inn, led by Michael Horton on:

+ Christless Christianity,
+ Crossless Christianity,
+ and Joel Osteen in particular.

There are also more articles and reviews at the White Horse Inn.

Undeserved favour and peace,
Terry

And here is Michael Horton’s analytical review of a recent book by Joel Osteen.

Terry

Hi Shane
I am appreciating Mark Driscoll more and more, as I listen to his series on Philippians, A Rebel’s Guide to Joy, and see how effectively he is using facebook and Youtube.

He took a clip from Joel Osteen in his first sermon on Philippians, I think and it has been pasted on Youtube. Driscoll’s critique is unanswerable, I think.

Kenneth Copeland states it like this: “All it takes is (1) Seeing or visualizing whatever you need, whether physical or financial; (2) Staking your claim on Scripture; and (3) Speaking it into existence” (Christianity in Crisis, p. 80).

G’day Andrew, you mean he believes this Scripture?

Mar 11:22 “Have[6] faith in God,” Jesus answered.
Mar 11:23 “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.
Mar 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Mar 11:25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."[7]

David M,

I enjoyed Marks sermon. I find it rather sad that a lot of Pentecostalism is leaving its conservative roots. I guess one can say it is the opposite of liberalism within Conservative churches

Yet there we have to be careful that we don’t tar and feather every pentecostal with the same brush..which I’m not saying is happening on this topic. There is a move within Pentecostalism away from this type of teaching such as at the mainstream AOG Bible college where it is heavily criticized.

I think as Christians we are to prosper, but that doesn’t mean greed. Paul talks about Christian prosperity in Philippians’s, in that what ever we go through, trust God, praise God, talk to him about it, cast all your anxieties to him for he cares for you…

In listening to osteens sermon which MD criticised, it seemed that he was saying that if your bank balance is zilch, you need to keep a good attitude knowing that God is in control which I think is good advice.

Personally I don’t like the copelands, hinns etc and think their teaching is based on GREED. Yet we need to be careful that we criticise in love and truth and acknowledge truth as well as wrong in others sermons.

Hi Craig.
But Mark’s point is that if Osteen is correct that being a Christian will lead to health and safety and prosperity, then Jesus and Paul and others [Jeremiah?, Job?] didn’t know the secret!

I agree with the drift of Marks point David.

Though I would question your inclusion of Job. After all didn’t God cause Job to be doubly prosperous after he healed him?

I think we have to be careful when listening to other preachers that we don’t make the mistake of listening to what we think they are saying, rather listen to what it is they are saying. Mark Driscoll has said this a number of times himself in relation to what others say about him and his ministry and I don’t know where the link is to it, but someone once provided a link to his talk where he said he doesn’t understand the cultural speak of a friend of his who ministers in another city.

I don’t watch or listen to Osteen or any other TV preacher for that matter. I would be interested in hearing the whole sermon that he preached or reading the transcript to see what he was actually saying in its context.

In the clip Mark showed, he did say something about your attitude when you have no finances, which to me sounded like he wasn’t saying you will never have no financial problems - rather what are you going to do if you find yourself in that situation.

I thought Osteens point about maybe you do have a lot of money, but your family life is in tatters, get it right as well was a good point as God would want us to do that.  Or that you do have some bad relationships going on in your life, what are you going to do to fix them?
I don’t think Osteen was talking about persecution for his faith,which Driscoll made the point of.  I think he was talking about in general the relationships people have with each other at home, workplace etc and what are you going to do to reconcile and fix it.

Jesus says, if you know someone has something against you, go to them
Jesus says, If you have something against someone else - you go to them.

Perhaps and I do say perhaps because we don’t live in the culture he is ministering in we are missing out on a lot of what he is actually saying and is couching Scripture in a more contemporary and culturally meaningful way.

Again I say perhaps because we don’t have the full text of the sermon he preached.

My sister attends one of those Word of Faith Churches and she is always talking about how God cannot do anything without your faith. Read: That God is an impotent being without your faith.

The problem with Word of Faith churches is that they get it half right, therefore the bad teaching is very hard to detect

Bronwyn I agree with you when you say they get it half right.

What do you make of these Scripture’s though,

Mar 6:5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.
Mar 6:6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.

Mat 8:10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

I
It is important that we exercise expectant faith in prayer, however it has to be an honest faith and not based on Greed as James speaks about. One of the issues the word of faith movement have trouble dealing with is in the area of death.

The other thing I throw back on them whenever I have heard them is that Jesus rebuked the disciples that it was their lack of faith that stopped the person from being healed, not the sick / demonised persons lack of faith. So if you really want to put them on the back foot, show them those Scriptures and ask them about why the person they prayed for were not healed, and if it was because they lacked the faith to see them healed?

Hi everyone!!

The following is the home page of Joel Osteen’s church, Lakewood Church:

http://www.lakewood.cc/site/PageServer?pagename=LCH_index

Not sure if it’s free or not, but you can register for access to “free videos from Joel, including recent messages and podcasts.”

http://www.lakewood.cc/site/PageServer?pagename=LCH_streamingvideo

Hope this helps.

Kenny.

On a slight tangent, I noticed that Channel 7’s “Today Tonight” is advertising an “expose” of Benny Hinn’s ‘healing’ ministry tonight at 6.30pm.

[ I’ll tape it to see later on - after going to the Barry McGuire ( with Terry Talbot ) Christian Concert at Sutherland Entertainment Centre ( 8pm tonight - tickets still available at the door ) ]

I remember when Benny Hill came out about 10 years ago. Oops I meant Benny Hinn. The slogan for his healing ‘con’cert was this : “Come expecting your miracle!”

It was deplorable. People came in wheelchairs and left the show in their wheelchairs.

The man is a disgrace and a con artist who has made a lot of money from people’s gullibility and desperation - all in Jesus name. It does not matter how many times the words “Jesus” and “Hallelujah” are spoken; and all the breathing, gushing and falling down. It is not Christianity except in name only.

I must admit I don’t trust Benny Hinn.  Having listened to Joel Osteen a lot in the past (when I had the Australian Christian Channel), I would be more willing to trust him than Benny.  He comes across as someone who has a genuine godly love for people, even though his messages aren’t deep.  It has been said of him by some critics (I can’t remember exactly where I read it) that his theology is an inch deep and a mile wide, something like that.  Although I don’t agree with everything he says, a lot of what he says is true and practical.  There seems to be a lot of emphasis on being positive, and he would give a lot of practical advice on how to do that.  One example I guess is when he said “God and you are the majority”.  I wish I could remember more of it and share with you.

Regarding money, I’ve read that even though he owns a big house, apparently he uses his own credit card and buys it with his own money.  Correct me if this is inaccurate. 

So I would say, compared to many other tele-evangelists, he seems more genuine and honest.  Even though the gospel may not be made clear or not mentioned at all during the sermon, at the end of every Joel Osteen program (which goes for about half an hour), Joel Osteen himself would address the non-Christians and pray something like this:

“Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins. I make you my Lord and Saviour.”

I can’t remember the exact wording, but I think it is something like this.

“there is something quite winsome about osteen isn’t there?
he has a simple message, he seems to happy to admit to not knowing the details, he thinks its best to let God be the judge, he just wants to be postive and smile and encourage people - I mean he seems like a really nice guy. It would be hard to say there is anthing blatantly sinister about him would there? And besides I know some people who claimed to have been tremendously blessed by his ministry as evidenced on this forum...”

here’s the rub - how do you convince this kind of person that something aint right