Column: Why I call Joel Osteen a false teacher

This column appeared at Fredricksburg.com

Why I call Joel Osteen a false teacher

By Adan Blosser
Oct 9, 2018

Joel Osteen recently spoke at an event in our area. I knew about the event ahead of time and took the time to listen to it on Facebook Live as it was taking place. I then read the article that was published on the front page of the Oct. 5, 2018, The Free Lance–Star.

I don’t believe in attacking other churches, but I do believe in speaking clearly about false teachers. Especially when they show up on the front page of the newspaper because they spoke at the largest church in the area.

Make no mistake, Joel Osteen is a false teacher and should not be trusted as a source of biblical teaching by Bible-believing Christians.

That raises the question “Why?” It is a serious charge to call someone a false teacher. It is a charge that I take seriously and do not throw around lightly. So why would I call Osteen a false teacher? Is that fair? Those are important questions that are worthy of an answer.

Osteen’s message is built on the power of positive thinking. If we will remove any semblance of negativity from our lives and focus only on things that are positive, then we can live lives that are victorious and successful. The clear problem with this message is that it ignores the reality of Christian persecution and suffering around the world.

WWUTT Wednesday - The Power of Positive Thought

Mr Osteen is famous for saying awesome positive uplifting things that just tug at your heart strings and make you want to go climb mountains and grab that treasure chest full of gold that God has miracled into existance just for you. 

He says awesome inspiring things like

“God would not have put a dream in your heart if He had not already given you everything you need to fulfill it."

And

“You were not created to just get by with an average, unrewarding, or unfulfilling life. God created you to leave your mark on this generation.” 

And other pastors of his ilk like Joyce Meyers and Beth Moore say close to the same thing, so God must have created the world just for me (and maybe even you) right? The bible is full of passages that tell us that the power of positive thought is all that God asks of us for us to conquor the world, right?

Not so much

WWUTT Wednesday - Pass the Bacon Please

We all knew that Joel Osteen was challenged when it came to the Bible, but every now and then a tidbit comes to light that displays how ignorant he is of God's word. 

We must talk a moment about pork; ham, bacon, pepperoni. These are some things that the scripture tells us we should not eat... and of course this has to do with anything that comes from the pig, a hog, a swine... Back in the bible days the pig was considered unclean, it was never considered a source of food. - Joel Osteen

Joel goes on to tell us his personal reasoning for avoiding pork, talks about the pig's diet and it's digestive system, then goes on to tell how he prefers fresh fish, fresh salmon, and chicken. All of which proves that Joel know less about biblical dietary requirement than he knows about how chickens are raised.

But Joel isn't alone on the pulpit disparaging bacon. Jim Staley quite often disparaged bacon, but then he was deep into the Hebrew Roots movement. (I say "was" because because the Passion for Truth pastor is now doing 7 years for investment fraud). Rick Warren too say to abstain from pork in his diet book The Daniel Plan. But is this right? Should men in a position of spiritual authority be telling Christians what to eat and what not to eat based on scripture? 

C. H. Spurgeon's Message to Joel Osteen

It's been noticed that Joel Osteen has problems with preaching Christ.

(I am on vacation this week, filling in for me is Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

Emergent Monday - Spurgeon is Broccoli, Osteen is Cheetos.

It's Too Easy Bein' Cheesey 

1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able (1 Corinthians 3:1-2)

Paul could not have said "...I gave you Cheetos to munch on, not broccoli..." even thought he's talking kid food vs real food, Paul was talking to people that could handle the basic elements of the Gospel, but they weren't strong enough to take the deeper mysteries of the Gospel of Jesus Christ such as those spelled out in Ephesians 3. The followers of the prosperity gospel don't even measure up to this category. If solid food is the deeper mysteries of the gospel and milk is the basic elements of sin and salvation, then anything less is empty calories.

Sadly the largest "church" in America can't even handle milk, they get snack food. They're fed morsels of crunchy goodness that feel filling but are made of empty calories and have almost no nutritional value at all. They're getting fed Cheetos and being told it's steak. They're most definitely not alone, but in this example I'm talking about the 43,500 starving souls of Lakewood Church and their goatherd Joel Osteen plus the millions that follow on TV, radio, and internet. Joel likes God a lot, as well he should, because mentioning God on occasion insures Joel a steady influx of cash. But Jesus? Not so much. 

Here's what I mean by Cheetos. Look for quotes on sin by Joel Osteen, the vast majority of what you'll find go along the lines of "There's worse sins than homosexuality, like pride." but beyond that all you get is Cheetos:

It's A Huge Conspiracy!

It's October, my month for considering and praying over Spiritual Warfare, and believe me when I say that if you start researching Spiritual Warfare there's an entire rabbit warren of horror that you get pulled into. It's the end of rational thought and the beginning of what can only be a satanic plot - it's the weird world of the Conspiracy Theory. 

A conspiracy theory is an explanatory proposition that accuses two or more persons, a group, or an organization of having caused or covered up, through secret planning and deliberate action, an illegal or harmful event or situation. There is no such thing as a positive conspiracy theory such as "All the pastors in town are conspiring to do everything they can to insure our salvation" or "All cable companies are conspiring to insure we get top notch family entertainment at a bargain price" It's always a shadowy group bent on world domination, or at least domination of a part of the world they can easily grasp. 

Glenn Beck, Joel Osteen and the End of Days

by Joe Schimmel

Our staff at Good Fight Ministries posted the following on our Facebook page on Wednesday, August 20, 2014: “Glenn Beck stops by Joel Osteen’s church!”

“…we spent Sunday morning with our religion followed by a service at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston. I spoke with Joel and Victoria before and after the service. They are always so kind and gentle. While again, we might disagree on “religion”, just as I might have with the Archbishop, we are in total agreement on faith.” –Glenn Beck, “Are we a nation divided?” August 18, 2014, glennbeck.com

If a Mormon can come to your church and interact with your pastor, and come out believing that they both share the same faith, you might need to find yourself a new church.

Want to see the difference?

Joel Osteen Meets With Pope - A Spiritual Wolf Pack Is Forming

The Christian blogosphere is abuzz with the fact that Pope Carver Francis met with Joel Osteen and other protestant ministers last Thursday, but why are people so surprised? Joel Osteen has proven over and over again that he doesn't understand the bible, and so has the pope. Besides the Pope and the pope of prosperity, the ecumenical meeting included Sen. Michael Lee representing the Mormon church, Tim Timmons, a pastor and author based in Newport Beach, Calif., and Gayle D. Beebe, president of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif.

"Joel Osteen has joined the rank of all other popular ministries in bowing his knee to the anti-Christ system, and those that blindly follow his leadership will be the first ones in line with their hand out to be marked by the beast. Any Protestant ministry that links up with the pope and Catholicism is betraying the sacrifice of millions of faithful Christians that have died at the hands of this brutal, dictatorial and oppressive religion that has never represented the Church of the Living God as outlined in New Testament teaching." - Pastor Mark Herridge Sr. of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Livingston, Texas to Christian News Network.

Sing Along With Joel Osteen

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt - Erma Bombeck

When you see the goats lined up around the block, check books in hand, to be fed tares by blatantly false teachers and wolves of the first order it's hard whether to know to laugh, cry, or shout for joy, because the punchline/cause/truth is all the same: God was RIGHT!

1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. 2 Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; 3 and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Peter 2:1-3)

That being said, let's enjoy one of the finest bits of sarcasm/humor/honesty I've seen in a very, very long time:

Emergent Monday: Joel Osteen Heretic Superstar

There's one hard and fast rule about writing about Joel Osteen - it feels best when you pray before and shower afterward. To be honest I was going to write about Mark Driscoll's sinful public behavior at Strange Fire... fish... barrel... open fire. If Mars Hill was a true Christian church Mark would be standing tall before the elders and to quote Ricky Ricardo "He have some 'splainin' to do" But by their silence the elders of Mars Hill are condoning his sinful actions. Then again maybe the elders get pay-per-view access to Mark Driscoll's mental porn channel.

Like Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll is an easy target, you just scuff your heel to find some dirt. Joel Osteen is special though. I mean, who else but someone with otherworldly assistance could step into a pulpit with less formal schooling than the average 18 year old and suddenly have 30,000 followers? There's a spirit influencing there, but is it the Holy Spirit? 

Emergent Monday: Joel Osteen - Pantheist, Pagan, Agent of Satan

“If you develop an image of success, health, abundance, joy, peace, happiness, nothing on earth will be able to hold those things from you,” - Joel Osteen Your Best Life Is Now

Peace, joy, happiness, wealth... I wish Joel Osteen would point out in the bible where this is promised. No, wait - I think I found it:

⁸ Again, the devil *took Him to a very high mountain and *showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; ⁹ and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8-9)

Joel Osteen and his fellow Word-Faith charlatans have taken Satan's litany of temptation and twisted it around to sound like heavenly blessings. Just the same as a tire-iron twisted around to look like a pretzel is no more a pretzel than Satan's gospel of temptation twisted around to sound like blessing. How can the leader of the biggest church in America be so ignorant to allow this kind of heresy to escape his mouth? Several reasons. First of all, he doesn't know what he's talking about.