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(Sort of) Exposing Joel Osteen

Michael Spencer, The Internet Monk, is calling on the blogosphere to expose Joel Osteen.

I am not familiar with Joel Osteen, except for the Beliefnet and FaithfulReader interviews I just read before starting this post, so I don't feel like I should critique the Rev. Osteen specifically. Shayne Radnor, at Wesley Blog, has a good post with which I agree.

I do want to critique a certain mindset however - the mindset that Christians should be happy and prosperous all the time. Looking at Psalm 1, we read, in a verse describing a godly person,

"He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
Ps 1:3 NKJV

On the surface, this looks like a Jabez-type prosperity promise, always bearing fruit, never fading, everything one does prospering. Match your experience? Not mine, so I'm not so fast to accept that Jabez-style promise. So what do I think it means? First of all, Jesus chose us to go and bear fruit, so I think it's reasonable to think we should be doing that. Withering? John says we all sin, and I'd call that a type of withering, and when we confess our sins, God forgives us and His living water restores us. I've got to admit that sometimes my fruit bearing and withering struggle a bit. Jesus tells us to abide in Him, and He in us, and we'll bear much fruit, but I sometimes wonder how I'm supposed to abide in Him in order to see that. I do know what I'm not supposed to do, which is what I did back in 1981, and just give up the struggle, turn my back on Jesus, and sin to my heart's content.

Now for the prosperity part. I don't for a minute believe that just because I'm a Christian that I can drive a Lexus, have a nice big home, and buy lots of toys for my family to play with, though I do believe that God does take care of us, Cast your burden on the Lord, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. (Ps 55:22 NKJV) (and God has answered a big prayer of mine this last month having to do with paying the bills). The way I view that verse (from Ps 1) is that God grants us prosperity in doing His will. I believe that God never asks anything of us unless He will also provide the means to do it. If that means leading a church with a multi-million dollar budget and saving thousands of people, He will do that in a prominent display of evangelistic prosperity. If it means going into a foreign mission and doing without creature comforts in order to preach the gospel who would never hear it otherwise, a less prominent but no-less real prosperity there as well, the prosperity of God's harvest. So instead of interpreting that verse from Psalm 1 as describing material wealth, I believe we're better looking at it with a spiritual viewpoint. What's my spiritual balance?

Posted by Joel Fuhrmann at February 1, 2005 09:50 PM