I have great concern for those who are seeking "christian" ministry/teaching from those whom focus on health, prosperity and self-esteem. I want to speak with some knowledge of what these folks are preaching so I listened to another message by Joel Osteen this morning. I was mostly wondering how a prosperity preacher preaches on Thanksgiving, because their whole message requires being less than completely satisfied. Although not a Thanksgiving message, I found the following message on the website this week.
The Power of I AM
Link to the message - http://www.joelosteen.com/Broadcast/Pages/ThisWeeksMessage.aspx
Foolish me, I would assume a message on the power of I AM would be about the unlimited power of God, who refers to Himself as "I Am" (Exod. 3:14, John 8:58). I can't help but think how worthy of our worship God is when I consider His totally independent existence as expressed in this name for Him! All of us now are, but once were not, God was and is and is to come! To be the all powerful creator is so much more important and worthy of our attention and praise than anything He has created!
Yet the message was not about God at all, He was mentioned as a means to an end a couple times, but the message was about us! It focused on how when we use "I am" words - "I am rich", "I am beautiful" and "I am young" and we can actually attract those things to us or create them in our lives with our words.
I would challenge anyone to look up the couple scriptures mentioned in the message and find that any were used in their right context to communicate the intended message. The worst offender had to be a bizarre account of the life of Sarah. It went something like this - In order for God to give Sarah a child in her old age, He first had to change her attitude about herself. To do this God changed her name to Sarah, which means princess. As Joel tells it, as she heard people call her princess over and over, her self-image changed and it was that change which enabled God's promise to come to pass. Her "I am" changed and brought God's blessing upon her.
Not only is this completely speculative, as the word never says anything about Sarah's self-esteem improving before she gave birth. The great and dangerous error is it puts the focus on Sarah's words/power and not God's words and power! God is the I AM, when He makes a promise, He does not need the cooperation of anyone to bring it to pass. If we read the story, the message we will get is that God did this great miracle, not in recognition of Abraham and Sarah's positive attitudes and actions, but in spite of them - to show His power, for His glory! Sarah thought it laughable that she would conceive in her old age, but the Lord says to her - "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (Gen. 18:12-14).
As natural idolaters, it takes very little prodding to get us to listen to encouraging words that are all about us and tell us we have great value and power. Unfortunately, when this is done, the creator, the one due all our focus, worship, respect and even fear, is reduced to second place and as we miss His greatness we fool ourselves into thinking we are the "i am" that makes things happen! It just is not true and a lie, no matter how good it feels, is still a lie!
I found this quote from Joel's first book and how he explained why it took twenty years (according to Joel) before Sarah became pregnant after God's promise of a child to her and Abraham,
ReplyDelete'I’m convinced that the key to the promise coming to pass was that Sarah had to conceive it in her heart before she was able to conceive it in her physical body. She had to believe she could become pregnant before she actually became with child. Nearly twenty years after God spoke the promise, little Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah' (page 80).
Another example of the focus being on Sarah and not on God.
Good research Greg! I can't beleive someone would say "I am convinced" regarding the passage in question without actually considering what the passage says. On a similar note - I heard someone do a devotion at the Rescue Mission when I worked their several years ago on the Parable of the Soils. They read the initial telling of the parable, but failed to read Jesus' own explanation to the disciples when they asked what it meant. It was very awkward when the woman doing the devotion said "this is what the Lord told me it means", but gave an explanation that disagreed with what Jesus himself said in meant. Reading the word first would seem to be a very good idea if you want to teach what it says, but is evidently not very important if you just want to teach what you have to say!
ReplyDelete2 Peter 2:1 tells us (a)"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be (b)false teachers among you,"(NASB) What I don't understand is, are they false teachers or are they simply misguided folks who think that they are interpreting the Bible correctly?
ReplyDeleteI have seen a number of people become very popular speakers before they have taken the time to learn the scriptures. Once someone gets very popular it is hard to find time or motivation to go back and get educated (I would assume). Joel says he is no theologian, has never been to seminary, etc. What is sad is that some people take the teaching of scripture so lightly that they don't see the urgency in being trained/equipped before proclaiming the word. With that said, if people are not demanding trained (school or otherwise) teachers, then this is what they will get!
ReplyDelete