The World Will Love Its Own

It is not hard to see that Joel Osteen's opinion about the pursuit of wealth and material success flies directly in the face of Scripture. It is even easier to find the error in his views regarding the way you can expect the world to treat you as a Christian. Osteen writes on page 38, "The Bible clearly states, 'God has crowned us with glory and honor.'" Osteen is "quoting" Psalm 8:5 (apparently once again from his own version of the Bible) and those words provide a convenient springboard for the following display of his exegetical gymnastics. Osteen continues:

The word honor could also be translated as "favor," and favor means "to assist, to provide with special advantages and to receive preferential treatment."

Why was it so important for Joel Osteen to make the arbitrary interpretive leap from the word "honor" to "favor" (a word choice not found in any legitimate modern Bible translation), and then ultimately to "special advantages" and "preferential treatment"? He had to make this leap because he wants the reader to believe that what he says next is based on scripture. "In other words," Osteen continues, "God wants to make your life easier."

Really? Should we expect our lives as Christians to be easier? I guess I missed that portion of the New Testament. I must have been preoccupied with Jesus' teaching about persecution, self-denial, and cross-bearing. What would Joel Osteen say about Paul's sobering words to Timothy: "Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Tim. 3:12)? And didn't Jesus promise that the Christian life would be narrow and difficult? (cf. Matt. 7:14 NKJV).

Yet Osteen's final conclusion, based on his creative interpretation of Psalm 8:5, is stated like this:

Consequently—and I say this humbly—I've come to expect to be treated differently. I've learned to expect people to want to help me. My attitude is: I'm a child of the Most High God. My Father created the whole universe. He has crowned me with favor, therefore, I can expect preferential treatment. I can expect people to go out of their way to want to help me.

Although Osteen assures the reader that he is speaking "humbly," his arrogance is all too evident in his bold contradiction of the New Testament, even of Jesus, who said that He did not come "to be served, but to serve" (Mark 10:45). And consider Osteen's conclusion in light of a few more passages from the Bible:

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me (Matt. 5:11).

Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way (Luke 6:20-26).

If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you (John 15:19).

In the world you will have tribulation . . . (John 16:33 NKJV).

We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22 NKJV).

Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you (1 John 3:13).

Before going any further, I need to clarify what I am not saying here. I am not saying that the normal Christian life is necessarily one of constant persecution and deprivation. God often causes earthly circumstances to bring earthly favor to His people. He can, and often does, bless His people with comfort and ease. It is not inappropriate for the Christian to ask God to meet financial needs, or even to prosper him financially. My claim is not that God withholds these blessings from His people in order to make their lives more difficult. Christians should not be made to feel guilty if they are truly blessed by God, whether circumstantially or financially. The God of the Bible is a good and generous God, even toward His enemies (cf. Matt. 5:43-45), but especially toward those who are His children (cf. Matt. 7:11).

My complaint against Joel Osteen's teaching, aside from his focus on material gain and his unrealistic promise that the normal Christian life is supposed to be easy, is that he promotes a very narrow understanding of what constitutes a true blessing from God.