WWUTT 2585 Q&A Joel Osteen is Back, Pastors Peddling Prosperity, A Soft Gospel

Joel Osteen, Prosperity Teaching, and the Question of Wealth

Joel Osteen lives in a $10 million mansion. What is the problem with that? Does he actually teach the gospel? How deceptive is the message that Joel Osteen continues to teach? The answer's when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study to help encourage your time in the Word that we may be conformed to the image of Christ. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

I think it's been like a month for you or something since you've been on.

It's been a long time.

Beginning of March?

Probably, I don't know.

Were you on before we went on our trip?

No, not that time.

So maybe February?

It may have been.

I don't remember.

I can't remember when the last time was. You were on.

It's been a minute.

Psalm 116.

I missed you guys.

Psalm 116, I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy, because he inclined his ear to me. Therefore, I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me.

The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord. Oh Lord, I pray deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple.

When I was brought low, he saved me. Return, oh my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. That was a Psalm we opened one of our church services with recently. It's one I've been meditating on a lot.

We appreciate you listening to When We Understand the Text. I think this is our first Friday episode in a while. It's the first one in April.

Yes.

Well, is it the first Friday in April? No, it's not, yeah. The third was last week.

Yes.

And then we had Easter Sunday.

Not the third Friday, but the third.

Yeah, the third. April the third was the first Friday.

Yes.

Yeah, and then Easter was April 5th.

Correct.

And we had our first church service in a new location.

Yes.

On April the 5th.

That I had to miss.

Yeah, that's right, you weren't there.

Nope.

So we're in a middle school auditorium now.

Yeah.

Is where our church is meeting because we've outgrown our building. We hit a record the Sunday before we moved into the middle school.

Yep.

So we had, at the end of March, we had the most number of people we've ever had in that building, which is already maxed out. Too many.

Right.

We had people sitting in the foyer.

I mean, not too many. As in like, we don't love these people, but we just really loved the people.

Yeah, that's right. And they really loved us.

They did.

We had people sitting in the foyer. We had like the side door open. So if anybody was like sitting outside, they could hear everything.

Yeah.

And yeah, that was our record, was the Sunday right before we moved out of the main building. Well, we're still in that building because we meet for like Sunday evening services.

Yeah.

And stuff like that.

And Wednesday nights sometimes.

Wednesday nights. But our Sunday morning, we could not fit in our building anymore.

Just couldn't.

So we had Easter at a school location and we're gonna be doing that from now on. So Sunday morning is until, well, I should say until something else opens up.

Right.

This is a temporary solution.

Hopefully.

Not our permanent solution.

Yes.

We are still hoping to build. And you've heard us talking about this, I think since we started here in Casa Grande.

I think so, yeah.

We've been talking about a building project. But the land that we thought we were gonna get fell through. So now we're still in search of land. Once again, we've got the blueprints for the building that we wanna build.

Yes.

We have the architect lined up. He's just waiting for us to say go.

Yes.

We don't have the money. But we do have everything drawn up, everything planned out. We just need the land and we need money for it.

Yeah, you know.

You know, little things like that.

They'll come eventually.

The Lord has always blessed us in so many great ways.

Always.

Since we've been here. So it's great to have these people and how much they love each other. It is the fellowship that we have in our church in the Holy Spirit that we know is what keeps people coming.

Yes.

I can't even tell you the number of times I've talked to a pastor in town and I've said something about how we're so full. We can't fit everybody into our service anymore. Do you know of anything? Or, you know, I might even ask them, can we use your church?

Yeah.

If you're not meeting at this time, can we use your building? And the number of times that I had said back to me, it was probably nine out of 10 times that I talked about this, it was said, well, sounds like you need to go to two services now.

Yeah.

And for us, that was a red line. We were not going to do that.

No.

Because the fellowship was part of the reason why so many people were coming.

Yes.

And now we're going to tell them, sorry, you're fellowshipping too much.

I know.

Pick which half of the church you want to be with the most.

Oh my God.

And now we're going to split you in half. For us, we just did not want to do that.

Not yet. I mean, we are not ready to plant another church yet.

Yeah.

And there was also that, like I would say something online about it and somebody would say, well, sounds like you're ready to plant another one. We're still technically a plant.

Yes.

By the, I mean, by the size of that, we haven't broken the 200 mark yet. It's not like, not like we're ready to, okay, now congregation.

I mean, we did add another member though, this week.

We did.

Yep.

And then I just received, just today I received a new membership. Testimonies.

Oh, neat.

That.

I was thinking one that was born into it, you know, but.

Oh, that's right.

Okay.

You're talking to the new.

I was talking literally.

The new baby that was born.

Okay.

The new member.

Yes. Right.

Because her family is a member.

I think we're having, have we had a baby every month this year now in the church? There was one, no, two born in March.

Yeah.

Am I thinking two in March?

Yeah, I think so.

And now we've had one in April and we're, we have another baby that will be born in May, I think.

Yeah.

So yeah, we're, we're growing with people coming in.

Yes.

And we're people with babies coming out.

Oh my goodness.

Sure.

Yep.

Sure.

That just came out of me like that.

Oh dear.

I couldn't stop it. It was right there and it, it just came out of my mouth like that.

So,.

But anyway, your prayers for our church, your support greatly appreciated as we are still trying to find ways that, that we can meet in a location that'd be our spot and we can accommodate all the people that are coming.

Because with us meeting at the, at the middle school, it solves that issue on Sunday morning, but we don't have that space for office or.

Right.

If we need to use it during the week for any reason or Wednesday night stuff or anything like that, any Saturday morning fellowship.

And we have to rent the spot. Like I've heard people say that they had to move their church into a school, but it was free. Like I've heard that testimony just this past week. And I'm like, that's great.

That's amazing.

That's great for you, but we actually have to pay for this spot.

Yeah, we do.

So.

So, you know, there's, there's all things to be considering, which is why we're holding on to the old place too, you know, quite a bit because it's, it's useful still.

Yeah.

We, we still get all the use out of it. So it'd just be nice.

One of the homeschool groups.

Spoiled enough to use our own space.

There was a homeschool group that met there on Wednesday. So we're still, we're still serving the community in a lot of ways in that building.

Was it not Thursday?

No, it was Wednesday.

It was Wednesday.

Yeah, Wednesday morning. I know, cause I was in my office and then they came in and go, hey, we're here for art class. And I'm like, oh yeah. Okay, great. I'll find something else to do. Anyway, questions.

Joel Osteen, Wealth, and the Prosperity Gospel

So on the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners. We want to talk about our trip here in just a little bit.

Oh yes.

Cause there's some people I want to thank who were helped, who helped us out with that trip.

Definitely.

We'll do that toward the end. But in the meantime, on the Friday edition, we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com or you can send us a voicemail, www .utt .com.

I think you still have to do the www .wwutt .com and then click on the voicemail tab on the menu. I tried to log on to that earlier this week so I could move stuff around on the website. And what's the name of my provider?

I can't remember. It's Weebly. Weebly was down. Weebly wasn't working.

Oh, that's a bummer.

So I wasn't able to make any changes this week, but I know, I know I still got to make some improvements on the website, including getting rid of that www thing. So you can just get straight to the webpage.

Weebly wobbled, huh?

Weebly wobbled and it all fell down.

I couldn't help it. I was trying to hold it in, but I couldn't do it anymore.

I saw that I have some voicemails and I have not listened to any of them. So these are just emails. Yeah, I haven't listened to any of them yet. So these are just emails today. Pastor Gabe, I think it's been a long time since I've seen Joel Osteen's name anywhere, but he's back.

Having been interviewed on Logan and Jake Paul's podcast, I saw some clips on social media, which I shared to my Facebook page. I thought that most of my friends and family would get a laugh out of them, but to my astonishment, they all defended Joel and criticized me for being judgmental.

Now, Joel Osteen hasn't gone anywhere. He's still been around. I guess he's not... He was a favorite cable news pastor and cable news just isn't really that big a thing anymore.

Right.

So Joel's, I guess, expertise or whatever expertise they think he has, because he's a pastor of one of the largest churches in the country,.

Just isn't

There's some expertise in there somewhere.

Just isn't relevant for the podcast world, and he probably doesn't do a lot of podcast interviews, but he's still as big as he's ever been. Lakewood Church is massive. He still comes out with a new book and it becomes a bestseller.

He's still worth $100 million, I think it is, lives in a $10 million mansion.

Oh my goodness.

So nothing about Joel's ever changed, and you'll hear that too as I play some of the clips that I've got coming up for you. He's not matured, nothing that he's taught's ever changed. It's still the same stuff.

I'm sorry, wait, what? I have to listen to clips.

Yep, you gotta listen to some clips today.

Thanks.

We're gonna play some.

Awesome.

So April goes on, when Joel downplayed his lavish lifestyle in the interview, I pointed out that he lives in a $10 million, 17 ,000 square foot mansion. Almost every one of my comments was someone saying, what's wrong with that?

And when I played the clip of Joel Osteen softball pitching the gospel, all the comments said that he shared the gospel, and I could learn a lesson from him by being less judgmental. I guess I was naive to think so many people were not so easily fooled by Joel Osteen.

Help me out here. What could I have said to help them see the problems here? Well, I hate to give you my answer here, but the answer is probably not much. There's not much more you could have said.

No.

And if they can't see the problems immediately with that, then it's because they like what he's saying. It's the whole thing in 2 Timothy 2 that false teachers will scratch itching ears.

Yeah.

And they will keep up for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. They say what they like. That's why they listen to Joel Osteen.

I mean, at the most, you can tell them the gospel, the full gospel.

Right, show what Joel missed in what he was sharing about the gospel.

Right, not that that's gonna convince them that, oh, yeah, you're right. Nothing like that. But just to present the gospel, it's a great opportunity to open that door. If they don't notice what's missing in that, then that is a perfect opportunity to be like, look, here's the actual gospel.

Yeah, which promises us so much more.

Oh, yeah.

Than Joel's health and wealth, word, faith, prosperity theology.

Yes.

So let me play the very beginning of this interview. So this is kind of the intro to it and you'll kind of get a sense of some of the things they end up talking about. Then I'm gonna select various clips.

I don't know which ones April shared on her Facebook page, but they're probably the same clips I saw.

Okay.

So I'm just gonna grab some of the popular clips that came from this interview. But here's how this began on the podcast that's called Impulsive. This is not a Christian podcast, by the way.

Oh, okay.

They will interview very popular TikTok Christians, but they'll talk about some trashy stuff on this podcast too. I'm just going off of clips I've seen on social media.

Okay.

So this is not an endorsement of this particular podcast.

Not a good resource.

Right, especially considering that Joel Osteen is their special guest in this one. But here we go, here's the start.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Joel Osteen. Why do you think Gen Z is so interested in Christianity?

They're authentic and they want to find God for themselves.

So you pretty much are mogging the other pastors through peace maxing as opposed to cortisol spiking.

I have no idea what you just said.

Would you say this is a megachurch?

Yeah.

Have you seen Drewski's megachurch sketch?

That's funny, you know?

You are a wealthy person.

Yes.

Where are the Bentleys, the yachts, and the jets? Do you think there's like different area codes in heaven for people that did better? Really nice houses for a preacher. Then they have like favelas for people like me.

And honestly, for you, you ain't perfect. Collaboration. You did a big one with a guy named Kanye.

What I see now is not the yay that I knew.

I pray for him.

What do you think happens when we die? And when I say we, I mean, what happens when Mike dies?

Why me specifically?

Well.

Okay, so there's your introduction. There's the teaser to all the points that they're going to talk about.

It definitely drew me in. I'm kind of curious.

Yeah.

So we'll talk about the one where he answers the question about death, what happens when we die. And we're also going to consider that clip of him talking about his wealth.

Okay.

So let me fast forward to that one. This was the first one I saw, because this was the one that got kind of snipped out and shared everywhere. Joel Osteen talking about his yachts and his sports cars and his big house, which by the way, he doesn't have a yacht or sports cars.

I don't think. I don't know what he drives, but he doesn't have like, you know, the Jerry Seinfeld garage where it's just like every nice car that's ever been made. So he kind of downplays his wealth here, but here was the clip.

This is the one that was going around.

Where are the Bentleys, the yachts and the jets? Because this is a big place. I don't know if there's a garage somewhere or some sort of parking spot for the boats.

Would you be down to take me in a ride?

Yeah, yeah.

In your Bentley after the G650?

Yeah, that's right. In my fleet of cars. No, you know what? People like to make up stuff, but I've never had a, I don't think I've ever sat in a Ferrari and they showed me pictures of me driving Ferraris and fleets of cars and Joel's got his yachts and jets and stuff, but.

Now, before going on, I will say I think the story about Joel having a yacht, I think that came from the Babylon Bee.

Oh, probably.

It was back when, I can't remember which hurricane it was, 2017 or 18. There was the hurricane that hit Houston and the Babylon Bee ran an article where they said, Joel rides his yacht through the flooded streets of Houston, handing out copies of his book to people.

Funny.

So I think that's where the whole yacht rumor came from. But I mean, a yacht is really expensive.

Yes.

Even though Joel has a $10 million mansion, I wouldn't just automatically assume he has a yacht. Right. Because they'll cost more than the $10 million mansion.

Yeah.

And same with a private jet. I really did think he had a jet, but when I was researching it, I wasn't able to find any evidence of that. But yeah, still does have the 10 plus million dollar mansion. Anyway, going on.

I never respond to it, I don't do.

Wait, so you have no yachts?

I have no yachts. I have no jets.

I have no cars.

Yeah, you only have one jet.

I don't have one jet. I've never owned a jet. I've never owned a yacht or, you know, a fleet of cars or.

So let's talk through it. The ministry here, the church has its value. It's obviously has a ton of people that come in and make donations and there's donations digitally from the outside. You don't take a salary from the church.

I don't take a salary from the church. I've been blessed with book sales and media and other things so I don't have to take a salary. So I can work here for basically no salary. And I haven't for most of the time.

The 26 years here or so. But, you know, people like to think it's all about money and things like that. But I'm the ones that want to try to discredit you. But it's, no, never taken a salary. God's blessed me.

I mean, Logan, I wrote my first book. My dad would write books, you know, and he's.

And before going on, so he did take a salary from the church. He just doesn't need to anymore.

Okay, I was gonna say, at some point he should have started out with it.

I want to say there was a criticism, came from one of the news outlets that covered him. And this was over a decade ago. But they were talking about how this guy has a mansion. It was a different mansion than the one that he lives in now.

He lives in a mansion and he takes a salary from the church. So they were criticizing the fact that he was making all these millions off of the books and that the church was also paying him this much money.

I explicitly remember that. It would take some searching to try to find that story again.

Probably, yeah.

But I wonder if after that, Joel said, hey, just to alleviate any criticism, why don't I just not take a salary from the church anymore? Because he didn't need to.

Right.

And there's been other occasions in which salaries like that have been criticized. Franklin Graham was receiving a salary. He was receiving a quarter of a million dollar salary. Well, I better not give amounts because I'm not for sure what the amounts were.

But it was a really large salary from the Billy Graham Association. And then he was also receiving a salary from Samaritan's Purse. That got covered in world news. So even Christians were gatekeeping Franklin Graham on that and going, why are you collecting two salaries from two nonprofit organizations?

And so these kinds of things will come out, they'll make the news. That could very well be the reason, or at the time rather, that Joel decided, okay, I'm just not gonna take a church salary anymore. But he did at one point.

I have mixed feelings about that because I think if you're doing the work, then they should honor you with a payment because that's how they give back to you and your time and your effort and your knowledge.

Well, I'm not, yeah, I'm not criticizing a church paying anybody. The church pays me, so that's not the problem.

But I mean, like a huge amount. I mean, that's between them and what they can afford.

Yeah, it's common among the megachurch pastors to say that I don't take a salary from the church and they get to use that as kind of a bragging point. And then probably what happened with April, she posts that on Facebook and her family goes, well, he's not collecting a salary from his church.

What are you criticizing? It's the millions of dollars that he gets from his books, which by the way, him collecting millions of dollars from book sales, there's not a problem with that. If I'm gonna get millions of dollars from selling books, I want it to come to me, not to who else is gonna get that money.

It's my book. So I want the money to be mine. It's rather what he prints in those books. That's the problem. He's peddling heresy. And people are buying it everywhere. Exactly, yeah. And he's using the name of Jesus to push this.

The reason why Joel Osteen is so big and so popular is because he's a pastor. The whole reason Oprah grabbed him is because he's a pastor and preaching something that isn't biblical Christianity. She wanted to push something that wasn't biblical Christianity because she's the one that's been on her show since the 90s saying things like, Jesus is not the only way to God, that there are millions of ways to God.

And that Jesus just wants us to feel good. He just wants us to be healthy and prosperous. And so that's why she grabs Joel Osteen and platforms him. And now his

Just to solidify the fact with somebody who has a standing, right? Standing with God.

Yeah, right, right. Look, this guy has, he's a pastor. He has a connection. He's a direct line to God.

Thank you. Yes, that's, yeah.

And I heard that when I was a hospital chaplain.

Yeah.

That is a perception that people have.

They do.

If a person is a pastor, oh, that guy's closer to God than I am. So I need to go to that guy because he's gonna get me closer to God. And when I would do this in the hospitals and I would go pray with patients, nurses would say, oh, the pastor's here.

You know, he's close. He's close to God. He'll get you closer to God. And I would often say, you can be as close to God as I am. It doesn't take a pastor to do that. You just pray to him right now. And that's what I would tell patients when I would pray with them.

It's not because I'm a pastor that you're gonna get to God. It's because you need Jesus.

Yeah.

Confess your sins and he will cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Anyway, so we're rabbit trailing on this. But that's stuff that Joel won't talk about. And you'll hear that as we kind of continue on with these clips.

He's even gonna downplay sin. I don't call myself a sinner and that sort of thing. He'll talk about that here. But let's go on with his explaining his wealth.

Yes.

Held 10 ,000 copies and it was great, you know? Well, I wrote my first book and my publisher called me and said, they're gonna publish 250 ,000 copies. I told my wife, Victoria, I said, they're crazy.

You know, this was 21 years ago. I said, they're crazy. They're gonna publish 250 ,000. My dad sold 10 ,000. Well, my first book sold 10 million copies.

That's insane.

I couldn't make that happen.

How?

It is, I guess it just caught on. You know, it just caught on. I was on TV and stuff. And it was just, some of this I can't explain. I just, I can't explain. It's the sovereignty of God. I think I'm reaping seeds that my parents have sown, but I couldn't make that up.

It was on the bestseller list for two years. I couldn't make that up.

So he's saying that it's the sovereignty of God is how he was able to sell so many books. He's not wrong.

It's true.

It's just that he's not selling this many number of books because God is blessing it. That's not what's going on. Again, coming back to 2 Timothy 4, 3, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into mids.

So you're talking that early huge bestseller of Joel Osteen's, Your Best Life Now. Jesus wants you to have your best life now.

I don't want my best life now, thank you.

Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, this is not my best life now.

No, thank you.

My best life is yet to come in glory. So anyway, this is the stuff that he peddles that he's getting rich from, that's the problem. There are pastors out there who will publish sound doctrinal books. They won't sell 100 million copies.

How many did he say? 10 million. They won't sell 10 million copies, but an author can be blessed by good sales from that. The money belongs to him. It's good for him to earn that. You're not gonna hear me sitting here criticizing an author that has a bestselling book and then wants to turn down the money.

Right.

That would be silly. Who's gonna get it then, the publisher?

I don't know.

So it's good that he receives it, but what was in the book and then what's he going to do with that money? And Joel buys a $10 million mansion with it.

Yeah.

Now, how can a guy have a $10 million mansion who's a pastor and still be able to convince you of 1 Timothy 3 .3 that he isn't a lover of money? Like one of the requirements, one of the qualifications for a pastor.

I mean, if your house is like open door to people who need a home or who are staying, or if it's like, you know, hosting events and whatnot, you know, like there's, like you barely live in the home as a home.