Lakewood Church — Attraction in Houston

I recently watched Joel's Sermon entitled 'Integrity.' His examples were stellar and contemporary. The story he told about his Dad and two suits he had made, but never paid for, and how this memory came back several years later. He told how his Father tracked down the tailor's children many years after the fact to pay (with interest) the debt. Then Joel also asserted his own ethical dilemma of needing a knife while internal debates on the morality of just slipping it into his pocket. He resolved this by asking the owner of the restaurant if he could buy it.

All good! I think Joel is a decent and honorable man. But saying this does not exculpate Joel from his exegesis of scripture. Let's begin with King David. Certainly David is a great hero within the Hebrew Bible. But like all of us, David is a flawed human being. In listening to Joel tell it, there is no questions raised about David's moral shortcomings. Everything Joel asserts, exquisitely fits his own narrative on how God promotes honesty and abundance.

David is a primary motif for Joel to advance his theology of abundance. Not just in this specific Sermon on Integrity, but spans many of his sermons. But never do we see a full accounting of David's own sins. Only David the hero!

I am wondering if Joel ever read Chapters 11 and 12 of Second Samual? Let me recap: In Chapter 11 we are told that David observes a married woman, Bathsheba, bathing on her roof. Of course, this kindles lust in David who summons her to his bed chamber and sleeps with her. After he consummates this act of adultery, David discovers she is with child. This event then escalates from adultery into murder. David has Uriah sent to the front lines of battle were he is killed.

The adulterous act turned to murder for the sin of covetousness is revealed in Chapter 12, when the Prophet Nathan condemns David by telling him a story of a poor man who only has one 'uwe' lamb measured against the vast riches of a landowner who steals the poor man's only possession. Of course, David in hearing the story rises in righteousness anger against the rich landowner and proclaims that man deserves death for such a heinous crime.

Then the Prophet Nathan announces to David "You are the man."

Nathan proclaims God's response: "I gave you your master's house, and your master's wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added much more." Nathan asserts David's crimes calling them "evil" and asserting condemnation against the house of David. Proclaiming: "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house...I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house." After David repents, he is told that the child who was conceived under this sin, "will die."

The reality of David's hubris is not even part of Joel's interpretations in this sermon, or many others promoting David. Why? Regardless of the answer: an accurate exegesis would have not skipped over these important Chapters because they contradict Joel's interpretations.

We might ask the obvious: why does God lessen his punishment of David while concomitantly announcing a death sentence on David's innocent child? The child is innocent! So where is Joel to acknowledge a God void of mercy in this circumstance, much less why?

With Joel's interpretations needs to fit his biased paradigm while avoiding the full gospel texts. This is Joel's great downfall by cherry picking verses he likes while avoiding verses he cannot explain: his cafeteria literalism, In my humble view is a great disservice to the gospel; but more so to the people who listen to Joel.

Any sermon on 'Integrity' while upholding David as an exemplar of integrity is...

I like Joel. His gifts are many but perhaps his greatest is he can uplift people and encourage them. That is important.

The prosperity gospel that he preaches ignores the simple fact that even good people-often the holiest, the most religious, the most devout-suffer. Some received the Stigmata not exactly a fun circumstance.It is not so much that he ignores this theme, but everything becomes a 'transaction' with God under the formula Joel advocates.

The great danger of this strain of Christianity is not only that it takes away God’s agency (God is, in a sense, 'expected' to do something once we have fulfilled our part of the bargain) but that reduces the relationship between God and the person to a transaction. The formula is do A, B, and C, afterword you will be rewarded abundantly. Under this rendering it looks more like a business transaction than embracing the mystery of the ineffable.

An additional problem is that Jesus refers to his disciples whom he calls “friends,” not business partners. Friends are offering unconditional love not the expectation of pay back. Friends can be counted on for support.

The moral ethicist, Lawrence Kohlberg describes a very low level of moral development he characterizes as "you scratch my back, I will scratch yours." In a very real sense, this is what Joel advocates.

It is striking also, that Joel never refers to Jesus' most profound sayings found in the Sermon on the Mount.

Joel knows a great deal about 'right belief' but rarely-if ever-does he teach what Jesus actual taught in the Synoptic Gospels.

Conversely, Paul who Joel quotes often, rarely spoke of Jesus' sayings, parables, aphorisms, and healings; perhaps because Paul did not know Jesus in the flesh. What is important to Paul is often very different to what Jesus of Nazareth actually taught.

Paul's ministry was to non Jews, Hellenistic gentiles. Paul is often at odds with Jesus' own disciples, especially Peter and Jesus' brother James over issues of Jewish law, Paul's emphasis was on salvation through faith in Christ, rather than adherence to Jewish law; these disagreements clashed with Peter and James, who believed Gentile converts should adopt Jewish customs.

James was a very devout Jew but it is interesting how the Catholic Church engages in theological gymnastics to explain away his relationship as the brother of Jesus.

There is a very wide gulf between Jesus of Nazareth teachings directed toward the outcasts, untouchables, and forgotten of the ancient world, juxtaposed what...

This church is obviously successful. Successful for the lining of Joel Osteen and his wife’s bank account. He is all about the prosperity gospel, which is not biblical. Osteen has no theological training. He is only a motivational speaker at best fooling the masses to open their wallets. He is a false prophet and a charlatan. I would suspect on the Sunday after the rapture, the doors will be open and Osteen will be passing the offering plate to the masses…continuing to mislead those who attend his show. SAD!!!

I would have to assume Osteen has not read the following passages or others. He definitely does not preach the way to salvation:

James 3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

1 Peter 5:2-3 Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve. not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

Romans 10:9: "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Ephesians 2:8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Acts 4:12: "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."

John 14:6: Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except...