Joel Osteen Preacher of the Self Over Christ

 Owwwwwww!   Had no plans ever to listen to Joel Osteen based on what I've heard about him, but I had to hear some of it just so I'd know.   Scary

This isn't Christianity, it's the opposite of Christianity.  Positive thinking, Word of Faith, etc.  Speak only positive things and they weill come true.  You have power over your own life by what you say so if you say negative things you will have a negative outcome, positive things will bring you all kinds of happineness, success, desired relationships, blessings galore and so on.   This is supposedly all in the Word of God, it's what He wants for you.

At the beginning of his talks he has the audience chant something that inclues the line "This is my Bible:  I am what it says I am, I have what it says I have, I can do what it says I can do."   All the positive self images I'm sure, none of the negative ones.

What struck me is how that is the complete almost exact opposite of the chant of a fourteenth century mystic who was seeking God, 
I am nothing, I have nothing, I desire nothing but Jesus Christ.'

While I don't have much faith in chanting anything toward receiving blessings of any sort whether having the abundant life in this world or having the presence of God, the aims of the two sdifferent Christian pursuers are clearly entirely opposite from one another.  In the one I'm seeking my own wellbeing, in the other I'm seeking to get myself out of the way so that I can know God.    Osteen is Me forcuszed, the old mystics were God focused.

TThere is apparently no 
deny yourself and take up your cross
 in Osteen's ministry.    But that is the formula, if it can be called that, for drawing near to God.  Losing oneself.  Scripture says that if we will lose oursr lives for Christ's sake we will find them, but we will lose our lives if we seek to hold on to our lives.  But this is exactly what Osteen is praeching.  Holding on to your own life and enhandcing your own life.   That is how people lose Christ and if you lose Christ that is to lose everything.    This is an evil doctrine.

It is hard to deny the self.  Self is always popping up no matter what we do it seems.  I know from personal experience that if I do manage to choose against myself in this or that I am blessed with wonderful experiences of God.   I learned that years ago and then lost it, but I know that is where I want to go.  It is God that is our happiness, nothing in ourselves is real happiness no matter how successful we are.  In fact many people come to Christ from a sense of the emptiness of all their achievmeents.  How amazing it is to find teachers who promote those worldly achievements that can only leave a person ultimately empty and bereft of the presence of God.  

Osteen, like Beth Moore, commands whole stadiums of people with his Christless message of self-fulfillment.  

The Latest on the COVID Situation

Jan Markell's latest Understanding the Times radio show covers the usual sad litany of lies and corruption but also gives useful information about available health services.   The statistics are staggering and depressing and didn't have to happen but the Powers That Be have suppressed the needed treatments and pushed the dangerous ones.  As usual but it's the most recent As Usual.  

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste – Twila Brase (rumble.com)

When the Best Embrace the False Reading of the Head Covering Passage I Know the Church is Doomed to Judgment.

Ontinuing to pursue the controversies about Beth Moore I wanted to hear John MacArthur's assessment, especially since he'd become a target himsedlf for a quick response he'd given ito a rather unfair challenenge a couple years ago.   I   All there seems to be along these lines is a talk he gavve that was captured only by someone in the audience apparently on a phone camera.  the sound is  e echoy but not too bad and I finally gave in and listened to the wholed thing.  

It's a very good biblical discussion fo the role of women in the Church and in the family, including an analysis of the Curse of the Fall.  I wanted to post it for  that reason alone, but then toward the very end, starting aroudn 50 on the counter, he decides he must address the issue of the woman's head covering in 1 corinthians 11, sand I'm SO disappointed.

John MacArthur | Response to Beth Moore and Women Pastors - YouTube

Who am I to disagree with John MacArthur?  He's probably the best preacher in the world today and I always get something out of his sermons.   I disagree with him about the Bible versions too so it's not as if I'm just a complete fan of his, but for the most part I am a fan.  He's the best.

As I think about it, getting this wrong is giving in to the very feminism he's so good at exposing and condemning.  To my mind this remains an open door to all the apostasies that have  been inundating the churches for years now.  It was eyeopening to me to hear, as I report in the previous post, that theologian Wayne gr4udem had identified feminist influences in the churches as the beginning of liberalism.   I'd wondered about that, it's seemed like an important possibility to me, and his research seems to have borne out my suspicion.

And to my mind the head covering is a hugely important emblem of that encroachment of feminism into the churches.    Beth Moore has the position she has because of it, that's my sad suspicion.  And it makes me cry.

MacArthur just gives the same old argument from culture that was foisted on the churches by Thomas Shrine.   It's been answered by many but I can't muster all that here and I don't remember a lot of it.  I think Michael Marlowe who called himself The BGible Researcher  did a particularly good job of showing that Shriner got it all wrong about the culturral  ppractices in Corinth at the time of Paul's writing.   But I can't make that argument here.

It's about the head, the literal skull that sits on top of our shoulders.  that's what it's about.  It's the symbol of authorityh that Paul is talking about.  It is not about appearing feminime or masculine.  There's isn't one shred of a hint in the passage that justifies that claim.  It's all about covering the head, the literal head as a symbol of the headship order ordained by God.   The hair that women tend to wear longer than men is given as a clue to the meaning that it's about the head and nothing else.  The long hair of women covers the head.   

I also  think it is particularly telling that we require men to remove their headgear on the basis of this passage.  And for all the centuries up until the twentieth century women were also required to cover their heads.  but all of a sudd3en when feminism was getting to be a force against the chur ches suddenly we stop requiring it, and it is justified by this flimsy and erroneous excuse for an analysis of culture that has influenced all the best churches in the co7untry and the world.   

It's particularly sad to me when he goes into some detail about the watching angeles who would be offended by a violation of God's ordinances.   As I see it that's what we are doing all the time these days, offending the obedient angels by not requiring that women cover our heads in the assembly.  IIt hurts.

Well, so much for any hopes I've had that it might be reversed and the churches start to find their way badck from the capitulation to the culture that is rampant these days.   Even if a church hasn't gone liberal and still maintains good Bible preaching it's got to be compromised in some way by embracing such a false view of a Bible passage.  

Down swe go.  All I can do is cry.

I'll add this thought.  If I'm wrong I want to know it and I'd be very very happy to be wrong about this.  I've prayed about it and will go on praying abou5t it in the hope that the Lord will give me a clear confirmation or disconfirmation of the wqay I think about this.   If I see clearly that I'm wrong about it IK'll come back and correct my statements here.