"Become a Better You" by Joel Osteen

doing all he does under the banner of “church” and “bible” and “preaching” lends itself to an appropriate amount of criticism. but peoples’ lives today are full of negativity - from sun-up to sun-down we all face our shortcomings as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, employees, employers. if someone comes along occasionally to put wind in our otherwise limp sails, i’m not going to be so arrogant and self-righteous to tell him to stop.

the problem we have is that we are bibliolators, and have elevated a collection of two thousand year old writings to the level they never intended for themselves. what might have served as a guide at one time has become nothing but an anchor - a ball and chain keeping us from doing the good that we could do. like jesus said, the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath - we’ve gotten too caught up in looking at revelation as something to both judge others by and be judged with. revelation from God is for our benefit, not His. and, contrary to the opinions of a few well-intentioned catholic coneheads in 325 AD, God has never stopped revealing Himself to the person seeking Him.

dan, donsands, your points are both well taken. and offered with gracious hearts, i trust - as are mine. it’s fun to get in these public sparring matches, but we don’t need to start reading our own press, as they say.

what i’m starting to see is the power of the stories themselves, and how passing them down from generation to generation orally as the Jews did had some benefits that we may have lost once they were written down. in a story, God could move as he needed to - with both the storyteller and the listener. and i’ve said this elsewhere, but jesus and his parables are the best example - “let him who has ears hear”. we read that and make a judgment about the listener, but maybe it should be read as a prayer to the Holy Spirit - “move as you will”. it’s said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears - so there are not just two parts - the student and the teacher - but three, maybe four - the student, the teacher, the student’s desire to learn, and perhaps a God who is able to let the message mean what it needs to.

and not just mean “what it says”.

this is all kind of nebulous - that’s why i find it so unnerving. i’ve dealt in 1’s and 0’s my whole adult life…but at some point that reaches the point where it’s not giving the right answer anymore.

and, donsands - it’s fun to keep crossing paths. forgive me if i become too much of a smarta$$. iron sharpens iron.

well said, dle.

again, i find myself falling into the either/or aspects of what is taught, and it’s really both/and.

one of the problems in what is taught is hell, and the mistruths - at the very least, less-than-biblical descriptions - of it. when sin-without-jesus-leads-to-eternity-in-flames is the doctrine, none of the other doctrines - none of the “good parts of the gospel” - really matter anymore, do they?

so here’s a case where it really, truly became either/or for me: either there is a hell that most of the world is going to and God has set up a plan in which i am responsible (romans 14:10) for helping save everyone, or there isn’t. the hell that we picture in our minds is a twisted invention of the catholic church to keep people in line. eternity is God’s problem - if there ever was a problem (and my contention is there wasn’t). we make disciples, we don’t get people ‘saved’. and, no, it ISN’T both/and here, because the ‘saved’ piece from this perspective totally and completely obliterates the discipling part in terms of duration (eternity vs this lifetime) and extent (everlasting punishment vs temporal goodness).

jim villenga - thanks for your comments. all good points.

but i’m not convinced jesus talked “a great deal about eternal punishment”. yes, i confess i selectively read things in the bible - but, if nothing else, i intend to show you that you do, too. for a quick example, tell me how many animals jesus rode into jerusalem on - one or two? either answer and you’re choosing to ignore scripture.

unless he rode in twice, and one was just a dress rehearsal to make sure everybody knew their parts…

the parable of lazarus and the rich man is a finger in the chest of the pharisees, not a revelation of hell, or of people in heaven and hell being able to talk to each other, or of people in hell being able to ask that messengers be sent to their brothers.

what i’ve seen over the past ten years as i’ve looked at this stuff is that we can get so obsessed with the facts that we miss the truth that is trying to be conveyed.

if you go looking for the footprints of adam and eve, you won’t find them.

you’ll even have a hard time finding jesus’.

that doesn’t mean there isn’t truth there for us.

ben - thanks for weighing in. some good thoughts.

(my comment about one or two donkeys and selectively reading texts…)

Weak argument. The issue of “how many animals” in this example is a very poor test of whether or not someone willfully reads scripture selectively, cherry-picking what fits their own mindset or desires. I am saddened that you admit so readily to doing this.

perhaps the donkey example is not a critical tenet of the faith, but it isn’t a “weak argument” - it’s a very basic picture to show that we do overlook one thing for another.

from that point we can go up to more significant issues, granted - do we baptize in water, is repentance necessary for “salvation”, was jesus born of a virgin - but it is a simple, crystal clear case that proves my point. i ask that you not weigh it on its eternal implications, but on whether or not it supports my claim.

who wouldn’t want a religion that requires no sacrifice and requires little more of its adherents than positive thinking?

but who says religion has to be this way?

more importantly, who said it SHOULDN’T be this way?

here’s your answer: it was the pharisees that had put such a religious burden upon the people that jesus himself railed against.

jesus said, “take my yoke upon you because my burden is light.”

we say, “it can’t be this easy…”.

i’m seeing now that a lot of destruction in my own life is because i had to make things, perhaps, more complicated than they ever were.

the “kiss” principle - keep it simple stupid - maybe that’s jesus’ message in a nutshell.

ben - thanks for taking the time to write those comments. excellent thoughts.

please see my response here.

to try to get the conversation a little more focused on what the bible says, i’ve devised the following test.

the test is only one question long - i didn’t want anyone to strain themselves.

ready?

here it is:

God hates, and is fully righteous in pouring out any and all of his wrath, against:

(a) sin (b) people who sin (aka, “sinners”) (c) people even before they ever sin (d) people after they have sinned (e) people while they are sinning (f) people who sinned but weren’t really aware of it (g) people who sinned and knew darn well what they were doing (h) people who sinned, laughed while they were sinning and, further, gave God the finger after it was over (i) people who saw somebody sin, but didn’t tell on them (j) you (k) me (l) himself (m) jesus (n) mormons (o) muslims (p) buddhists (q) atheists (r) Democrats (s) Republicans (t) Independents (u) illegal immigrants (v) Mexican food (w) all of the above (x) none of the above (y) some of the above, but i’m not going to tell you which ones (z) some of the above, but i’ll only tell you which ones others got wrong (aa) if i answer now, can i change my answer in the future if i determine a verse means something different? (bb) alex, could you repeat the question?

there it is. you may turn your papers over now, and begin.

josh - thanks for your comments. please read my response here with the grace i’m intending to give it, though it may come across as snide or arrogant if read in that manner.

Let’s just say that you remove the “God hates” from your question and stop trying to back people into a corner.

i’d rather you look at the corner into which you’ve painted yourself with doctrines that may be biblically defendable but obviously make no sense. and God isn’t in the business of being non-sensical. that doesn’t mean i can understand everything about him; neither does it mean we accept obviously wrong theology, such as…

there is no “people before they ever sin”.

sure there are. a baby who is just born does not deserve eternal damnation. that doctrine is not a “mystery” - it’s a mystake. and there’s no such thing as an “age of accountability” - that’s an invented doctrine to allow us to remain stupid about the original sin doctrine.

You can go ahead and reject original sin…

and i do. but that’s not my point. my point is that God hates sin, and has dealt with sin. he never hated the sinner.

see my comment a few entries up, #59. i think a light finally went on in my head in spite of all the brain cells i’ve tried to kill over the years.

thanks, woz. a lot of what you wrote is exactly what i said in my first comment here (#40), where i began with:

doing all he does under the banner of “church” and “bible” and “preaching” lends itself to an appropriate amount of criticism.

if you’re going to hang your sign up and say you’re a preacher in a Christian church that uses the Bible as its guide, then most of the comments and criticisms being aimed at mr. osteen here are valid. but i gave him credit that i think is due him for helping people rise above their circumstances, since too many churches are preaching that people are totally depraved, worthy of God’s judgment, and are in the exact circumstances they deserve.

You deny original sin, and you redefine what sin is.

i did the first; i did not do the second.

From your earlier posts it also seems that you deny the authority (or at least the truth) of the scriptures as well.

i deny they are inerrant, and i gave a simple example to prove the fact. i also deny that they were meant to be chopped up into a million different doctrines that people have to assent to in order to be called “Christian.” i further deny that they are equivalent, much less superior, to God, or Jesus, or to other revelation that God may use to reveal himself to an individual.

In this case, we’re arguing philosophy and not theology… and we’re not going to get anywhere with that.

we can get as far as open, honest, intelligent and gracious discourse takes us. we will get nowhere if the best you can do is put words in my mouth, make judgments about what i believe, and say “i’m taking my ball and going home.”