Osteen, Joel, Your Best Life Now, New York, Warner Faith Publishers, 2004. Inspirational/motivational; 310 pages.


It may seem foolish to disagree theologically with the man who pastors the largest congregation in America. Thirty-thousand adults attend Joel Osteen's church every Sunday. Millions more tune in to his national and international television broadcasts. Certainly (one might assume) a man with this incredible following must be on the right track. Joel Osteen's book, Your Best Life Now, is even endorsed by well-known Christian leaders like Max Lucado and Pat Robertson. And if that were not enough to dissuade me from taking issue with Osteen's teaching, who in his right mind would want to argue with karate-man Chuck Norris, who also commends Osteen's book?

Nevertheless, here is my view in a nutshell: If you want to read a book in which discontentment is encouraged, a book that shows God to be powerless apart from your power-filled thoughts and words, a book in which sin is minimized and renamed in every conceivable way, and a supposedly Christian book that gives only trivial mention to Jesus Christ, Your Best Life Now is the book for you. But if you believe, with the Apostle Paul, that "godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Tim. 6:6 NKJV)1, if you desire a deeper and more biblical understanding of God and His ways, if you desire to see Jesus Christ exalted in your life as you follow His pattern of humility and self-denial, if you believe a Christian's greatest hunger should be for righteousness (Matt. 5:6) and not for money, health, or easy living, then you would do well to look elsewhere.

To be fair, I must admit that Joel Osteen does give some good counsel, particularly in the second half of the book (Parts 4-7). For instance, in Part 6 (chapters 25-29) Osteen's instruction on giving is quite sound. He makes some excellent points about "Being a Person of Integrity" in chapter 31. In fact, if Parts 4-7 were somehow detached from Parts 1-3 and published as a separate book, it would be relatively harmless. But in Your Best Life Now, constructed as it is, the best of the worst comes first. A discerning friend of mine recently returned the book for a refund after reading just five pages.

A Doctrine of Discontentment

Joel Osteen's primary focus throughout Parts 1-3 is on financial success and material gain. In the introduction, the reader is encouraged to dream, "Someday, I'll earn more money, and I won't have to worry about how to pay the bills." "God wants to increase you financially," Osteen writes on page 5. "Even if you come from an extremely successful family, God still wants you to go further" (p. 9). "Get rid of that small-minded thinking and start thinking as God thinks. Think big. Think increase. Think abundance. Think more than enough" (p. 11). "Many people settle for too little . . . 'I've gone as far in my career as I can go. I've hit the peak. I'll never make any more money than I'm making right now'" (p. 23).

On page 5 Osteen explains that this quest for financial and material increase is actually pleasing to God. He claims that "God wants to pour out 'His far and beyond favor.' God wants this to be the best time of your life" (emphasis mine). You see, according to Joel Osteen, God particularly wants you to experience His goodness, in physical, financial, and social ways, here and now. Hence, the title of the book, Your Best Life Now.

The truth, however, is that Joel Osteen wants you to be discontent. Of course he doesn't come right out and say it like that. In fact, in chapter 30, entitled "Happiness is a Choice," in a section entitled, "Be Content Where You Are," Joel Osteen actually claims to advocate contentment. He writes:

If you don't learn to be content where you are, you're never going to get where you want to be. You may not have all the money you want today. Things may be tight, and you may be struggling. But as long as you complain all the time, talking about how poorly life's treating you and how you're never going to get ahead, your sour attitude will keep you right where you are (emphasis added).

With that, how can I claim that Joel Osteen wants you to be discontent? Notice, if you will, that even while supposedly advocating contentment, Joel Osteen promises something in return. The reward for your "contentment" is to "get where you want to be," to "have all the money you want," and to "get ahead." So Joel Osteen's idea of contentment is not really contentment at all. The change he encourages in your attitude is actually his recommended means of satisfying your discontentment.

In the Bible, true contentment is encouraged in every area of life. Paul insisted that he was "well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake" (2 Cor. 12:10). But contentment is most strongly commanded of the Christian in relation to money and possessions. Consider Joel Osteen's focus on financial and material gain in relation to three passages in particular:

Take heed and beware of covetousness [the natural result of discontentment], for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Luke 12:15 NKJV).

Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows (1 Tim. 6:8-10 NKJV).

Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have (Heb. 13:5).

No one can legitimately claim that God never blesses Christians with financial and material abundance. Even Paul wrote about Christians who were "rich in this present world" (1 Tim. 6:17). But Joel Osteen does not merely acknowledge the fact that God blesses some with wealth. His view is that God wants to bless everyone with financial and material abundance.

As I mentioned earlier, the Scripture reference Osteen uses to "prove" that God wants everyone to live in material abundance in this life is Ephesians 2:7. Osteen quotes that passage as saying, "God wants to pour out 'His far and beyond favor.'" The endnotes affirm that his "quote" is of Ephesians 2:7, yet he never mentions the translation or paraphrase in which those words may be found. The reader is left to wonder where they are actually in print (if any place other than Osteen's book). If they are from a published translation or paraphrase, I was unable to locate their source.

Based on numerous similar instances in the book, it seems likely that this "Scripture" reference merely represents Osteen's version of what the passage means. If they are Osteen's words, and not those of a published translation or paraphrase, it was highly deceptive to place them in quotes and introduce them by saying "Scripture says" or "the Bible says." On the other hand, if they are from a reputable source, we can only wonder why Joel Osteen did not give proper credit.

On an even more important note, the words represented here by Joel Osteen as "Scripture," the words that set the theme for his entire book, do not reflect the true meaning of Ephesians 2:7. Osteen interprets them to mean that God wants to do something tangible and earthly, here and now, for all people. But Paul's words in Ephesians 2:7, when properly understood in their context, tell us plainly that God has already done what He purposed to do, for believers alone (not for all people), that the primary benefits of His work are spiritual (not physical or earthly), and that they will be experienced in their fullest measure "in the ages to come" (not here and now).

Aside from his misapplication of Ephesians 2:7, Joel Osteen's view hits another roadblock. His focus on financial and material gain is explicitly forbidden in the Bible, not only by Jesus Christ Himself, but also by nearly every writer of the New Testament. Along with the passages already quoted, consider these:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also[b] (Matt. 6:19-21).[/b]

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God[b] (Mark 10:25).[/b]

Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth (Col. 3:2).
Note: Joel Osteen interprets "the things above" in the first part of Colossians 3:2 to mean "the higher things" in this life (i.e. success, financial increase, preferential treatment, etc.). Based on this verse, he claims that you should "expect circumstances to change in your favor . . . expect to be at the right place at the right time. . . . Expect to excel in your career" (pp. 13-14). He fails to notice, however, that the second half of the verse forbids what he claims the first half teaches.

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world (1 John 2:15-16).

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[b] (Luke 6:20-26).[/b]
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[b] (1 John 3:13).[/b]



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