Scripture Says...

I don't typically like engaging directly with celebrity pastors. This morning though I saw a number of people in my Facebook sharing a post by Joel Osteen. The post was typically shared with comments like, "Amen" and "Yes". Take a look,

Post by Joel Osteen Ministries.

It makes me really sad to see things like this written by "pastors". Especially pastors that have the following of Osteen. They tag "Scripture says..." to stuff and unfortunately people take it as true because, "he's a pastor."


Osteen is part of a wing of Christianity called, "Word of Faith". In a nutshell, they believe that if you speak words with enough faith that God will give you what you want. God, in essence, is a genie. The bummer is that he's not even a very good genie because you have to really believe and if you don't get what you want then you didn't really believe.

When we say, "Scripture says..." we are standing before the world and saying something akin to "Thus says the Lord..." If we do that, we better be darn sure that it's the truth. Most of the word of faith folks take nice axioms and add "scripture says..." to try and give them authority and make it sound as though they are speaking for God. The sad thing is that this simply leads folks astray.

What might be a better choice for Osteen would have been,

Save us, we pray, O Lord!
O Lord, we pray, give us success! - Psalm 118:25

You see, the Scriptures do speak of success and asking God for it. However, it is typically connected with repentance. Repentance does not play well with our audience because it requires an admission of sin and brokenness.

We want an easy faith and cheap success. Jesus put it this way,

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he [Jesus] said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

The one who is following Jesus is not promised the easy life or the successful life. She is promised to experience cross carrying. Following Jesus is not easy. He calls us to places of discomfort. He calls us to deny ourselves. Self-denial is painful.

The life of the follower of Jesus is that of faith. Hebrews 11 is so very challenging because after the author lists all the great heroes of faith he writes this,

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Now we come back to what Osteen says that Scripture supposedly states, "Scripture says, “Blessed are those who look for, who long for, and who expect His victory." Believe that today is your day." While those who live by faith are blessed, they are blessed by entering the heavenly country. But beyond that, Scripture simply does not say this.

After doing a little searching the best I can come up with as to where this could be in Scripture is Isaiah 30:18,

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.

When you look that passage up in the amplified text you can piece together Osteen's quote. However, the context of this passage is repentance from exile. It is about waiting on God for justice against the enemies of God's people. The people of God were looking to enter into a treaty with Egypt but God didn't want them to. He is telling them if they will trust him, he will bring justice.

I would encourage you to spend some time reading in Deuteronomy (13 and 18) and thinking about how it informs us in regards to people over stating what "the Scripture says...". It's a little intense.