Chapter 6: Living Favor-Minded
Rebuttal
This chapter expounds on what Joel said in the previous one. He describes in the first paragraphs instances of what may happen if we believe that God will give us preferential treatment. Here we have another problem of post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Just because you read a book and shortly thereafter you get a good parking spot or get let into the fast lane during rush hour or are the first in line when a cashier opens a new register in a busy supermarket doesn’t mean that any of those things happened because you read the book.
To support all this and to say that there is no way that we’ll “be able to outrun the good things of God,” Joel claims that the Bible says that “God’s favor is going to chase you down and overtake you.” Nowhere in the Bible is this written. Joel, of course, cites neither chapter nor verse. The nearest verse to what Joel has written is in Isaiah, chapter 35, verse 10. I’ll include verse nine to give it some context: “No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” We’ve seen this before. Joel is using a passage describing the return of a captive Israel to Jerusalem with no regard to context, genre, or what it meant to its original audience, and twisting it to fit his message. I am, of course, assuming that Joel didn’t just pull this out of his ass, that being a distinct possibility given some key differences in Joel’s version and the actual inspired text.
The first difference and probably the most significant: The subject of the sentence in Joel’s writing is “God’s blessings.” Using God as the source of the blessings at issue creates a misconception that Joel continually purports throughout his work, that God is just like Santa Claus and exists to give us stuff. Not I’m saying that God is not in the habit of blessing, but Joel belabors the point, to say the least.
The second key difference is in the structure and wording of the sentence itself. Since Joel does not give the translation that he uses, let alone the chapter and verse, it is impossible for me to do comparative research on the wording in the original language. (Once again, we are assuming that Joel has twisted Isaiah 35:10 for his own purposes and not pulled something out of thin air.) In Joel’s writing, God’s blessings actively hunt down and engulf “you,” which we are led to believe is the reader. That sounds kind of creepy to me. In the inspired text, it is “gladness and joy” which will overtake “them,” captive Israel. About the only thing these two sentences have in common is the word “overtake.”
Joel says that “every time we turn around, somebody’s going to want to do something good for you. Everywhere you go, things are going to change in your favor.” This I know Joel made up. Like I said in previous works, history has not shown this to be accurate. John the Baptist lived a life of poverty and was beheaded by King Herod, Paul’s life basically went shipwreck, flogging, prison for a few years, visit a church or two or three, repeat. Some experts believe he had poor eyesight and epilepsy, as well. Peter was crucified, upside down according to tradition. All the disciples lived lives of poverty and, with the exception of John, all died excruciatingly painful deaths. With that in mind, we can say with certainty that Joel is not working with the correct definition of favor.
Apparently one can only receive God’s favor if one asks for it aloud. Joel writes, “Learn to speak God’s favor over every area of your life. If you’re not experiencing as much as you would like, try declaring it more often. Become more diligent about speaking it out. And you don’t even necessarily have to say it out loud; you can speak it under your breath.” So not only is God just a cosmic Santa Claus, he is powerless to act unless we say what we want out loud.
As another example, Joel gives the example of King David, who, according to 1 Samuel 13:14, was a man after God’s own heart and uses one of his psalms, Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” The author’s point here is that David is a prime example of his philosophy that he just couldn’t “get away from the good things of God.” Granted David’s rule was near the high water mark of ancient Israel’s existence, but no where does David say that he expects good things or preferential treatment and therefore he gets good things or preferential treatment. Joel claims that the “Bible is replete with examples of people who were in great need, but then the favor of God came on them in a new way, and their situations turned around.” Joel uses the stories of Noah, Ruth, and Joseph as examples. No one is arguing against the existence of scenarios such as those, it is simply the why and the how that is in question. If we take God’s choosing Noah in context, it should not be Noah’s character or that he was favor minded or whatnot that should be taken into account, rather “divine agony over what to do about the situation,” according to The New Interpreter’s Bible. As for the story of Ruth, it is a prime example of God providing for those he wished to participate in the bloodline of the Messiah. As for Joseph, Joel uses the story to say that when people are mistreating us or when we are going through various difficulties in our lives, we only need to expect God’s favor, and sooner or later it will all turn out better.
Philippians 1:29 “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,”
1 Thessalonians 3:4 “In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know.”
Joel is only half right. We’re guaranteed to be mistreated and undergo hardships, it’s the part about them turning around, getting better and going away that’s iffy.
Joel uses Job as an example, saying that even in his darkest hour Job declared to favor of God, therefore God restored his home, family, livestock, etc. I used the story of Job as a counterpoint in chapter two of these works, so one of us has to be wrong. Joel says that Job ways restored to his former glory because he continually “declared the favor of God.” However, in chapter 31 Job basically says, “I’m innocent! Why are you doing this to me?” A question he had never before asked. According to The New Interpreter’s Bible, the language Job uses is similar to the “process by which an accused person whose opponent refuses to produce evidence compels his accuser to come to court.” Joel is really upset here. In response, God spends three full chapters telling Job that it is not his place to question how or why he does things. After getting scolded for asking for a reason behind his suffering, Job doesn’t pout or make an angry retort, he hangs his head and apologizes. Joel is conveniently leaving out these aspects of the story. Without said elements, the story of Job can be misconstrued to whoever’s liking, just like a toddler might leave out the part of the story where he threw the first punch. However, and this seems to be the theme of these works, if we take the entire book in context we ascertain its true meaning, that everything happens for a reason and that God always has our best interests at heart.
Joel is right in one thing, however. He says that God doubled Job’s assets, and this is correlative with Job 42:10. Joel’s claim that none of Job’s enemies could triumph over him seems only to be inferred from the text. However, the question we must ask ourselves is this: is this scenario prescriptive or descriptive? In other words, is the text telling us that this is the way it is for everyone and that we should mimic this behavior, such as the Ten Commandments? Alternatively, it may be telling a story that is just that, a story, and to be learned from and reflected on, such as the story of Lot and how his daughters got him drunk and slept with him in order to continue their family line in Genesis 19:30-35. Given that this is the only instance of God doubling someone’s assets after a period of extreme adversity and the lack of corroborative scripture (for that matter, the presence of a great deal of verses that contradict that assertion) I believe we can safely designate this passage as prescriptive.
On the next page, Joel clams that the “Bible says, ‘Hope to the end for the divine favor that is coming to you.’ In other words, don’t give up. Keep on believing, expecting, declaring. Keep living favor-minded, and God promises that good things will come to you.” First of all, that “verse” while it sounds like something that might be somewhere in the Bible, exists only in Joel’s mind and in “Your Best Life Now.” It is not an actual Bible verse. I have claimed before in these works that Joel, in his writings, was being less than truthful, but this is an egregious offense. In my research I have found no verse that even bears a rough semblance. Ergo, there is no alternative here but to conclude that Joel Osteen is making up his own Bible verses because he’s running out of canonized passages to butcher out of context and misconstrue to support his own ends.
Joel tells us the story of how he got the ten o’clock time slot on a national television network by being “favor-minded” and “waiting in faith” for six months. As support for the belief that he got the coveted ten o’clock Sunday night slot due to his belief that he would, he cites 1 Peter 1:13: “If you will hope to the end, divine favor will come.” I have no idea what translation Joel used here, the one he uses certainly looks nothing like any version I’ve read. Take the NIV, for example: “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given to you when Jesus Christ is to be revealed.” This is another example of Joel groundlessly substituting a given word in a passage for “favor” to suit the purposes of his message. As you can see above, the two versions of the verse are completely different, and one would almost take them for two different verses. I don’t know what else to say but that Joel, as has been the case before, has obviously done his usual cut-copy-paste with scripture to make a point contrary to the actual message taught by the Bible.
Thus ends Part 1: Enlarge Your Vision. The next chapter starts us off with Part 2: Develop a Healthy Self-Image. Please leave any questions or comments or, by all means, if you have found any flaws in my logic, holes in my reasoning, or misuse of scripture, please let me know.
No comments:
Post a Comment