Joel Osteen Stretches It.

I had to scan in the cover for Joel Osteen’s Become a Better You today, the cover I had been using was from Amazon and was not the International Cover, so I had to actually handle a Joel Osteen book.

Now it’s easy to jest about dear old Joel, but other than seeing him on YouTube, I didn’t know if my views of him were valid or not, so given the opportunity, I figured I would read the start of his book, just to see If I could relate to his teachings.

The first page (I skipped the intro, so I started on page three) starts out great, with a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright, and setting up the whole premise of striving to do better.

Joel keeps the ball rolling – and me happy – by telling the sad fact that many people are living below their potential and not using their gifts an talents.

Then he says that God “wants every generation to be increasing in happiness, success, and significance.” (Emphasis mine)

I’m sure God wants us to be happy and successful doing His work, but I’m not sure about the significance part. Though, when you think about it, Billy Graham was a significant figure in American Christianity so we’ll let this one go.

Joel goes on to expand on this point however, and tells us that we should “always be reaching for new heights… in our finances, careers…” (Emphasis mine)

Now I shouldn’t be surprised that Joel is talking about money in his book, he is, after all, somewhat known for his prosperity teachings. But to bring it out one the first page really shows where the guy is coming from. Good on him for knowing his audience, but for me this only confirms my suspicions that Joel and I read the Bible differently.