It’s been fifteen years now since the infamous Joel Osteen 2010 interview with Larry King, but Osteen’s responses to King’s questions are still reverberating on the internet.

What Osteen said on Larry King Live

If you don’t know what I’m referring to, in 2010, as his star was rising, Joel Osteen agreed to an interview with Larry King, then the Emmy Award-winning talk show host. King was also married eight times, and he was Jewish, which is to say he was not a Christian.

King challenged much about Osteen’s life and preaching, including Osteen’s preaching of the Prosperity Gospel and his opulent lifestyle. Osteen’s answers were less than ideal from a Christian perspective, but the answer that drew the ire of Evangelicals came in the following exchange:

Let me start by saying, I’m not a Joel basher. I do think his theology, particularly the Prosperity Gospel, is off, and his teaching is Christianity Lite, but I have also been to his church service, have friends who attend, and I’m convinced he is reaching people that may not be otherwise reached by others. I look at Lakewood as a large open door to the Kingdom, and if Joel Osteen is steering people to Jesus and the Bible, I am confident the Holy Spirit will taken them to a deeper level of maturity.

The trap Larry King laid

Having said that, there is no denying Osteen’s statements on Larry King Live about salvation were 100% wrong, and to get something so fundamental and so important wrong on so big a stage was a clear fumble on the five-yard line. My guess is that Osteen probably recognizes that as well, and that he just succumbed to the pressure of the spotlight and his fear of offending.

The purpose of this post is not to criticize Joel Osteen for what he said on Larry King Live–there are plenty of others who do that–but to demonstrate how Joel could have followed Jesus’ example in responding to Larry King’s question.

I suspect King’s question about salvation was intended to discredit Osteen and the gospel in front of millions of people. If King could get Osteen to say all Jews and Muslims were going to hell, he would turn the non-Christian world against Osteen. Osteen should have followed the lead of Jesus.

The example of Jesus

Luke records a time when the Jewish religious leaders tried to trap Jesus in a similar way when they asked him by what authority he was doing the things he was doing and who gave him such authority. Luke 20:1-8. They put Jesus on the horns of a dilemma.

If Jesus claimed his authority was from God, they would accuse Him of blasphemy and if He claimed His authority was from man they would deny they had given HIm such authority. Instead of answering, Jesus asked them a question a question about John’s baptism that put them on the horns of a dilemma themselves, and they refused to answer.

Jesus beat them at their own game. Jesus let them know He knew what they were doing, and He was not going to play along.

What Osteen should have said

Had Osteen followed the example of Jesus, reframing and restating the issue as a question, it might have gone something like this:

King: What if you are Jewish or Muslim and don’t know Christ at all?

Osteen: Well, Larry, let me ask you a question. If God came to earth and told us that the only way to heaven was through belief in his appointed person, would it be loving or evil for me to tell people they could get there another way? Should we love people or mislead them?

Or, if he wanted to be more direct, he could have said:

King: What if you are Jewish or Muslim and don’t know Christ at all?

Osteen: Larry, Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.” Are you suggesting Jesus was a liar?

These aren’t the only possible responses based on Jesus’ example, but one can see how the interview night have gone differently if Joel had been a little less like Joel and a little more like Jesus. GS