The three men returned to the topic of wealth near the end of the conversation when Paul reiterated that Osteen was wealthy but that the pastor had gained his wealth “because of the extracurricular stuff that you’ve done outside of the church.” When Osteen agreed, Paul said, “Which to me, I mean, like, bro, you deserve it. You really, you do deserve it.”
“You know what? We’re big givers too. [My wife] Victoria and I believe in being generous,” Osteen said. “I’m one of the biggest supporters of the church. And so I don’t talk about that ‘cause I don’t want to…”
“Wait,” Paul interjected. “You make money and then you give it back to the church?”
“I’m a big supporter of the church,” Osteen replied. “But I’m not saying that to brag. And we give to other things.”
“I want to support it,” he said. “I believe in what we’re doing.”
Osteen went on to imply that a misconception some people have is that Christians should not be wealthy. However, “Abraham was one of the wealthiest men of his day,” said Osteen, also mentioning David.
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“Why is that a thought process?” Paul asked, inquiring if the belief that Christians should not be rich had anything to do with “living minimally.”
“Well, there’s some Scriptures too, right?” Majlak said.
“Yeah, there’s some,” said Osteen. “You know, my dad was taught [that] to be…holy or a Christian, you need to be poor and you need to think defeated.”
“And this was years ago, but there is that mindset of, you know—but I just have a different mindset of, man, guys, it cost $100 million to renovate this facility,” Osteen said, indicating Lakewood, where they were recording the podcast and which was once the arena where the Houston Rockets played.
