Joel Osteen Deletes 'Rub One Out' Tweet

Jason St. Amand READ TIME: 2 MIN.

Joel Osteen, a mega church pastor and best-selling author, has a pretty large Twitter fan base: 2,155,787 people follow him. But these faithful followers got a hilarious tweet yesterday, according to Twitchy.com, a Twitter curation site founded by conservative blogger Michelle Makin.

"A true friend walks in when everybody else walks out. A true friend doesn't rub it in when you make a mistake. They rub it out," Osteen tweeted.

Sure, this tweet can be read as words of wisdom, but to many, it probably sounds more like a sexual innuendo. And, in typical Twitter fashion, Osteen's tweet was retweeted, favorite and replied to countless times.

"Dude, wanna rethink that one?" one user wrote to Osteen. "oops joel osteen deleted the tweet my 'hehe rub it out' tweet was referring to," another said.

"clearly have the wrong friends," another Twitter user wrote. "Yes...yes that right Joel - gotta love those friends that help you rub one out," a user tweeted.

Unfortunately, Osteen has deleted the tweet and hasn't said anything about it.

Earlier this month the popular televangelist told the Huffington Post that God is accepting of gays. HuffPo's Josh Zepps quoted a line from Osteen's new book, which reads, "It doesn't matter who likes you or who doesn't like you, all that matters is God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you." Zepps then asked Osteen if that includes members of the LGBT community.

"I believe that God has breathed his life into every single person. We're all on a journey. Nobody's perfect," Osteen said. "I'm not here preaching hate, pushing people down, or telling people what they are doing wrong."


by Jason St. Amand , National News Editor

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