Baptist Pastor Preaches That He ‘Can’t Even Look’ at Paul’s ‘Contradictory’ Bible Verses + “Go To Hell Paul”
St. Stephen Baptist Church is the largest African American Church in Kentucky and the “largest private Black employer in the state.” Boasting that “Over 98% of St. Stephen employees are from the Black Community” and that they “conduct the city’s largest voter registration campaign,” their stated mission is to “change lives, to strengthen families, and to transform communities. “
St. Stephen is led by Senior Pastor Dr. Kevin Cosby. According to his church bio, he is “He is one of our nation’s most influential leaders: He was inducted into the Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians at the Kentucky State Capitol…and was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers of Morehouse College.”
Two weeks ago, he preached a message titled “Slavery and the Bible where he criticizes the Apostle Paul for his behavior and statement in the book of Philemon, declaring that the Apostle Paul can “go to hell” for all the “problematic and antithetical texts in the bible” that he wrote.
“Let me say this: all the Bible is not on the same level. So when you say “the Bible says it” well, that doesn’t mean that just because you quote a scripture from the Bible that that is a priority of the purpose of the Bible.
Just like you’ve got a quarter, a dime, a nickel and a penny, which one of these four is money? All four is money, would you agree? They are all equally money..but are they all equal in value? No! And everything here in my hand is Bible, all equally Bible. But everything in my hand is not all equal in value”
He continues:
Salvation is not going to heaven. Salvation has to be deliverance from things that oppress people. Deliverance from hatred, deliverance from sexism, racism, the isms, that’s what salvation is. Heaven will take care of itself- God is concerned about how we treat each other. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
…And the question is, when you look at those Paul passages about slaves being obedient to their masters, that’s a penny. (he earlier said that some bible verses were valuable, worth a “quarter”, and others near worthless, a “penny”)
In fact, it’s such a penny and so contradictory to the themes of Jesus, I can say I don’t even look at them.
I will say, “go to hell, Paul.”
And I can say, “go to hell” Paul, about those slave verses. And I can say it to John McArthur out there in California who said, ‘what’s wrong with slavery?’ And you got them Negro preachers out there believing that nonsense. I can say, “go to hell” by the authority of Christ, because it’s total out of alignment with Jesus.”
h/t to All Things Theology, who break it down in detail here.
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I hate to have to break it to him, but all the Apostles said the same thing. For example, 1 Pet. 2:18-25. Though even then there was apparently some bellyaching about Paul’s letters being difficult to understand and easily twisted. (2 Pet. 3:14-18).
What MacCarthur basically said is that there are many things that fall under the word “slavery” as we use it today. It could be something as innocent and impartial as working off a debt, trading labor for money, essentially being pre-paid for your work. And it could be something as wicked and brutal as the notion that human beings are nothing but livestock.
It could mean anything from an employer-employee relationship, all the way to full-blown chattel slavery of the sort that was in the world in the 18th and 19th centuries.
What the Apostles basically said, in their admonitions to both slaves and masters was essentially to make it like the innocent and impartial form, more like an employee working off a debt to an employer. Paul specifically said that it must not be partial (Eph 6:9). That is, it had to be a fair agreement, and there should not be any double-standards. Both “master” and “slave” follow the same standards, and the arrangement is fair and just. By implication, agreed upon.
Yet there were some slaves who were Christians, while their masters were not. And to them, Peter said that it is better to suffer for being righteous, than to suffer for being wicked (1 Pet. 2:19-20). And they all practiced what they preached, themselves enduring much suffering and persecution. Paul and Peter were both eventually put to death. And Paul wrote the letter to Philemon, while in prison himself. The Apostles were men who rejoiced when arrested and beaten for having preached the Gospel, for suffering for having done no wrong, as the Lord had suffered. (Acts 5:40-42)
Essentially it means, don’t give the wicked an excuse …
Don’t give them a “reason” …
But live righteous and holy lives, for the sake of the Lord. If we suffer, then suffer as Job suffered … pass the test.
Do that, and you might just, through your example, and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, compel that brutal master to repent … as Paul himself repented, having himself formerly been the worst persecutor of Christians.
As for alignment with Jesus, who passed that test better than He? Who suffered more, yet without sin? Did Jesus not also suffer the worst of persecution, for having done nothing wrong? In Matt 5:39, Jesus said “do not resist the evil person”. And Jesus perfectly practiced what He preached. He willingly suffered for the eternal Kingdom of God (for His own kingdom). And for three days, the devil thought he had won …
In those days, custom among the Jews, was that in the marriage process, the groom would essentially for a time become the bondservant of the father of his betrothed. Not bonded by chains. Bonded by contract.
In Rome, it was not uncommon for people to sell themselves into slavery. Essentially like indentured servitude.
The early church rightly, and according to scripture, stood against just about all forms of what was called slavery, excepting fair, impartial, and just bond by voluntary contract. The scripture is clear throughout, OT and NT, that forcing someone into involuntary servitude is wrong. Joseph, for example. In some cases of war, the defeated were made to serve the victors, as a consequence for voluntarily making war. And this is even the case when the Israelites entered the Promised Land. They first asked nicely. And then war was instigated by those who sought to drive them out.
MacCarthur’s point, which the hysterical over-reactors completely missed, was that it was not the same as what we think of slavery today.
The Bible is indeed somewhat indifferent to the existence of slavery in any and all forms. But it is also very clear on what sorts of slavery are unacceptable. The reason being that certain things called slavery back then, today we might call a contract for labor. Or in the case of a groom working for the father of his bride, a voluntary submission to be tested (about like going to school, or taking on an apprenticeship or internship, and doing work without pay).
And in the case of breach of contract, there are consequences. If you made a contract akin to indentured servitude, and were pre-paid for labor,but then you refused to do that labor, you suffered the consequences. Dissagreements arise on whether or not the contract is fulfilled, by one party or the other, and it gets messy. As it happened on these shores, that occurred in the 1600s, when a slave took his master to court claiming the contract had been fulfilled, the work had been done, and time of indenture had expired, that the courts essentially ruled that the slave was the property of the master for life.
There’s just a lot more to it than Dr. Cosby understands. Certainly a lot more than would justify flying off the handle, denying scripture itself, and falsely accusing the Apostles, for crying out loud …