Joseph Costa

:"This article is about a Lebanese evangelist, who ministered to Christian Arabs in the Middle East, the United States, and throughout the world. For the American news photographer, see Joseph Costa (photographer)."A widely known evangelical preacher from the Middle East, Joseph Massoud Costa was born on June 7, 1931, in Beirut, Lebanon. Joseph, born "Yousef" was the third of six children, born to Massoud Yousef Costa and Saada Simaan Ghantous. A self-made man, Joseph took on the surrogate responsibilities for his father who often gambled and came home penniless. As a teenager, Joseph worked as a tailor, creating custom-made clothing to help his family financially. In 1956, he believed he was called to the ministry. With the help of Dr. James Ragland, a Southern Baptist missionary working in Lebanon at the time, he planted a church in the Ras Beirut area of the city of Beirut. On June 7, 1957, he married Nawal Anis Haddad. They had four sons, Charles ^{[http://ifl.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=Intl_Arabic&JServSessionIdr009=swt2zqcxm2.app5b]} (1958), William (1961), Dori (1967) and Roy ^{[http://www.roy.costabrothers.net/]} (1972). In 1959, he was ordained as the pastor of this fledgling church. He then, having finished his sophomore year at Haigazian College ^{[http://www.haigazian.edu.lb/]} , went to the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary ^{[http://www.abtslebanon.org]} to pursue a diploma in Theology. He was elected president of the Lebanese Baptist Convention in 1963-1965. In 1970, on the thirteenth anniversary of his selection as pastor of the Ras Beirut Baptist Church, he resigned. He went back to Haigazian College to complete a B.A. degree in English literature which he completed in 1971. He oversaw the work of Clarion Publishing House until December 1975 when he had to flee the Lebanese civil war. During the first few months of the war, the family home was burglarized and bombed. He took his family and went to Jordan from where the whole family immigrated to the United States in 1976. After living in Mobile, Alabama for a few months upon arrival, he moved to the Northeast and pastored an evangelical group of Arabic-speaking Christians in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. He lived in south New Jersey until his death.

Joseph Costa died on May 8, 1989 from complications related to cancer and is buried in Blackwood, New Jersey.

During his life he translated a number of books into the Arabic language including the musical Christmas Cantata "Night of Miracles" by John W. Peterson. He translated many of the classical hymns to Arabic such as, "I Don't Know About Tomorrow," "On a Hill Far Away," "Cum Bya My Lord," and many others. His lyrics can be found on Intisar ^{[http://www.intisar.org]} (or "Victory") website. He also authored a number of books: "Apples of Gold" vol. 1 & 2, "Explosive Letters", "Personalities of the Bible", "Removing the Mask", "Christ is Coming Again", "Marriage: Heaven or Hell", "The Bible: Is It The Word of God?"

He was a widely used conference speaker in the US, Canada, Australia and the Middle East. He was heard weekly on "The Hour of the Harvest" the Arabic broadcast of LifeWord ^{[http://www.lifeword.org/radio/programs.html]} (a ministry of the Baptist Missionary Association of America). The broadcast was heard in the Middle East on TransWorld Radio ^{[http://www.twr.org/]} broadcasting from Monaco and Cyprus from 1977-1989, and currently on HCJB Broadcasting ^{[http://www.hcjb.org/]} from London.

His sermons can still be heard posthumously at ArabicBible.com ^{[http://www.arabicbible.com/audio/costa.htm]} and his books and sermons in text and audio are available on The-Livingword.com ^{[http://www.the-livingword.com]} .
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