Joseph Costa

Who is Joseph Costa?

Joseph Massoud Costa was a widely known evangelical preacher from the Middle East.

Joseph, born "Yousef", was the third of six children, born to Massoud Yousef Costa and Saada Simaan Ghantous. A self-made man, Costa took on the surrogate responsibilities for his father who often gambled and came home penniless. As a teenager, Costa 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, William, Dori and Roy. In 1959, he was ordained as the pastor of this fledgling church. He then, having finished his sophomore year at Haigazian College, went to the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary 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.