“Preachers of L.A.” returned on Wednesday, Aug. 20, for a second season and it was packing a whole lot of heat, literally.
Bishop Ron Gibson is one of the six ministers featured on the Oxygen reality TV show and boy, is he bringing the heat. During a meeting among the ministers at Bishop Noel Jones’ swanky crib, Gibson showed up with a gun.
“Bishop Noel Jones lives in a very affluent neighborhood. I have been to the beach out there and was called the N-word. Prior to this meeting, I was driving my Ferrari, which doesn’t have a GPS or navigator, and got lost. I asked some people at the gas station if they knew where X-street is. I recall, last year, my buddy Marvin Winans was robbed at a gas station. I [vowed] it wouldn’t happen to me. In California, the law allows you to carry a weapon, if you qualify. I qualify. More so, the Bible allows you to carry a weapon. In Luke 22:38, when Jesus was getting ready to go to the Garden of Gethsemane … back then they didn’t have Glocks, they had swords. The fact that the scripture is Luke 22:38, Jesus allows you to have a 22 and a 38,” explains the former leader of the Los Angeles Crip gang.
Gibson pastors The Life of Church of God in Christ, which has 4,000 members. This writer affectionately calls him Rhyming Ron because he delivers some punchy isms. In fact, they’ve repurposed one of my favorite sayings of his in this season’s tagline: “You see their glory, but you don’t know their story.”
During a recent visit to Atlanta for a private screening of episode 1, I caught up with the svelte Gibson and asked him about self-preservation, which includes eating right, meditation and prayer, and expressing love.
- “Your body is your temple. You must be careful not to eat the wrong kinds of food. You are what you eat. You have to live a healthy lifestyle so you can serve God effectively.”
- “The Bible says in Luke 18:1, men are to always pray and not faint. With all the drudgery, racism, sexism, social classes, isms and schisms, you must pray. Understand, prayer is dialogue between God and us. Prayer is important for us to receive our directives on how to live.”
- “Love is the greatest of all. Regardless of the differences that we have, love covers a multitude of thoughts. What the world needs now I believe is more love. Not any kind of love, but unconditional love, the love the God has toward us. He looked beyond our thoughts, saw our needs and sacrificed himself. He sowed himself that He might reap a family and here we are today because of that unconditional love of Jesus Christ. John 3:16 says, ‘God so loved the world, He gave his only begotten son.’ He so loved that whosoever, whether you are black, yellow, red, brown or white, we’re all precious in His sight. Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
