Park Jin-young has addressed how he can teach the Bible without a pastoral degree, saying the pastors he knows have all told him it is fine.
According to Star News on October 18, the singer-producer answered the question in a shorts video posted to his YouTube channel Firstfruits (첫열매들) on October 16, titled “You don’t have a pastoral degree, do you…”
Asked whether someone without a pastoral degree may teach the Bible, Park replied: “The pastors all say it’s fine. They always add at the end: study hard.”
Park said he reviewed every seminary and found Dallas Theological Seminary’s doctrine the closest to how Firstfruits views the Bible — though even it, he said, does not separate Paul’s gospel from the atonement gospel as sharply as his group does.
He also explained why he never attended seminary: Paul, who received a systematic education, called everything he learned there “dung” (his word, citing scripture) — so, Park concluded, “The Bible isn’t something you learn in a systematic educational institution — you learn it naturally through fellowship.”
The remarks revisit a long-running religious controversy. In 2018, reports surfaced that Park had attended a Salvation Sect gathering, sparking backlash; Park has repeatedly rebutted that he is a believer of the sect.
Park has said his Bible study deepened after a visit to Jerusalem, with a small study group eventually growing into the Firstfruits church. Asked about denomination, he previously described it as “no denomination, just a religious study.”
