In one Christmas lectionary reading of the begets from the Matthew genealogy, one of the present authors stunned some sleepy saints and woke up the kids by explaining that the begets were all about sex. The families of Scriptures do not always treat each other fairly. Jacob cheats his older hairy brother Esau out of his birthright for a bowl of porridge; his father-in-law Laban cheats him on his wedding night; Jacob returns the chicanery with his flocks and so on. African-American family comedy spills over with religious significance, much of authentic African-American Christian faith being compromised and distorted. The community of Green Pastures, while stereotypical and patronizing in many regards, moving from a perpetual fish fry to harp playing, communicates a curiously comic rendering of Bible stories such as Adam, Noah, and Moses. Briggs concludes that the film's gospel doctrine is more akin to popular theology than all the official film versions of the Bible.