Micah Price got his high-school diploma on Wednesday — five days after the rest of his classmates.

And Jesus was the reason.

The Kentucky teenager had his diploma withheld for professing his Baptist faith in his graduation-ceremony closing speech.

Mr. Price went off his approved script at the Campbell County High School commencement on May 24.

According to Cincinnati CBS affiliate WKRC, citing Superintendent Shelli Wilson, the school had approved “I must give the honor, and the praise and the glory to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” at the beginning of the speech and no further religious references.

But that wasn’t what happened.

“My Lord and Savior is your answer,” Mr. Price continued as part of a minute-long testimony. “Class, everyone in the audience today, I’m here to tell you if you don’t have any of those things in your life, you can’t seem to find the answer, my Lord and Savior is your answer. He will give you the truth, the way and the life.”

The teen told Northern Kentucky Fox affiliate WXIX-19 on Wednesday that when he went to get his diploma, a principal tapped him on the shoulder and said it’d be withheld.

“I knew it was going to be held,” he said. “Before you do anything, they tell us if you go up there and do a cartwheel or something stupid, that will get your diploma held.”

And according to Mr. Price, he knew the school didn’t want him to mention religion. He had submitted eight drafts and was told to take out religion-focused sections.

Despite that, the teen said he had to testify anyway.

“I simply cannot hold back what Christ has done in my life,” Mr. Price, a Baptist who underwent a “born again” experience in the eighth grade, told WXIX. “He’s everything to me.”

Mr. Price told the station he will join the Air Force in July and that the diploma flap has him considering ministry.