CHURCH HISTORY: CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A WHITE MAN'S RELIGION Pt.2

Whenever I read my Bible, I see Africans that were used by God. While the print media in Africa tries to paint my Bible as a Eurocentric book that was used to enslave Africans, I see my Bible as the authoritative Word of God that reveals His all inclusive redemptive plan for all people, Africans inclusive.

Most of those who fall for the lies spread against Christianity as being of white origin do not know the Bible, neither do they know her history. Every preacher must know history and use it as a tool to reinforce the truth. It is worth stating again: Christianity is not a white man's religion.

Africans have been Christians for as long as Christianity began. Before Pentecost, there were followers of Jesus and Judaism, and after Pentecost, there were Christians of African origin. In fact, the earliest Africans who became Christians got to know Jesus and His salvation long before a European preached the Gospel to them.

It may surprise you to know that long before Paul entered Europe to preach the Gospel, God already saved an African who took Christianity to Africa. A high official from Ethiopia, black, powerful, a eunuch, reading Isaiah. Philip was sent to him, not the other way round. This Ethiopian eunuch returned to Africa rejoicing, and church history records that he evangelized the kingdom of Kush.

Irenaeus in the 2nd century wrote that Ethiopia was already a Christian nation because of him. Long before missionaries came to Africa, an African missionary was taking the Gospel back to Africa. He did not wait for a European missionary to preach the Gospel to his people, he did it himself.

God did not evangelize Africa as an afterthought. He evangelized Africa by an African.

Let us look deeper at what God did through Ethiopia, because this is a heritage many Africans do not know.

The Ethiopian eunuch was not a small man. He was the treasurer of Queen Candace of Ethiopia. He had charge of all her treasure. He had traveled over 2,000 miles to Jerusalem to worship. That alone tells you that the God of Israel was already known and honoured in Africa before the New Testament church began.

When Philip opened Isaiah 53 to him and preached Jesus, the eunuch believed and was baptized in water on the road. He went on his way rejoicing. But his rejoicing did not end on that road. According to early church writers, he carried the Gospel back to his nation and planted the seed that would grow into one of the oldest Christian civilizations in the world.

That seed grew. By the 4th century, the Kingdom of Aksum, in what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea, had openly embraced Christianity under King Ezana around the year 330. Ezana made Christianity the official religion of his empire. This was before many European nations ever heard the name of Jesus. While Rome was still struggling with persecution and compromise, an African king was already putting the cross on his coins.

God also sent Frumentius, a young Christian from Tyre who had been shipwrecked on the coast of Aksum, to disciple the king. Frumentius later became the first bishop of Ethiopia, ordained by Athanasius of Alexandria. This shows the beautiful connection of African Christianity. It was not Europe teaching Africa. It was Africa teaching Africa, with Alexandria, Ethiopia, and Nubia strengthening one another.

From Aksum, Ethiopia built a Christian culture that has lasted for more than 1,600 years without break. The Ethiopian church translated the Bible into Ge'ez, one of the oldest languages of Africa, long before the Bible was translated into English. The monks of Ethiopia preserved ancient manuscripts, some of which the rest of the world had lost. In Lalibela, in the 12th and 13th centuries, King Lalibela carved eleven churches out of solid rock, downward into the ground, as a new Jerusalem for African pilgrims who could not travel to the Middle East. Those rock churches still stand today.

Even today, Ethiopia remains a living witness. It was one of the few African nations never fully colonized, and its church never died. Its worship, its fasting, its hymns, and its love for Scripture are a direct line back to that one eunuch who read Isaiah on a chariot and met Jesus on the road.

So when someone tells you that Christianity came to Africa by colonial ships, tell them the truth. Christianity came to Africa by an African chariot. It came by an African treasurer, to an African kingdom, and it stayed.

You are not a stranger to this faith. You are an heir of it. Are you waiting for foreigners to bring revival, or will you take it to your own people? This is one of the aims of missions: to evangelize&disciple indigenous peoples who in turn will re evangelize&disciple their own people.

*Prayer:* Father, like the Ethiopian, give me hunger for Your Word and boldness to carry Your joy to my people. Amen.