The truth that Awakened Brother (we will call him AB) needs to wake up to is that Africans were present as active participants at the very inception of the church on the Day of Pentecost. On that Day, thousands gathered to witness the Disciples receive the gift of the Spirit and speak in tongues. Among those gathered were men from Egypt, Libya and Cyrene (Acts 2). These were Black Africans.
They stood fearlessly, shoulder to shoulder with their European, Asian and Jewish brothers, listening to the Gospel proclaimed by the apostle Peter. Of the 3000 who got saved that day, there is no doubt that a good percentage of them were African. The first African Christians. African Pentecostals to be exact.
And so 1600 years before the first Black man was ever put in chains of slavery, we see free Black men receiving the Gospel and being incorporated as part of the newly-inaugurated Church.
Six chapters later we read about “a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Queen Candace” converting to Christianity and being baptized by the disciple Phillip (Acts 8). Bear in mind that the name Ethiopia in scripture is generic and refers to all of Africa south of Egypt, not just the little piece of real estate we currently call Ethiopia.
So once again, we see a free Black man freely giving his life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, some 1600 years before slavery. What do you think this Ethiopian eunuch, as well as the African converts at Pentecost, did after getting saved? Of course they went back to their home countries and evangelized their own.
And to augment the work of these first African evangelists, the apostle Mark travelled from Jerusalem to Alexandria in 60A.D. to formalize the work of God that had already begun there. The city of Alexandria is located on the northeast coast of Africa.
The fact that St Mark, a Jewish apostle, went to Africa, not Europe, as a missionary is interesting, especially when you consider that the first evidence of Christianity in England is from the late 2nd century AD.
Clearly the Gospel arrived in Africa long before it ever got to Europe. Christianity existed in North Africa long before there was the Church of England!
via Other religions plagiarized Christianity, not the other way round – Nehanda Radio.
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