The Christian church in Ethiopia is without question among the oldest in the world. Its history as a formal ecclesiastical presence can be traced back to 333 AD making Ethiopia the second oldest Christian country in the world. Around 70% of all Ethiopians claim Christianity in some form or fashion as their official religion – which puts them on statistical par with the United States. However, they appear to take that religion more seriously than Americans do. A 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 98% of Ethiopians considered religion to be “very important” in their lives, compared to only 52% in the United States.
How did Ethiopia become so thoroughly Christianized? Acts 8:25-40 may give us part of the answer. It is there that one of the stories of Philip the Evangelist is told. Philip was among the first deacons of the church who was so used by the Holy Spirit that he was performing miracles, signs and wonders among the people in Samaria (Acts 8:4-8). At one point, an Angel of the Lord told him to go to a road in the desert between Jerusalem and Gaza. Like his spiritual father Abraham, Philip doesn’t ask any questions but goes where the angel told him to go. There he meets a high official from the court of the Ethiopian Queen, Candace. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, which suggests that he was either a Jewish proselyte, or he had become familiar enough with the Jewish religion to either have a genuine desire to worship, or to engage in some kind of diplomatic geopolitical deference to the religion of the area on behalf of his queen. The official was a eunuch, meaning that he had been castrated so that he could be, among other things, trusted to refrain from sexually engaging female royals. Such a position in the court had a robust potential to be influential. Philip noted that the official was reading from the book of Isaiah, so he used that opportunity to tell him about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The official was convinced by Philip’s evangelism. He requested an immediate baptism, and Philip obliged the request. The spirit then carried Philip to a different area, and the official went on his way rejoicing in the good news he had learned.
The bible doesn’t tell us the rest of the eunuch’s story, but it is reasonable to assume that he went back to Ethiopia and evangelized the people around him. Archeological evidence strongly suggests that there was a potent enough Christian presence in the area prior to the establishment of a state church to warrant the construction of a basilica in time for the state's sanctioning of the religion. The work of Philip paved the way for the arrival of Christian thought, and the official he evangelized probably carried the first elements of Christian wisdom along that way.
What are you doing to evangelize the people who don’t yet know the importance of Jesus.
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