Thursday, June 10, 2010

Whoa, History! It's ALIVE!!

This is a blog about history.

Or it could be about the really crazy awesome feeling you get when you realize that you can point to something current that is a direct result of something specific that happend a long long time ago and really far away.

.....or something like that.

So, a while ago I was reading a rather awesome book called 'Jesus Wants to Save Christians'. (Again, this is a blog about history). Anyway, a certain chapter of the book discusses an incident recorded in the Bible of an Ethiopian slave who happened to be on his way home to Ethiopia from Jerusalem. (It is important to note that he was not just any slave, he was an official under the Queen, and was in charge of the treasury of the country.) The story in the Bible (recorded in Acts, Chapter 8) tells how Philip, one of the first Apostles meets with this Ethiopian and explains the scriptures to him so that the Ethiopian man becomes a believer and is baptized.

It's just a little piece of history, and if you accept the Bible, then from this you can suppose that this is the story of the first Ethiopian Christian and you might assume that this man went home and shared his faith. Maybe, maybe not. Is it really any big deal?

In any case, it was a big deal to me. I've read this story before, years ago, but I was so excited when I read it again a few weeks ago. I have a friend that I know from work. He moved to America from Ethiopia a few years ago. He is an Orthodox Christian and his name is Efrem. His name is significant because "Ephraim" is a name in the Bible. Joseph (think, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) had a son named Ephraim, and my friend Efrem is named after Josephs' son. (He is, I asked him about it.)

I just thought it was amazing to read about this tiny passage in the Bible about one man becoming a Christian over 2000 years ago, and here today, I know a man who is from that same country and he is a Christian today. I felt like I was witnessing time travel. So many years ago, one man went home to Ethiopia with a new faith, and right now, today, I can see that that mans faith lives on in his countrymen, even more than 2000 years later.

That is just really cool to me. Anyway, "that's all I have to say about that". Farewell, till tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. Aw, this is a sweet story. I am actually an atheist but I still appreciate the history in the story. FYI I have seen Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat though! <3

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  2. That's a really cool story. I love finding connections between seemingly distant things! Thanks for sharing it. <3

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