LESSONS FROM AFRICA

 

LESSONS FROM AFRICA

C. A. O. Essien lived in Nigeria. He began reading his Bible for himself and discovered that what he read in the New Testament did not match what he was hearing from denominational missionaries who came to his country. In time, through the providence of God, he made contact with the Lawrence Avenue Church of Christ in Nashville, TN (which, I believe, is now the Concord Road Church of Christ in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville). Bible teaching materials were sent to him. By the grace of God, C. A. O. Essien came to a knowledge of the truth, confessed his faith in Christ and was baptized for the remission of his sins as Peter preached in Acts 2:38. He began teaching and preaching the New Testament way to others and churches of Christ were formed in Nigeria. Faithful missionaries came from the U. S. and the church continued to grow in Nigeria. I have personally known some of those missionaries. The church became strong in Nigeria and to the best of my knowledge it is still strong.

I have related the preceding from my memory of what I have read about how the undenominational church of the New Testament came to be in Nigeria. Early volumes of PREACHERS OF TODAY contain biographical sketches of brother Essien and I have read those. His account of how the Lord's church came to be in Nigeria is essentially as I have stated above. I still have all but the first volume of PREACHERS OF TODAY (which was published while I was still in high school), though they are now in storage and I do not have direct access to them where I now live. My point is that “the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11), and wherever that seed is planted anywhere in the world in any age of the world, it will produce now what it produced in the first century: undenominational Christians constituted into autonomous churches of Christ (Acts 11:26; Romans 16:16). The word of God by itself never made a Roman Catholic, an Eastern Orthodox Catholic, a Pentecostal, or any of the multiplicity of protestant denominations or community churches that have come to take up unbiblical and unnecessary space on the religious landscape down through the centuries since the time of Christ and the apostles. Present day churches of Christ owe their origin to the proclamation of and obedience to that same first century message preached on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. The Lord still adds those who have been saved from their sins to His church, just as He did then (Acts 2:47).

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(Note: The following extremely interesting item comes from Tom Wacaster's column “Tom's Pen” of November 1, 2025). “In a recent visit to Tanzania I had the privilege to go with Cy Stafford, Boaz Auma, Don Montgomery and Jonathan McCain to the city of Wanza up on the shores of Lake Victoria. We drove clear across the Serengeti plains in Tanzania and arrived about dark. Boaz found us a place to stay and then told us he was going to find Patrick. Understand this is the second largest city in Tanzania with over a million people and Boaz is on foot setting out at dark to find a man who has no phone and no address. About three hours later Boaz returned to where we were staying and announced, 'I have found Patrick and have gotten the address to Isaac’s house. We will go there in the morning.' (Patrick is the adopted son of Francis and Margaret Wechesa). Well, my first question was, 'Boaz, how in the world did you find Patrick?' Boaz replied, 'I tracked him down through his Bible studies. I asked a man if they knew Patrick and he told me he did not know the man’s name but there was a fellow who was teaching the gospel in that area and he gave me directions to the street where he had been teaching and I went there. I talked to others who had heard him and eventually found someone who knew where he lived.' Unbelievable!! A million people, one fellow, no phone, no address, dark at night - go figure!! Only in Africa.”

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Let us pray that godly men and their families will continue to have their spirits “stirred/provoked” (see Acts 17:16) to go to those areas of the world, both in the United States and abroad, where the pure gospel has not been preached and where there is no church of the New Testament order, settle there, and bring people to the Lord. Let us also pray that large, financially able congregations of Christ will send these men and their families, supporting them not only financially but in every other way as well.

Hugh Fulford