Slide 8: QUEEN OF SHEBA – WISDOM MEETS ROYALTY

•   950 BC

•  1 Kings 10:1–13 / 2 Chronicles 9:1–12

•  Sheba = Ethiopia (or Saba/Sabaean culture in South Arabia with African-Ethiopian ties)

•  African queen visited Solomon, praised God, and exchanged wealth and wisdom

• “Africa didn’t come to take—she came with glory and questions.”

 9: CUSHITE WARRIORS & MESSENGERS IN SCRIPTURE

•  9th–7th century BC

•  2 Kings 19:9 / Isaiah 18:1–2 / Jeremiah 13:23

•  Cush = modern Sudan/Ethiopia

•  Cushite soldiers fought in key battles; Isaiah calls them “tall and smooth-skinned people” who bring tribute to the Lord

• “Africa marched in prophecy, not in chains.”

 10: AFRICAN NATIONS IN END-TIME PROPHECIES

•  Throughout prophetic books

•  Isaiah 11:11 / Zephaniah 3:10 / Ezekiel 30:4-9

•  Cush, Egypt, Libya, Seba, Put, and others are mentioned in God’s redemptive plan

•  Africans are seen returning to worship, not forgotten in judgment or salvation

• “Africa was never outside God's plan—she was always part of the promise.”

11: THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH – FIRST AFRICAN CHRISTIAN CONVERT

•  1st Century AD

•  Acts 8:26–39

•  Ethiopian royal official, reading Isaiah, baptized by Philip

•  A Black African was among the first to receive the gospel and take it back to Africa

• “The gospel went south before it ever went west.”

 12: EARLY AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY – ROOTED BEFORE ROME

•  1st–4th Century AD

•  Egypt, Ethiopia, Nubia

•  Matthew 2:13–15 (Holy Family fled to Egypt), Acts 2:10 (Egypt and Libya at Pentecost)

•  Ethiopia was one of the first Christian nations (before Constantine); Coptic Church, Axum Empire, Nubian Christianity thrived

• “Christianity is not a white man’s religion—it bloomed in Africa before Europe believed.”

13: AFRICAN CHURCH FATHERS – THEOLOGY’S BLACK FOUNDATIONS

•  2nd–5th Century AD

•  Tertullian (Carthage), Origen (Alexandria), Augustine (Hippo)

•  These thinkers shaped the core doctrines of Christianity: the Trinity, grace, salvation, theology of the church

• “Africa wrote the faith that Europe later claimed.”