Ethiopia had the opportunity to hear and receive the gospel of Christ in the early morning of church history, from one of the original disciples of Christ.

This was a time when many great nations and civilizations of today did not even exist. And he gave orders to stop the chariot.

Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. (Acts 8:38-39)

We see how salvation came to Ethiopia, through an Ethiopian eunuch who recognized Jesus as the Messiah whom Isaiah speaks about. But after he was saved and returned to Ethiopia, what did he do? Was he a witness for the salvation of others? Was the Gospel spread throughout the Earth through him? Was the Church of Christ planted? The Bible does not tell us, and nothing in history has been recorded about it.

Although the gospel entered Ethiopia through an Ethiopian eunuch in the first century, church history is unknown in Ethiopia until the fourth century. Until then, kings and the people worshiped pagan gods and even serpents.

They worshiped the gods of the moon, the sun, and the earth. Inscriptions and symbols in stone monuments found during their reign are evidence of this History says that Christianity entered Ethiopia during the reign of King lzana in 330 AD.

Like other kings, he was known for his devotion to various gods. But at the end of his life he converted to Christianity, as evidenced by the statues found at the end of his reign. Instead of being called the son of the moon god, he uses the name of the Lord of the earth.

Further evidence is that during his reign, the engraved symbol of the moon on monuments and money was replaced by the cross. This shows that he abandoned paganism and finally worshiped the true God.

This happened when the Syrian missionary Frumentius came to preach the gospel in the Ethiopian king’s palace. Frumentius converted the king and many others to Christianity, starting the Ethiopian Church in the “early morning” of Christianity. Of course, this is not just a matter of Ethiopians making a name for ourselves.

This special time in our history, when our nation embraced Christianity, is not just an event to be registered but a tool to change the world. God wants Ethiopia to be the fulfillment of God’s history and also the ones who fulfill God’s history. We Ethiopians are a beacon for Africa, and it was God’s intention for us to be a light and a blessing to Europe, Asia, and the world.

But right now this is not the reality in Ethiopia. We, who have heard the gospel centuries before, may say that the Lord has given the church a call to go make disciples of all nations.

We may say that we must fulfill the great commission and go to countries that have not yet heard the gospel, and that we should bring the kingdom of God to them. But many centuries after the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts, when Western missionaries came to Ethiopia, what was our response? “We do not need the Bible from you, we already have the Bible. What we really need are weapons, come and make weapons. Come teach us and train us in various technologies.

Employ us in industry and develop us to be workers. And we lost our chance to take spiritual leadership in the kingdom.
But just as God chose Israel out of all the peoples of the world to be a light to others, so he chose Ethiopia Ethiopian Christianity is old but slow in practice.

The gospel was preached in Ethiopia for the last 2000 years, without sending out missionaries. But in Korea, the gospel which was preached for the past 150 years, has gone out to the whole world!