GOD’S GENERALS IN AFRICA,

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

Rev. Dr. Ezekiel A. Ajibade
(Teaching Delivered at the 4th Annual Opened Bible Conference, Ogbomoso, Nigeria,
held between July 14-16, 2017)

Text Acts: 17:16-31

INTRODUCTION
God is good at arranging opportunities for us to take a vantage view of life and have a critical
analysis and understanding of some issues. Such was the experience of Paul when he had to
be smuggled out of Thessalonica to Berea, and later hustled to Athens for fear of the Jews
(17:1-15). He was to wait for Silas and Timothy to join him at Athens and while he did that,
his inquisitive spirit caught something. Verse 16 says, “While Paul was waiting for them in
Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the
synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by
day with those who happened to be there.” Paul got a good opportunity to see something
that looks perplexing to him, and he would not go without addressing it.

We have also come here this weekend to see and hear something. I love NKJV’s word for
Paul’s reaction. He was not just “greatly distressed,” he was “provoked” when he saw the
situation of Athens. The Greek word used in that place actually means to stimulate, to
provoke to wrath, or to irritate. What got him to this level of emotional and spiritual agitation?
He saw a people who had great potentials because God has blessed them with great men –
philosophers with all kinds of knowledge, but their knowledge drove a wedge between them
and God instead of helping them to fulfil their destinies. So he had to address them – “Men
of Athens...” (Verse 17). Those were the men of today and the progenitors of tomorrow. The
men of yesterday left a legacy of idolatry for them and Paul wondered if this is what they
would leave behind for the coming generation.

Men and women of Africa who are gathered here today, the big questions God will be asking
us also is, what did the men of yesterday leave behind for us, what are the men and women
of today doing and what will the generation unborn inherit from us? Let us look at these four
truths in the passage especially as we study from verses 22-31.

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1. Humans are always the Custodian of Knowledge for any Generation (Vrs
22—23)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see
that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully
at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN
UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to
proclaim to you.
Paul recognised what it means to be among these “Men of Athens.” The Greeks have
produced real great men like Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Anaximander, Empedocles, Zeno,
Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle among others. These philosophers’ contribution to
knowledge are still being celebrated till today and their names may just never go into
extinction. You cannot talk about theatre, poetry, democracy, sport (including the famous
Olympic Games) and philosophy without the Greeks. In Paul’s days, there were still the
Epicurean and Stoic Philosophers (verse 18). The Epicureans were influential and are among
the educated upper classes. Their views about God were similar to deism, that is, God is not
involved in the universe and is irrelevant. If there were any gods at all, they were only those
which are known through sense knowledge such as stars or planets. For them the goal of life
was pleasure – a situation where there are no pains or emotional troubles. The Stoics were
known to be more popular. They were opposed to pleasure and often criticized the
Epicureans. However, the biggest legacy that these men, their philosophies and the culture
of their times handed over to upcoming generations was idolatry. After setting up an idol for
every gods, they created one for a god which they might have missed out in their ignorance.
That was why Paul was provoked in his spirit as he pondered the situation of the city of
Athens.

There is no generation and nation of people without men (and women) as Paul saw in Athens.
Africans have had “men” and they would continue to have. I have records chronicling the
great achievements of Africans, proving that the black world is the very inventor of what is
called the “western civilisation.” The Kemets are the black Egyptians and it is a common
knowledge that civilisation began in Egypt. Several elements of civilisation are traced to them.
This include plant domestication as far back as 16,000 BC, writing (hieroglyphics, demotic,
alphabet), balance and scale, the Calendar (civil and astronomical), the wheel, Pythagoras
theorem (before Pythagoras took it to Greece), coordinates, oldest record of sea-going sheep
and the oldest map in the world. Others are the oldest example of large scale metal sculpture,
stone-paved road, gun powder, gilder plane, atomic theory, heliocentricity and gravitation,
oldest textbook on anatomy, pulse taking, bone setting techniques, and oldest book on
embalming.

If these are attributed to a particular set of Africans in a geographical region (North), then let
us move to other places around Africa for other records.
- There were African astronomical observatories, one as far back as 300BC in Kenya
- Africans in the Lake Victoria region were making carbon-steel 1,500 years ago
- Tetracycline was used 1,400 years ago in Nubia.

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 - The Bantu were using aspirin centuries ago.
- A smallpox vaccine was brought to the USA by the African slave Onesimus, as reported
by his master, Cotton Mather (1663-1728).
- Africans were performing eye cataract surgery in Mali in the 14th century, as reported
by the Arabs.
- What is probably the first drug to treat hypertension and psychotic disorder—
reserpine—was developed by Africans.
- African navigation was far more sophisticated than assumed. Carthaginian-type
vessels were found on the Niger. Phoenician and Egyptian-type vessels were found on
the African edge of the Indian Ocean.
- While ice still covered much of Europe, Africans in the floodplains of the Nile were
raising crops of wheat, barley, lentils, chick-peas, capers and dates.
- Africans in the Kenyan Highlands had domesticated cattle some 15,000 years ago.
- In the Black Egypt of the pharaohs, pyramid-building architects were using co-
ordinates to draw a curve, some 5,000 years ago. Descartes introduced the use of co-
ordinates to European science only in the 17th century.

This was why Matthew Ashimolowo questioned in a book, What is Wrong with Being Black?
What is wrong with a people who built the first civilisation in the first 3,000 – 4,000 years of
humanity? What is wrong with the wealthiest continent in the world but also with the poorest
people in the world? He suggested like many others who have studied the situation with
Africa, that idolatry was one of our biggest problems. That is one of the greatest problems of
the Greeks too. Paul wondered how a God who made the heaven and earth and everything
in it, and confirmed by these same Greek through their own poets, would now look like an
object like gold or silver or stone or something made by man’s design and skill (vrs 29). If we
are his offspring, then we must look like him and he must looks like us, though a higher,
Supreme and Spirit being. Idolatry is terrible. It makes human beings look foolish however
intelligent they may be, it makes us to mock God by misrepresenting his being, and it makes
us attribute the nature and work of God to the material things he has created. It is just a
demonstration of complete ignorance (Vrs 30).

But the first truth is that we must know that every nation and men have men and women
who contributed and would (could) contribute greatly to its knowledge and the products of
knowledge like the Greek Philosophers did in our passage.

2. Every Human Being took their Roots from the Blood of Adam (26)
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth;
Whether Greek, Jews, Americans, Europeans, Asians or the Aborigines, Caucasians,
Hispanics, Arabs, Africans, all human beings on earth came from one man made in the image
of God called Adam. Africans did not descend from apes. Africa is not a cursed race. Africans
have been brutalised and bastardised as animals and substandard human race. Its resources
has been exploited and pillaged for centuries. Its people have been enslaved again and
again. It is believed that colonisation was what liberated them from darkness. Take the
following assertions about Africans for example:

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 “The Negro nation are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little
[that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb
animals.” -Ibn Khaldun, 14th century Arab historian, philosopher, and sociologist.

“We know that the Zanj (blacks) are the least intelligent and the least discerning of
mankind, and the least capable of understanding the consequences of actions.” -Ibn
Khaldun

Africa “is no historical part of the world", i.e. that it is not in history (Hegel, 1830); and
is the "heart of darkness" (Joseph Conrad, 1902)

Pre-colonial African life was a "blank, uninteresting, brutal barbarism" (Prof. Egerton
of Oxford, 1922)

The thinking of Blacks is pre-logical (Levy-Bruhl, 1910)

“The Negro is a child, and with children nothing can be done without the use of
authority . . .With regard to Negroes, then, I have coined the formula: I am your
brother, it is true, but your elder brother” --Albert Schweitzer, 1921, quoted in David
Lamb, The Africans, New York: Vintage Books, 1985, p. 142

Africans, though men, are “fallen men” (William Wilberforce) 12

“All scientific investigations of the subject proves the Negro to be an ape”—Chas

Carroll, The Negro a beast (1900)

“Slavery has elevated the Negro from savagery”—William Gilmore Simms (1853)
10] “I am apt to suspect the Negroes . . . to be naturally inferior to the whites. There
never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any
individual, eminent either in action or speculation. . . Not to mention our colonies,
there are NEGROE slaves dispersed all over EUROPE, of which none ever discovered
any symptom of ingenuity . . . In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negroe as a man
of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments,
like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.”-- David Hume (1711-1776)
This is why Aime Cesaire, the famous Negritude poet sarcastically wrote,
Hurrah for those who have never invented anything,
those who never explored anything,
those who never tamed anything,
those who give themselves up to the essence of things.

These is never representative of whom God has made man, any man, talk-less of Africans to
be. Every human being made in the image of God Is an intelligent being created like Adam to
be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it and have dominion over all that God had
made. The result of the fall cannot be doubted or denied, but it does not alter the geniuses
of humanity. Right from the Scripture till the world ends, the only limitation a man or woman
or a nation or people can have is the limitation they impose on themselves.

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3. Our Times and Boundaries are Deliberately Established by God (26)
…and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should
live.
God placed every man where they belong and he was deliberate. Yes, there was a time human
beings were dispersed at the tower of Babel as a result of rebellion (Genesis 11). Interestingly
it was all humans that did. It had nothing to do with race, colour or people. What each person
did with where they found themselves after that was and is what matters.

Africa as a continent was not an accident. Whatever your nation, tribe, culture, language,
colour or shape are never by accident. While it is true that some environment limits or gives
you more opportunity than the other, the glory and genius of God in us have no limit. Psalm
8:3-8 says
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which
you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that
you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned
him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put
everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of
the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
In other words, the majesty of God is often demonstrated when man (in its generic form)
occupies his responsible position in the structure of creation and exhibits his crown of glory
and honour which God himself has bestowed on him.

It would have been the greatest joy of God to see us in our geographical boundaries, within
our cultures, doing great with what God has deposited in us. But our fallen humanity would
always make us oppress each other and limit us unnecessarily. John C. Maxwell once
observed that there are some species of fish that will grow according to the size of their
environment. If you put them in a tiny aquarium, they will remain small even at adulthood.
But you release them into a huge natural body of water, and you will see them grow to
their intended size. It is the same with people. If they live in a harsh and limiting
environment, they stay small and limited. But when you put them somewhere else that
encourages their growth, they will expand to reach their potential. Nothing is wrong with
the people in themselves, but when their environment is managed in a way that it does not
let them grow, the result is always what we see in many parts of Africa today.

In history Africans have blessed the world and the still are. Do you know that even as
oppressed as African Americans are, by 1913, they already own over a thousand inventions
in science and technology that were patented in the US? Few examples are
- Elijah McCoy (1844 – 1929) - automatic lubrication for steam engines.
- McCoy Jan Matzeliger - first machine for mass-producing shoes

- Granville Woods (1856-1910), “the Black Edison” - invented improvements to electric

railways, air brakes, the telephone and the telegraph, a chicken egg incubator and an
apparatus for an amusement park ride.

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 - Lewis Latimer (1848-1928)- inexpensive cotton-thread filament which made electric
light practical for homes.

- Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894) - vacuum evaporator for turning cane juice into white
sugar crystals

- Lewis Temple (1800-1854) - movable harpoon head which revolutionized the whaling
industry.

In the twentieth century we have examples of African-American scientists like George

Washington Carver (1864-1943) who invented three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds
more uses for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes. We have Charles Drew (1904-1950), the
first person to develop the blood bank. We have inventors like Frederick McKinley Jones
(1893-1961); Otis Boykin (1920-1982), and Meredith Gourdine (1929-1998). These are just to
mention a few and these are facts that can be confirmed without stress.

Africans who went by immigration to different places in the world too have proven they are
not apes but are as intelligent if not more intelligent than the communities they found
themselves. We at home are not doing bad either. We can mention name by our fingertips. It
is just that the atmosphere to rival what we called the advanced nations of the world has not
been created by our leaders yet. You will do well to read an article Ayo Olukotun in the Punch
of Friday June 30, 2017 (Back page), titled “Disorder At Home, Excellence Abroad?” He wrote
it as a response to issues arising from last month’s making of history when seven Nigerian
were elected into the British parliament. It is thought provoking. In contemporary Africa we
can still celebrate great political leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Obafemi Awolowo, Nelson
Mandela. We can celebrate great scholars of repute like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe,
several Nobel laureates and several individuals and groups who have contributed to
knowledge and advancement of the world and are being celebrated at home and abroad. You
can’t brush Africa aside in the entertainment industry either.

4. The Ultimate Purpose of it all is to Discover God in His Full Reality

(Vrs 27-28)
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him,
though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our
being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
God placed us here to seek and find him. Our ultimate goal should be knowledge of him and
knowledge of our destiny in him. We already have a connection with him. Even while the
Greeks were wallowing in their empty philosophy, idolatry and ignorance of who God his,
their own poets through the instrumentality of general revelation have sang, 'For in him we
live and move and have our being… 'We are his offspring.'

Before the advent of Christianity, African knew about the Supreme God but they lacked an
adequate revelation of his essence and how to worship him. No wonder they ended up in
idolatry and its attending effects. Thank God for the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ

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that brought a change. Africa has always been a bastion of the knowledge of God. It is a
continent gifted with men and woman who have sought God and found him in times past and
are doing so till today. When you hear of great church fathers as Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian,
Augustine of Hippo, they were all Africans – great Christians, great preachers and teachers
who laid a strong foundation for the theology of the church till today. Unfortunately the early
African church could not survive the onslaught of the vandals in the 6th century because it did
not identify with the common people. It was not an indigenised church, it was a Latin church.
Some degree of darkness fell over the land for an entire millennium as Islam took over. Some
efforts were made by the Roman Catholics and Protestant missions along the coasts of Africa,
but not until the 19th century did new light begin to dawn.

The mission effort produced Christians but the colonialism that came along with it brought
some resistance that raised the head of some Christians as leaders of their people. Examples
of those early generals were Samuel Ajayi Crowder, Moses Ladejo Stone and D. B. Vincent,
later known as Mojola Agbebi. As more ugly elements of colonialism manifested in the church
and as a reaction to it, indigenous churches began to spring up, under different names and
movements. This was between the 1920s and 1940s. So a combination of nationalistic feeling,
the world wide influenza epidemic, economic depression, desire to evangelize, passion for a
purer form of Christianity and freedom to exercise gifts of leadership, all culminated in the
rise of another set of leadership. This produced men like Moses Orimolade and Christianah
Abiodun Akinsowo; Sophia Odunlami and J. B. Shadare. Others are David Odubanjo, I. B.
Akinyele, Joseph Ayo Babalola, Joseph Osintelu, Major Lawrence, and Garrick Braid. From
other parts of Africa we had William Wade Harris (Liberia), Walter Matiffa (Lesotho), Simeon
Kimbangu (Belgian Congo) and Samson Oppong (Ghana).

A time came around the 1970s when the youths in the church got discontented with the
established churches as they got more exposed to university education, foreign education in
Europe and America and the influence of American evangelists and the kinds of literature
coming into the continent. “Ministries” began to spring up with several proliferations, vibrant
campus fellowships and parachurch groups began to take centre stage. This era, produced
such men as Benson Idahosa, Enoch Adejare Adeboye, W. F. Kumuyi, David Oyedepo, Francis
Wale Oke, Mike Okonkwo, Ayo Oritsejafor, Nicholas Duncan-Williams, Charles Agyin-Asare,
James Saah, Christanah Doe Telter and several others around the continent. This was the era
of the rise of Pentecostalism.

The rise of Pentecostalism and charismatic movements went almost at its peak within past
few decades. While it was thought to be stifling the evangelical and mainline churches, a
reversal has gradually began to set in. Some of the young people who left the evangelical
churches are returning in droves for some reasons. Pentecostalism had great influence on the
mainline churches and many of them also became “alive.” Secondly, a number of the
Pentecostal leaders often cross the bar when they make too much emphasis on prosperity
(health and wealth gospel) and people felt they could not get enough depth of relationship
with the Lord as they wanted. This is coupled with the ostentatious lifestyle that some of them
lived and the hero-worship they promote. Most important of it is that some great leaders
arose in the mainline churches who would offer anything the youth may be looking for out

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there. While some may have been persecuted, they remained in their churches and today,
they are heroes and generals of the kingdom. Examples are Bishop Akinola of the Anglican
Communion, Solomon Ademola Ishola and Supo Ayokunle of the Baptist Convention and
others from various denominations. From both side of the divide, some like Gbile Akanni
floated a teaching ministry and have remained committed to it. Others like Peter Ozodor,
Reuben Ezemadu, remained in mission endeavours. Mike Oye remained with the SU and
never left the Methodist Church. People like Emmanuel Nuhu Kure, Moses Aransiola, Austin
Ukachi maintained their ministries in the prayer and intercession rooms.

Today we have what is called the reverse mission. Since Europe and America who brought the
gospel back to us have gone the way of secularism, God is raising men and women to go back
to this nations again from Africa to evangelise them. Such is the effort of men like Matthew
Ashimolowo and Segun Adelaja. So, Africans have always sought and found God. But it is not
a one-time event. It is a requirement that each generation have to understand in it context
and make sure they fulfil.

What does it mean to seek and find him today? The Greek word “seek” here means to touch,
to feel. It gives an idea of “groping after God in darkness when the light of his full revelation
is not available.” When we find him, great light dawns on us! Seeking and finding him means
we are interested in saying “let your kingdom come, let your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven” (Matt 6:) Seeking and finding him is enjoying the fullness of righteousness, peace,
joy in the Holy Spirit which is the insignia of the kingdom of God. We are far from this in Africa.
When Europe and America sought and found God, they laid the foundation of their nation on
him. They did not only produce “great” men and women of God as we have in Africa, they
produced a decent and orderly society where everyone can realise their potentials as much
as possible. Christianity developed the West. It produced great scientists and inventors and it
revolutionised their society through technology. It produced leaders in the political realm who
helped champion the cause of God’s kingdom in men’s kingdom. Long after many of them
have departed from God, these societies still enjoy relatively, the principles of peace, justice
and prosperity that their fore-fathers laid down. When the West found God, they spread his
aroma around the world through mission activities where billions of their dollars and pounds
were sank into. Many of them died as martyrs to save the world.

God has placed us in this continent at this time too to seek and find him. It is not enough to
produce rich and influential men and woman of God. It is not enough to produce globe-
trotting ministers with their private jets. It is not enough to fill every street with churches and
give people sleepless night with our loud speakers because we are having night vigils. Let God
be seen in every nooks and crannies of Africa. God is neat, beautiful, orderly, decent and holy.
Until our Christianity produce a political revolution that transforms our governmental
systems, we are not there. Until our Christianity produce a clean and healthy environment,
and a decent behaviour rooted in the pure African culture and the power of God’s Word as
we relate with each other, we are not there. Until indiscipline, corruption and insecurity
buries its head in Africa we are not there. Until we find a solution to oppression where the
rich get richer and the poor get poorer, people will not know how beautiful our God is. Seeking
pSeeking and finding God is showcasing the goodness of God in every ramification of life to
the typical African. It is winning the world over to God by our behaviour and the gospel we
preach. Where are the generation of these Seekers? I hope we are! (Psalm 24:1-6).

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5. We can always be God’s Man or Woman for the Moment (30-31)
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people
everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice
by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from
the dead."
Paul gave an awesome conclusion to his message to these “Men of Athens” and it is simple:
Whatever ways you have missed it, God has also overlooked it. You can start again. You can
be God’s man for your time, for your generation. All you need is to repent and be responsible.
See the past as times of ignorance and see the future as an opportunity to give account of a
life well spent.

I see God placing such onus on us too. Let us forget what our fathers and forefathers have
done or have not done well. Let us forget about what we have missed in Africa. Let us ask God
for mercy and genuinely repent of our sins of idolatry, short-sightedness, betrayal of our
kinsmen and women, intertribal wars, ethnic cleansing, irresponsibility, religiosity without
bearing fruit, corruption, bad leadership, selfishness, wasted human and material resources,
inferiority complex and whatever seems to be limiting us. Then let us begin to live responsibly
like men and women who will stand before the judgment sit of Christ to give account of how
we handled things in our own times. The question we should all ask as we leave this place is,
what legacy am I going to leave behind for generations unborn? It starts from you and me. I
have determined that every opportunity God gives to me, I will be an instrument to challenge
every African to live their lives to the full in Christ Jesus. I want to be an agent of
transformation for my continent. I want to be an instrument of revival. I have started and that
is part of the reasons why you are here. What about you? What will you do?

When we rediscover and recover our destiny we will no longer be wrongly described as “those
who have never invented anything, those who never explored anything, those who never
tamed anything, those who give themselves up to the essence of things.” In the words of
Ashimolowo,
Blacks must take pride in the fact they truly built the first civilisation, and that in the
first 3,000-4,000 years of humanity they were not the ones considered backward or
barbaric. Egypt was a land of advanced architecture–the world’s oldest stone
structures are found in ancient Egypt, the great pyramid constitute one of the Seven
Wonders of the World. Africans, the Black Africans, were proficient in mathematics,
medicine, engineering, and agriculture. Black Arabs started algebra, conquered Spain
an Portugal, and carried mathematics to Europe. We have a proud heritage; we can
rise to that height again – with a proper respect for go and each other.

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 RESOURCES

Adamolekun, Taiye. "Main Trends in the Church Growth in Nigeria." European Scientific
Journal 8, no. 23 (October): 1-14

Ashimolowo, Matthew. What is Wrong with Being Black: Celebrating Our Heritage,
Confronting Our Challenges. Shippensburg: Destiny Image Publishers, 2007.

Davidson, Basil. The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-state.
New York: Times Books, 1992

Kwiyani, Harvey C. Sent Forth: African Missionary Work in the West. Maryknoll, New York:
Orbis Book, 2014.

Oden, Thomas C. How Africa Shaped The Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed
of Western Christianity. Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Pess, 2007.

Quinn, Frederick. African Saints: Saints, Martyrs and Holy People from the Continent of
Africa. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2002.

Also see Chinweizu’s “Ivan van Sertima: Rehabilitating the self-image of the Black African
(1).” (You may google his articles). The following books are greatly recommended for every
Africans to have in their Libraries.
Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern
African Presence in Early Europe
African Presence in Early Asia (co-edited with Runoko Rashidi)
African Presence in Early America
Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern
Black Women in Antiquity
Great African Thinkers (co-edited with Larry Williams)
Nile Valley Civilizations; Egypt Revisited
Golden Age of the Moor
Egypt: Child of Africa
Early America Revisited

Note: Chinweizu’s work must be read with discretion because as much as it provides us with
incredible facts about Africa that could spur us to think and act, he and his Pan-African co-
writers may not be speaking from a Christian perspective because they would not separate
Christianity from Colonialism in intention.

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God’s General In Africa, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
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