Page 46 - History of Christianity II- Textbook
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Study Section 9: The Gospel goes to Africa
9.1 Connect
So far, a lot of church history has taken place in Northern Africa, the European continent,
and in North America. That’s because of missionary efforts to spread the Gospel to those
people first. FINALLY, God laid on the hearts of these believers to travel to Africa as
missionaries and share the Gospel with the millions of people who were lost there. One of
the greatest missionaries of all time was David Livingston. If you go to Livingston in the
south of Zambia, you can see a bronze sculpture of him next to Victoria Falls, the falls he
discovered as he traveled north from S. Africa to share the Gospel northward. He was an amazing man
of faith as well as an explorer. He sought to abolish the slave trade, but his primary goal was to share
Christ with the people of Africa. Let’s learn about this great man…..
9.2 Objectives
1. The student should be able to give a biographical sketch of the life of David Livingston and
share how his life played a significant role in bringing the Gospel to Africa.
2. In contrast to David Livingston, the student should also be able to biographically explain the
life of Karl Marx and the results of his errant teachings that have impacted millions of lives, even to this
day.
9.3 David Livingston, 1813-73 ––
https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/missionaries/david-
livingstone.html
"[I am] serving Christ when shooting a buffalo for my men or taking an
observation, [even if some] will consider it not sufficiently or even at
all missionary."
With four theatrical words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"—words journalist
Henry Morton Stanley rehearsed in advance—David Livingstone became
immortal. Stanley stayed with Livingstone for five months and then went off to
England to write his bestseller, How I Found Livingstone. Livingstone, in the
meantime, got lost again—in a swamp literally up to his neck. Within a year and a half, he died in a mud
hut, kneeling beside his cot in prayer.
The whole civilized world wept. They gave him a 21-gun salute and a hero's funeral among the saints in
Westminster Abbey. "Brought by faithful hands over land and sea," his tombstone reads, "David
Livingstone: missionary, traveler, philanthropist. For 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort
to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, and to abolish the slave trade."
Highway man
At age 25, after a childhood spent working 14 hours a day in a cotton mill, followed by learning in class
and on his own, Livingstone was captivated by an appeal for medical missionaries to China. As he
trained, however, the door to China was slammed shut by the Opium War. Within six months, he met
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