Mbele the Believer

 

Imagine a young man named Mbele, and he lives in the dark jungles of 1870s Africa. His tribe has never seen or heard of a white man, and has never heard of Jesus or Christians or a Bible.

 

His tribe recognizes a Great Spirit and worships that spirit by remembering their ancestors, by gathering every Thursday evening for a meal, where a deer is slaughtered in an offering to the Great Spirit, and then eaten by the tribe as a unifying meal, at the end of which they mix a small amount of ashes from their ancestors' burned bodies into water and drink a sip in their honor.

 

One day Mbele finds a Bible in the jungle in his written language, perhaps dropped by a missionary passing through the jungle. He begins to read it, and his spirit convicts him that what he is reading is true. He reads of the Great Spirit Creator, and the story of the Fall, and of the Flood, and recognizes those as a different telling, but basically the same story, as what he had been taught from his ancestors.

 

He reads further and reads of Jesus, that he is the spokesperson for the Great Spirit in these final days, and that this spokesperson has said, "He that believes and is immersed shall be saved."

 

He runs to his father, and shares what he has learned. Together they come to believe in the Spokesperson Jesus, in his unjust and torturous murder, and burial, and resurrection, and ascension, and his authority as the son of the Great Spirit, and they immerse each other in the name of Jesus.

 

Does God add Mbele and his father to the church of Christ?

 

I contend that God has added Mbele and his father to the church of Christ.

 

The following Thursday, they join with the rest of the tribe, and worship the Great Spirit in the sacrificing and eating of the deer, and drink the cup in memory of their ancestors, but this time also do so in memory of the Spokesperson Jesus.

 

Is Mbele a member of the church of Christ, but in error on some things?

 

I contend that he is.

 

But I suspect that many who are members of the 21st-century USA "Church of Christ" will reject Mbele as being a member of the church of Christ which he, with dim vision, found in the Bible.

 

Such people reject the church that is read about in the New Testament, in favor of the 21st century USA "Church of Christ", thus making a difference between the New Testament church of Christ and the "Church of Christ": these two entities are not the same.