From Africa With Love

From Africa with Love

There was once an African queen who heard about a powerful king in faraway Asia. She was told so many tall tales about this king that she found it impossible to restrain her curiosity. So she left her Ethiopian palace and embarked on a long journey. When she arrived in the fabled Asian kingdom, the queen came face-to-face with the world’s richest man.

His lifestyle still boggles our imagination three thousand years later. He sat on a throne of pure ivory overlaid with gold. The plates and goblets at his lavish banquets were made of pure gold. Every morning he dressed in snow-white robes to ride out in a chariot made of the finest cedar, inlaid with gold and ivory, carpeted in tapestries woven with gold thread, and pulled by the finest horses on earth. A bodyguard of sixty warriors accompanied him: the tallest and handsomest men in his kingdom, arrayed in Tyrian purple, each with long black hair sprinkled daily with fresh gold dust.

His vast estates included parks, zoos, temples, libraries, universities, and lavish resorts. A thousand delights awaited him in his palace of pleasures: the world’s most beautiful women, orchestras, choirs, singers, dancers, magicians, and circus acts to rival the Cirque du Soleil.

This hedonist was also the greatest thinker in antiquity. His court was filled with the brightest of scholars who traveled across the globe to learn from his renowned wisdom. He wrote four books that are among the towering classics in history, and he composed wise sayings that are still repeated today, as well as three thousand poems and more than one thousand songs. As a military strategist, he had no peer. His unparalleled skills at diplomacy achieved peace in the Middle East.

After spending months with the Asian king, the African queen gushed, “All that I heard is not even half of what I have seen.” You remember this Ethiopian queen by her kingdom’s ancient name, Sheba. The Asian king was Solomon. The Ethiopian left with memories to last several lifetimes. Some believe she also carried Solomon’s baby in her womb, which would mean all of her descendants, including the last emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, carried Solomon’s DNA. The Queen of Sheba also brought Judaism to Ethiopia. A thousand years later, an official of the Ethiopian royal court traveled to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. On the way home, a church deacon told him about Jesus and baptized him. The court official brought Christianity back to Africa, making the Ethiopian Orthodox Church the oldest continuing Christian body in the world—all this because a curious African queen decided to visit an Asian king!

The king wrote a biblical love story called the Song of Solomon. Many scholars believe that he was writing about his love affair with the African queen. But it is also an allegorical story of God’s love for his people. Having read the story of an African queen and her Israelite lover, you might want to read the Song of Solomon to see how passionately the king of heaven loves you. Those who have already embraced this king will agree with this:

What you have heard about Jesus is not half of what there is to see.

I didn’t believe what was said until I arrived here and saw it with my own eyes. In fact, I had not heard the half of it!

1 Kings 10:7