Kindness

Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian employee of the Hebrew King Zedekiah, didn't have to help the prophet Jeremiah, but he did (Jeremiah 38-39). Enemies of Jeremiah spoke to Zedekiah. Zedekiah agreed to follow their advice and had Jeremiah placed in a prison filled with mud. The Hebrew people were at war with Babylon, and little food and no water was available to Jeremiah in prison. Ebed-melech may have counted the cost, but irregardless he spoke to Zedekiah, and Zedekiah released Jeremiah from prison.

People like Ebed-melech and Chuck Wall speak up when others are wronged. One day in the spring of 1993 an anchorman commented on a bad situation, "Another random act of senseless violence." Chuck Wall, who is blind and an American teacher, heard the comment and was inspired to commit random acts of senseless kindness. Wall shared his idea with his students asking them to do something out of the ordinary to help someone and then to write an essay about it. He also decided to print bumper stickers that said: "Today, I will commit one random act of senseless kindness...Will you?" The idea caught on in Wall's community and spread internationally, so that today many are familiar with the phrase "random acts of kindness."

Krpa (kindness) celebrates and reproduces life. Chuck Wall's kindness has helped other people. When Ebed-melech was kind to Jeremiah, God was kind to Ebed-melech. Jeremiah 39:15-18 Amplified Bible says, "Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was [still] shut up in the court of the guard, saying, Go and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring to pass My words against this city for evil and not for good; and they will be accomplished before you on that day. But I will deliver you [Ebed-melech] on that day, says the Lord, and you will not be given into the hands of the men of whom you are afraid. For I will surely deliver you; and you will not fall by the sword, but your life will be [as your only booty and] as a reward of battle to you, because you have put your trust in Me, says the Lord."

"My life is better because of you," T.D. Jakes to his wife Serita Jakes in a love letter published in the February 2013 Ebony magazine article "House of Love." Please leave an on-line comment about those who make people's lives better and people who practice on-going kindness.

Perhaps Ebed-melech is one of the early believers who shared the news of an eternal, loving relationship with God with others in his native Ethiopia and in Egypt and in other parts of Africa. When we madly love God, everyone knows. International Christian minister Francis Chan says, "I found a love that is greater than life itself."

Aedesius and Frumentius, relatives of the Christian philosopher of Tyre, Meropius, worked for the Axumite King Ella Amida, who is the father of Ezana who is often credited with being the first to make Christianity a state religion in Abyssinia, which later became named Ethiopia. Please leave an on-line comment sharing interesting information about Christianity in Ethiopia, Egypt, Kush and other parts of Africa before, during and after the reign of Ezana.

Today Ethiopia is an African nation never conquered by a European nation in modern times and is a Christian-majority country that has been filled with Christians for centuries. Ethiopia has long interacted with Asians and others. Please leave an on-line comment sharing little-known facts about Asian Christianity.