How in the world did black Africans believe in Jesus under the oppression of white Christian slave masters? As an answer to this question, I want to tell you a true story of a man who embraced Jesus against staggering odds, and his name was John Jea. Come, engage a story of Christian hypocrisy, unlikely allies, brutal persecution, Jesus’ closeness to suffering, rapturous conversion, freedom, and angelic deliverance.
Enslavement and Christian Hypocrisy
John was born in Africa in 1773, was enslaved, and then brought to North America with his mother, father, and siblings. Then, a cruel master bought them in New York. He gave the enslaved repulsive food; made them work brutal hours (They worked during the summer from 2am to 11pm and during the winter from 4am to 10pm. Even the horses rested five hours a day.) and tortured them if they complained about the conditions, sometimes beating them to death. Our friend describes what sometimes happened after these punishments:
After our master had been treating us in this cruel manner, we were obliged to thank him for the punishment he had been inflicting on us, quoting that Scripture which saith, ‘Bless the rod, and him that hath appointed it.’ But though he was a professor of religion, he forgot that passage which saith ‘God is love, and whoso dwellers in love dwellers in God, and God in him.’
(Jea, The Life, History, 5.)
Jea was noting the hypocrisy of his master. Particularly, his master twisted the scriptures to uphold his own hate-filled intentions.
Jea noticed the Christian hypocrisy of many of the white American “Christians” around him. For example, he noticed they mourned the death of one slave master but rejoiced in the death of thousands of American Indians. Similarly, the white “Christians” feared God when the weather threatened their crops but didn’t fear him when the weather was fine. Moreover, they believed the gospel, but they did not teach the enslaved that same gospel. Their oppressors commanded observation of days of fasting, thanksgiving, and prayer but required the slaves to work while fasting. They claimed to believe in the Bible, but used it to justify their own treatment of the enslaved.
John Hates Christians
John began to hate Christians: “From my observation of the conduct and conversation of my master and his sons, I was led to hate those who professed themselves Christians, and to look upon them as devils” (Jea, 11).
Jea’s master, seeing how much Jea hated Christians, made him go to worship:
Besides this punishment, they made me go to a place of worship, while the other slaves enjoyed a rest for an hour or two; I could not bear to be where the word of God was mentioned, for I had seen so much deception in the people that professed to know God, that I could not endure being where there were, nor yet to hear them call upon the name of the Lord . . . My rage and magic against every person that was religious was so great that I would have destroyed them all, had it been in my power.
(Jea, 11-12)
Our black African friend’s rage was great, and it was because of the hypocrisy he saw in Christians.
One day, the minister’s preaching inspired Jea to pray for God’s presence. John prayed because he wanted to see if there was truly a God. After all, his heart told him there was no God since his heart was filled with rage against the minister and other Christians.
Finding Jesus
Later, John became convicted that he was a sinner against God. He was making spiritual progress though he had not yet placed his trust in God. In response, his cruel masters restricted him from going to the chapel. Despite opposition from his master, mistress, and family, he continued to go to chapel. He sought the ministry of the chapel’s minister and God’s word. Jea would continue to seek God with desperation and go to chapel even though his masters beat him for doing so.
Our black African friend eventually found the ability to place his trust in Jesus. Jea confessed his sins to God and experienced the Spirit’s power and renewal. Jea says,
I was about fifteen years of age when the Lord was pleased to remove gross darkness, superstition, and idolatry, from my heart, and shined upon me with the glorious reconciliation and light of his countenance, and turned by darkness into day, and created a clean heart within me, and renewed a right spirit within me.
(Jea, 18)
Jesus saved John against overwhelming odds! Of his salvation, Jea speaks in rapturous and powerful terms about the change he experience in his own soul and in how he related to the world. For example, though Jea continued to be beaten by his masters, he continued to pursue the Lord. John saw the sufferings he endured as the same kind Jesus endured:
. . . my master beating me to keep me from attending the house of God, but all this did not hinder me, for I blessed and praised his holy name that I was counted worthy to suffer with my blessed Jesus; and in all my sufferings I found the presence of God with me, and the Spirit of the Lord to comfort me. I found the hand of the Lord in everything, for when I was beaten it seemed that the Spirit of the Lord was great on me, that I did not regard the pain and trouble which I felt.
(Jea, 23)
Jea wanted more of the Bible, and as a result, he endured persecution from hypocritical Christians. Nevertheless, Jesus met and sustained him in the troubles he faced. Jea saw that Jesus was against the slave master and for the oppressed. Even more, he saw his own sufferings as the same kind Jesus experienced. This same Jesus strengthened Jea by the Spirit.
Jesus also saved John in another way.
Being Set Free
After being sold and bought several times, our newly converted protagonist ran away from his last master to be baptized by a white minister. In response, John’s master was furious because the minister informed the master that “according to the spiritual law of liberty, [Jea] was considered a worthy member of society” (Jea, 37) and as a result freed. Jea’s master took him to the magistrates, and upon Jea making a credible profession of faith, the magistrates declared him freed.
In response, Jea’s master and his sons then set themselves on a mission to convince John that God required him to remain enslaved. They used the Bible to try to convince our African friend. Jea could not read and could not know the scriptures for himself, and this grieved our newly converted friend. Under those cirumstances, Jea desperately wanted to read the Bible:
Then I began to ask God in faithful and fervent prayer, as the Spirit of the Lord gave me utterance, begging earnestly of the Lord to give me the knowledge of his word, that I might be able to understand it in its pure light, and be able to speak it in the Dutch and English languages, that I might convince my master that he and his sons had not spoken to me as they ought, when I was their slave.
(Jea, 39)
Jea was fighting to understand the scriptures to fight against his oppressor’s perverted interpretation of it. After some time, the Lord met him in his prayers.
Touched by an Angel
After fervently praying for six weeks, the Lord sent an angel to Jea, and the angel supernaturally taught Jea how to read the first chapter of the Gospel According to John! God had equipped Jea to resist his oppressors.
The next day, Jea was rejoicing and praising God. After his day’s work, he went to the minister’s house to share what had happened. After the minister refused to believe John, he tested him. Jea skillfully read aloud the first chapter of John’s Gospel Account. Continuing the test, the minister gave Jea other books. Jea displayed he could not read those. In response, the minister and his wife concluded God gave Jea the ability to miraculously read the Bible and the Bible alone.
In all of this, God saw Jea and favored him. Jea said, “This caused them to spread a rumor all over the city of New York saying, that the Lord had worked great miracles on a poor black man . . . From that hour, in which the Lord taught me to read, until the present, I have not been able to read in any book, nor any reading whatever, but such as contain the word of God” (Jea, 42-43).
Find Jesus Against All Odds
Jea’s story is one of a black man who had hated God and Christians but found a Jesus who was near to those who humbly called upon his name, a Jesus who was against the wickedness of the white American Christian hypocrites of his day. He could fight for his freedom through his own reading of the Bible, and he used the Bible to minister to countless others.
This same Jesus is the one who is calling you to himself. Will you trust him against all odds?