John Jea

John Jea was born in Africa in 1773. He, with his parents and siblings, were kidnapped by slave traders, transported to America, and sold to enslavers in New York City. John was not yet three years old. The family was purchased by a Dutch couple, members of the Dutch Reformed Church. On Sundays, when their master and mistress went to worship, slaves were given a work reprieve. John, however, was forced to go to church as punishment for his rebellious ways. John wrote in his autobiography, “I was led to hate those who professed themselves Christians…Though they professed Christ, they knew nothing of what it meant.” While John despised organized religion, he began to seek God in prayer. “I was about fifteen when Christ revealed himself to me,” he wrote. Though John was illiterate, he desperately wanted to read the Bible, so he asked for God’s help. As he persisted in prayer, an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him his request was granted. John awoke, opened a Bible, and was able to read the first chapter of John’s gospel. His master reacted with understandable suspicion, “That’s impossible,” but John quoted a verse he had learned in church, “Nothing is impossible with God.” He repeated the reading feat the following day before a Presbyterian minister. News of God’s miraculous intervention in John’s life spread quickly and local magistrates, fearful that John might influence other slaves to become literate, ordered his emancipation in 1789.
John began a twenty-five-year preaching ministry, traveling along the eastern seaboard, sharing the gospel with anyone who would listen. He embarked on transatlantic travel, working for his passage as a ship’s cook and preaching the gospel to disbelieving sailors. He joined the first generation of Black American preachers who mounted an attack on slavery through Jesus, their liberator. John devoted his last few years dictating his autobiography to a scribe, the first of its kind among African Americans and the only written record of John’s life and ministry. His two hundred fifty-one-page hymnbook collection features many songs composed by John. One such hymn leads us to pray: