The first Christians did not call themselves Christians. Other people did.
The name seems to have begun as a sneer in Antioch. These people talked about Christ so often, followed Him so openly and ordered their lives around Him so completely that the people around them needed a name for them. Christ people. Christians.
It was meant as mud. Somewhere along the way the believers picked up the name that had been thrown at them and wore it gladly. What had been spoken with contempt became a badge of honor.
I love that. Before the word Christian appeared on church signs and book covers, it was spoken in the streets of Antioch about men and women whose neighbors could see that something had happened to them. That makes the question more serious than it first appears. What is a Christian?
The NT uses the word only three times. Believers are called disciples, saints, brothers and believers much more often. Yet those three uses show us something we desperately need to recover.
Acts 11:26 says, “The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” Go back a few verses and watch what happened in that city. Men arrived “preaching the Lord Jesus.” They preached that men and women were far from God. They proclaimed Christ’s perfect life, His cross, His burial, His resurrection. They announced Him as the only Savior, addressed consciences and called people to repent and believe.
Then Scripture says, “the hand of the Lord was with them.” People believed! A few words later comes one of those small lines in the Bible that can open a whole room if we stay with it long enough: “A large number who believed turned to the Lord.”
They turned to a Person. That is where Christianity begins. These people did not merely adopt a movement, moral program or new set of opinions. They turned to the Lord.
Barnabas came from Jerusalem to see what was happening. When he arrived, he saw the grace of God. Lives were changing as people had come to Christ. He was glad and he encouraged them with purpose of heart to remain true to the Lord.
They had begun with Him and they were to continue with Him. Christ filled their preaching and conversation. They clung to Him and because they were joined to Him they found themselves joined to one another.
Soon Antioch had a name for them. Christians. I wonder whether we have made the word too easy.
A person can grow up in a Christian family, attend a Christian church, learn Christian songs and still never come to Christ. We can inherit the vocabulary and learn the customs, but Christianity begins deeper than any of that. A Christian belongs to Christ.
Jesus said, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples.” A disciple keeps following. The Spirit of Christ works within him. His character begins to change. Love grows where selfishness once ruled. Obedience appears where resistance lived. Sin becomes grief instead of home. None of this makes a Christian perfect. It makes him Christ’s. Perhaps that is the sweetest part of the whole word. He belongs to Someone.
Acts gives us the name again, this time in a courtroom. Paul had been imprisoned for two years and charges had piled up around him. After he appealed to Caesar, Festus brought King Agrippa into the matter because the case was tangled up with Jewish religion and law. Eventually Paul was given permission to speak for himself.
Once you gave Paul that opportunity, you had to watch him. There sat Agrippa, Festus, soldiers and all the brass hats and highfaluting people of the day. Out came the prisoner and the balance of the room shifted as Paul began to preach.
He told how Christ had found him, spoke of the resurrection, explained what God had done in his life and pressed the claims of Jesus upon the consciences of everyone listening. Festus interrupted and accused him of being out of his mind. Paul kept going.
Then Agrippa said, “In a short time you are going to persuade me to make a Christian of myself.” There is the word again. To become a Christian, Agrippa understood, meant becoming something like Paul. Christ had filled Paul’s heart and eventually Christ came out of his mouth.
“The love of Christ controls us,” Paul wrote. Somewhere inside him was a holy pressure that would not let him remain quiet. “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.” Some Christians are like Canadian rivers in winter…frozen at the mouth. Paul never was.
The same was true of those first believers. Threats could not silence them. Scattered Christians carried the gospel wherever they went. When ordered to be quiet, they answered, “We cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” They had found life in Christ and they wanted others to find Him too.
None of us speaks as faithfully as we should. I can look back on opportunities I should have taken. Most Christians know that ache. Fear gets hold of us. We hesitate, walk away and later think of what we wish we had said. Still, something remains in the heart of a true believer. He wants people to know Christ.
It is hard to imagine a man escaping a burning building, learning the only way out and feeling nothing for the people still inside. Grace creates a desire to speak and belonging eventually finds a voice.
The final use of the word carries us somewhere harder. Peter writes that if anyone suffers as a Christian, he should feel no shame and should glorify God in that name.
Are you a follower of Christ? Then remember who you are following.
Only once in the history of the world did men have God in their hands. When they had Him in their hands they spat on Him, mocked Him, struck Him, crucified Him and killed Him.
The servant is not greater than his master. Jesus never hid this from His disciples. He told them plainly, “In the world you have tribulation.” If the world hated Him, those who belong to Him should not be surprised when some of that hatred reaches them. A changed life has a way of troubling an unchanged conscience.
When people who swear see one of their own stop swearing, they notice. If thieves watch a man suddenly refuse to join them, his honesty exposes the old way of living. When everyone around you lives as though there is no God and you begin living as though there is a God in heaven who sees, knows, loves, judges, saves and will one day call every life to account, the difference becomes difficult to ignore.
Some will tease. Others turn cold. In many places and times, the cost grows much greater. Peter says that when suffering comes because we bear Christ’s name, we should feel no shame. The old insult becomes an honor again. Trouble also does something inside the Christian. James says the testing of faith produces endurance. A tree that never stands in the wind grows weak. One that has stood through hard weather learns to hold its ground.
Paul learned the same lesson when Christ told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” There are seasons when a believer feels he cannot keep going. Strength thins out and pressure settles heavily on the soul. You wonder whether you can stand one more day. Then Christ keeps you.
His strength carries what yours cannot. After the storm has passed, you sometimes discover that the faith you thought was about to break has roots deeper than before. If Christianity is real, it will cost us something. I am here to tell you that it is worth it.
A Christian is someone who belongs to Christ, speaks for Christ and is willing to suffer with Christ. Having come to Him, his heart is filled with the Savior and he wants others to know Him. When the road becomes costly, he keeps following the One who first loved him.
So perhaps the question is not simply whether you have always called yourself a Christian. The better question is whether your life has ever been gathered up into Christ. Do you belong to Him? Has grace opened your mouth? Are you willing to stay near Him when doing so costs you something?
The believers in Antioch did not invent a label for themselves. Their neighbors watched their lives and found one.
Christ people…Christians….What a beautiful name to bear! And if you bear it, what sort of Christian are you?
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