Why Were They Called Christians?
July 15, 2010 – 9:50 amI attended a workshop at a conference last month that was considering the issue of different cultures and the spread of the gospel in the book of Acts. As the speaker began talking about the church at Antioch, I realized something about the account in Acts 11:19-30 that had not occurred to me before. I’d always assumed that the reason the believers at Antioch were the first to be called Christians is that they were excellent examples of following Christ. However, I saw that there is more to it than that.
The church at Antioch was probably the first multi-cultural church in the New Testament. Though Hellenistic Jews, Samaritans, and a handful of Gentile converts were a part of the church at large, it seems that Antioch is the first church with both an emphasis on ministering to Greeks (11:20) and a diversity of leadership (13:1). Until this time it would have been easy to view the disciples of Christ as merely a subset of the Jews, but now it was becoming clear that they were something more than that.
What was it that united this group? They did not share a common religious background, ethnicity, or nationality. Thus, a new term had to be used to encompass this diverse group. The fitting term was “Christian,” because the only thing they shared with one another was their commitment to Christ.
One of the reasons I am excited about urban ministry is its great potential to display this same phenomenon. Cities around the world house a great diversity of peoples, many of whom would not normally be found together. But the gospel has the power to break down the common barriers that divide people. Thus, urban churches have the potential to unite people with different religious, ethnic, educational, and economic backgrounds because of their common commitment to Christ.
Churches are not meant to simply gather people who are already like one another, but to assemble people who have been made one through Jesus Christ. And when a diverse group of people gets together like that, the only appropriate label is “Christian.”
