Unifying Name
“For a whole year they met with the Church
and taught a large number of people,
and it was in Antioch that the disciples
were first called Christians.”Acts 11:26
After the people were scattered, they preached the Good News wherever they were. Some preached only to the Jews. Others to the Greeks and Cyrenians. Here we can see the beginning of the universality of the Church. But there was still something that divided them. Instead of Jews or Greeks or Cyrenians or Antiochians, the disciples of Jesus were now called “Christians.”
This was the name that unified the people. The name that they called themselves reminded them who they represented and who they were to bear witness to: Christ. This name meant that the Holy Spirit was with them and that they were born again by water, that which flowed from the side of Jesus on the Cross, and the Spirit, that which Jesus promised to send. We are Christians, and this means that we have been reborn. We have been born into a life that is eternal, a life that is stronger than death, a life that is Christ Himself.
Do we see this? Do we believe that we have been born into a life that has been forever transformed? We are Christians and that means Christ — life, and God Himself, dwells within us.
