When you think about God’s people what names or descriptions do you think about? In the Old Testament, often times, the people of God are known as the children of Israel. Maybe depending upon which time period you are talking about you might think about the kingdoms of Judah or Israel. But what about in the New Testament?
In the New Testament the individual people of God are called by a variety of descriptions and names: priests, saints, brethren, children of God, etc. (1 Peter 2:9, 1 Corinthians 1:2, Romans 12:1, 1 John 3:1). In our world today, the name that people are most familiar with would be Christian. We can see in Acts 11:26 that the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. This is a name that especially in our day and age is pretty well known, even though it is often misused. Other uses of the name Christian can be found in Acts 26:28 where Agrippa said that he was almost persuaded to become a Christian. It is sad to see someone so close to being persuaded and yet, to the best of our knowledge, never submit fully to God. Another use of the name Christian is found in 1 Peter 4:16 where it says, “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.”
These few verses that focus on the name Christian shed some light on what it means to belong to Christ. First, we see that Christians are also called disciples. Just like the name Christian, disciples are ones that follow after Christ and His teachings. We should all strive to be His disciples and wear the name Christian with confidence. In fact, in Matthew 28:19-20 we see that we are to go and make disciples. We need to be confident enough to share the gospel everywhere we go. But we need to remember something as we go. We see in Acts 26:28 and in 1 Peter 4:16 that everybody is not going to be persuaded and some might even try to persecute us to the point of our suffering. As Christians we are going to endure sufferings. Afterall, we belong to Christ Jesus, and He was crucified on the cross. But no matter what obstacle or trial comes are way let us all continue to follow His teachings and make more disciples.
Derek Broome