Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

As recorded in Acts 11:26, the name "Christians" was first applied to the church at Antioch (in the modern-day country of Turkey), where the members had been converted by the missionary efforts of believers who had been scattered away from Israel as a result of the persecution of the followers of Jesus that arose after the death of the first martyr, Stephen.

This title identified these people at Antioch as followers of Christ, which was a Greek title that had been applied to Jesus meaning "the anointed one". It was the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term "Messiah", indicating that Jesus was the designated (or anointed) Savior from sin whom God had sent to Israel in fulfillment of a long history of promises and prophecies, starting from the original fall of humanity into sin (Genesis 3:14-15).

(Anointing was the practice of pouring oil on the head of an individual who was being installed as a king or ruler (as Samuel had done with Saul (1 Samuel 10:1) and David (1 Samuel 16:13), for example), as a symbol of the individual's elevated status.)

Followers of Christ were called "Christians", in the same way that people associated with a variety of denominations, causes, or places, even to the present day, have the suffixes "-ians" or "-ans" (which derive from the Greek language in which the New Testament was written) applied to their names to designate that association (for example, Presbyterians, Lutherans, humanitarians, Americans, etc., etc.).

October 27 2016 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report

Claudia Waid

"CHRISTIAN" stands for Christ man, meaning "One who follows After Christ Jesus/Our Lord God & Savior Of The World. Hope this brings clarity :)

October 14 2017 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report