A New Name

 

          Many of the roads in my home state were straight as an arrow especially the small roads. From the air, It looks like a checkerboard as the roads went East-West or North-South. The main highway went wherever it was engineered to go and would wind around in the area and cut through farms and followed the terrain much of the time. Our back road was different. It was called “boot jack road” because it met the highway in the form of a “Y” and resembled the device for removing one's boots, called a “boot jack.” We often give names to various objects based on what they look like or what they do. A large device for helping to move ships through the Panama Canal was called a “Mule.” It didn't have long ears nor did it eat any grain. It just helped pulling the ships to where they needed to be. Acts 11:26 says, “And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” 

         A new word was coined in the city of Antioch when it came to referring to the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is about the only reference to the word, “Christian” in the New Testament. It took about a year but they were finally called “Christians” in Antioch. We often try to come up with a name for people who follow a certain individual or doctrine. We begin to label people with terms like “Fundamentalist,” “Evangelical,” “Methodist,” “Baptist,” or even “Atheist.” The question for us is, how do people label us? How do people label you and me? In the early church, the disciples were called Christians as they were quite open about following the Lord Jesus Christ in all that they did. You may have had an opportunity at one point to discover that a person whom you knew was also a believer when you met them in church one day. Up until that point, you had not thought of them as being a believer. As one person once put it, “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Sad to say, we often find that there is insufficient evidence to determine that a person is a believer or not. While in the U. S. Navy, you at least had a dog tag which stated if you were Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. Is there enough evidence to label you or me as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ? We can't label ourselves although we might like to do it that way. It is going to depend on Who is first place in your life and Whose teaching do you follow and Whom do you desire to imitate. If the Lord Jesus Christ is the answer to those questions, then perhaps the world around you will label you a a “Christian.” Praise God today that we have a new name written down in glory.