“And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,” Acts 11:26.
(A message preached by Rev Ivan Foster in Kilskeery Free Presbyterian Church on Lord’s Day evening, April 30th, 2006)
I suppose there is no more abused term in the English language than that of “Christian”!
So abused is the term that the true Christian must takes steps not to be associated with those who would describe themselves as “Christians”.
The term is commonly applied to that which is, in truth, anti-Christianity. The blessed name of Christ is thus used to veil that which is born of the devil.
Of course we recall the words of Israel in the day of their departure from God. “And he (Aaron, the High Priest) received them (ornaments of gold) at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” Exodus 32:4. The very thing forbidden of God just a short time earlier, is now called God! “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,” Exodus 20:4-5.
Little wonder then that we have this abuse of the term Christian.
But let us see from God’s Word just what a Christian is.
Stream or download Just what is a Christian