The name ‘Christian’ emerged in Acts 11
describing a faith shared through migration
Photo: The entrance to St Michael’s Church in the Calais Jungle (Liam-stoopdice, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Why Acts 11?
Since Acts 11 is central to the work we’re doing at CMS around mission and migration, let’s look at the context.
In Acts 10, Peter had been in Cornelius’s house, present for the dramatic arrival of the Holy Spirit. He then has to explain to people why he was in a Gentile house, eating with Gentiles.
After he shares his account the leaders say, “Now we see that God has given the grace of salvation to the Gentiles.” It’s a conversion from seeing Gentiles as unclean to seeing God at work among them.
Straight after, Luke takes us to Antioch. Due to persecution of early believers in Jesus in Jerusalem, many had to leave. They found refuge in other cities around the Mediterranean – some in Cyprus, others in Antioch, the third largest city in the Roman empire. Antioch was on a trade route between East and West, a hub that connected the world.
It was a multicultural, multi-religious city. If you worshipped the emperor, you had your own religious community. If you had come from Jerusalem, you had your synagogue. If you’d come from Egypt, you’d have Egyptian temples.
In this place the believers from Jerusalem began to preach to Gentiles. As Gentiles converted, it didn’t work to join Jews in the synagogue, but they couldn’t keep on going to their old temples. So, they began meeting together as a diverse group to worship this Jewish Messiah.
The name “Christians” emerges because of this unique gathering. All other groups worshipped with people from the same background – Christianity brings together people from different parts of the world, different cultures, different races, different languages.
And that’s the story behind Acts 11: a faith shared through migration.
