(19) What Is a Christian?

2,000 years ago a new spiritual movement was gaining momentum. But what should it be called? In "an ethnically cosmopolitan city, a crossroads of cultural influence" the believers so closely resembled Jesus that the best way to identify them was to simply add a suffix to the name Christ; "In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts 11:26), literally, those who are like Christ.

Why did the massive, bustling city of Antioch notice Jesus's disciples? They had no distinct dress code. They hadn't yet built impressive buildings or developed institutions like schools or day-care centers. Early Christians earned their name by their "distinctly countercultural way of life" How Luke describes them tells us how we must live if our neighbors will know us as Christians.