Christianity

This word has taken on a whole new meaning from its original intent 2000 + years ago. The word Christian appears three times in the New Testament. It literally means one who acted like the Messiah, Yeshua. Today it can mean many things, but primarily one who attends church and accepts that particular churches beliefs. The church that one attends can have any set of beliefs that are wide ranging. Most accept the divinity of Jesus the Christ, but not necessarily all. The Gospel and its meaning comes to play here as well. Even the definition of saved has many different meanings. It all depends upon which church you attend.

The New Testament believers would be quite confused and probably amused by all of this. First of all they would never attend church, because they were the church (called out ones). How can you attend something that you are. It would be like attending American every Sunday. They also assembled everyday not just on the Day of the Sun (Constantine 326 AD), and they did not meet in a church building. They met in homes, on the street, in the Temple, in the catacombs, in the coliseum and on the run depending on how much persecution was going on. They did not meet based on a pastor (there were not any then) or a set of Biblical doctrine (there was not a Bible then either) but because of a relationship that each one of them had with the Living God, Yahweh. They had all been born again by water and the Spirit and they had all experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the spiritual gifts, including tongues. You see they needed the relationship with the Spirit of God, to be able to hear His voice and see His form; their lives depended upon it. Conversion was a death sentence, if caught. Many were caught and many died.

So we who assemble as a group do not call ourselves Christians, but Believers. The scriptures give a clear definition of Believers: MAR 16:17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

This was the last thing that Yeshua spoke before He left the Earth. The word believe is used in the New Testament over a couple of hundred times.

By the way the name they used was not Jesus. It was not in their vocabulary. The Name they used was Yeshua which means in the Hebrew; Yahweh saves. The word Jesus has been with us since the 1600s when the J was invented. Before that it was Iesus, which showed up sometime around the Constantine’s time.

So if someone asks me if I’m a Christian, I say no I’m a believer in Yeshua.