Today's Devotion
Friday, July 4, 2025 - Acts 11:19-30
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
“In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.”
What a great honor to bear the name of Christ! We call Him “the Lord,” following the Old Testament custom of not pronouncing the sacred name that God revealed to Moses, but instead substituting the honorific “Lord.” And though, as we confess in the Athanasian Creed, “The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord,” nevertheless, “there are not three Lords but one Lord.” Jesus is the Lord.
We also bear the name of Christ as a result of our baptism, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19). Notice that our Lord does not say “in the names,” but rather in the name. There is one divine name, and the name of Jesus – though we say it many ways: Lord, Jesus, God, Christ, Son, Redeemer, Lamb, etc. – His name is the name “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11). Another euphemism used by the Hebrews was to call God “Hashem” (literally “the name”) – “this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God” (Deut 28:58).
And so when we are given the name that is above every name to describe who we are as His church, when we are given the name “Christian,” – it is a great honor. And it is not without its dangers in times of persecution. For bearing the name of “Christian” means that you are making a claim of exclusivity: rejecting the name of Muslim or Jew or Buddhist or Hindu. And bearing the name of Christ may cost you your friends, your job, your liberty, or even your life.
Roughly a century after the disciples of Jesus were called Christians for the first time, St. Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna (who was a disciple of John the apostle), was accused of violating Roman law by not offering a pinch of incense to the image of Caesar. Polycarp’s defiant response was “I am a Christian.” He was arrested and burned at the stake.
To be a Christian is to have been rescued by Jesus, the Christ, our God and Lord in the flesh, whose name is indeed exalted above every name. We are baptized into the name, and our prayers are always offered to the name, in the name, by the people who bear the name. And we should always be prepared to confess: “I am a Christian.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.