Simply Christian

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. —Acts 26:28

Today our society is being fragmented by hyper-subdividing people into many cultural and racial groups.  We have African-Americans, native-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, etc.  I thought we were just Americans—“One nation under God.”

The same kind of sub-divisions are being designated among Christians.  Christians are described as being a “born again Christian,” or a “Christian Jew,” a “Messianic Christian,” or a “Bible believing Christian,” “or the latest misnomer—“a gay Christian” [sic].  This kind of language is foreign to the Bible.

Paul sets the record straight in Galatians 3:28 when he writes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” There are no divisions in Christ!  When a person is saved, they become part of the body of Christ and lose all racial and national distinctions (1 Cor. 12:13).  If you are saved, you are a Christian—period! There is no such thing as a hyphenated Christian in Christ.

For example, it is redundant to say, “I’m a born again Christian.” If you are born again, you are a Christian—period! If you are a Christian, then you’ve been born again. If you’re not born again, you are not a Christian.

The question is:  Are you really a Christian according to the Bible (not culture)? Acts 11:26 says, “And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”  From this verse we see a Christian is simply a disciple of Christ, that is, a follower of Jesus Christ. If you are not following Christ, you are not a Christian according to the Biblical use of the word.

Let’s drop the polarizing distinctions and simply be Christians—Followers of the Lord Jesus Christ!