Christian Labels

Who am I?

How do I define my faith?

How do you define me, Father in heaven?

I imagine Him saying to me, “You are a servant of the most High God as revealed through the original scriptures and Yeshua his representative who came in a human body, died to cleanse the world of death with his blood, rose from the dead to prove that it was accomplished, and promised to return as judge and king.”

I am a servant of the most High God as revealed through the original scriptures and Yeshua his representative who came in a human body, died to cleanse the world of death with his blood, rose from the dead to prove that it was accomplished, and promised to return as judge and king.

I, too, have struggled with the “Christian” label. The word in the New Testament is in Greek g5546. Χριστιανός, defined by Strongs as : g5546 Christianos; from 5547; a Christian, i.e. follower of Christ: — Christian.

g5547. Χριστός Christos; from 5548; anointed, i.e. the Messiah, an epithet (A term used to characterize a person or thing.) 

“Christ” or “Χριστός: Christos” was not his name, was a definition of who he is, perhaps similar to the title we use in English such as “President” or “Ambassador”    before a person’s name.

Most English speaking people, believers or not, call him Jesus. I will go use both Yeshua and Jesus in this writing.

For the past 2000 years the title “Christian” has been too often, and rightly so, associated with brutal pogroms against the Jews, and hypocrisy. The reputation of those who call themselves “Christians” has not been based on the good deeds, loving God and loving each other as Jesus taught. Many of those who do not know the teachings of Jesus, or the instructions given to us by the Creator, consider “Christians” to be bigoted, unkind people bent on attacking anyone who does not agree with them. They believe that because that is what they see in “Christians”. They do not see people who are following the teachings of Jesus. They are correct in their judgement. I can speak that with confidence because I was one of those hypocritical “Christians”. I had no patience with non-believers who would not listen to what I was trying to teach them.

My grandmother once spoke to a young man named Charlie and invited him to come to church with her. Charlie said, “Oh, grandma, I don’t want to go to church. There are too many hypocrites there.”

My grandmother put her arm around him and said, “That’s ok, Charlie, we would love to have another one.”

Charlie did end up going to church with my grandmother, whom he called “Grandma”. Why? Because he saw that she loved him and would welcome him in spite of his limited understanding. Charlie became a devoted follower of Jesus.

Yeshua loves us enough to accept us just as we are. He also loves us so much not to leave us there. Even hypocrites can be redeemed.

As I matured in my faith and began to understand that Yeshua did not come to abolish the law (“Torah” better translated as “teachings”) but to fulfill it—i.e. keep it perfectly and show us how to follow his example, I began to learn what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments: Love God, Love your neighbor.

One of the illustrations that I like to give is a picture a Whitcliffe Bible translator gave me years ago. She drew a circle in the center of a piece of paper and labeled it “Truth”. At various places around the inner circle she drew arrows pointing toward the center, some were close to the circle, some were way out at the edge of the paper.

The arrows represented any and all of us. We are all on a path to truth. Jesus is the truth. The word tells us that every knee will bow, every tongue confess that Jesus, the Christ, is Lord. It may appear that the arrows closer to the circle have less distance to go before we get there, but the truth is that no matter which arrow on that illustration represents us, we all still have an infinite distant to go. We will be forever drawing nearer to him. None of us have all the answers yet. Even when he gets back and sets up the millennial kingdom, and presides over the establishment of the world to come, we will still keep on learning.

So, to love our neighbors, including those who’s path to Truth looks rocky and misdirected, we need to keep in mind that no matter what it looks like, God is at work in that person’s life.

He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40

Who am I? *I am a follower of Yeshua, My Rabbi.  

*Who am I? I am reminded of this question as one of the central themes in the story of Les Misérables. Accepting who we are as a child of God, with all our regrets and failures, is the first expression of submission and repentance, and the beginning of the path to redemption.