I think about this a lot. I mean, this is the kind of thing that will keep me up at night. I think what does that word actually mean. How has its meaning changed overtime? The word Christian often is a word I think about. Well, I finally looked it up!
First, here is my own weird misconception on what that word means. To me, for years, I have thought that Christian means "little Christ." So that made sense to me. We are to be little anointed people called to do God's work in the world. We are all anointed, set apart, and called to continue Christ's ministry. Of course, we all disagree on what that is. Most evangelicals have made it a political party platform. Whereas others have made it a list of rules to follow, or beliefs to verbally agree with. Others have made it all about caring for the poor and suffering. Or just a way to escape eternal torment in hell (because that's the God I want to follow, one which will torture you until you love him).
What I discovered is that the word Christian (Christianos) is only found 3 times in the Bible. And like all good names for movements, it was originally meant as an insult. It was a way to degrade those who follow and continue Jesus's ministry. This word means a slave of Christ. In the Greek speaking Roman Empire, this ending was used to denote whose slave you were. It was a dishonoring title. So if you were a slave of Peter's then you would be called Peterianos, as a title denoting your status. You are not free and you belong to Peter.
So I assert that most Christians (including myself) are not Christian in that we are not truly slaves of Christ. Our titles tends to be whatever our jobs are. And I would find it weird if someone said their title was Christian. I would assume it is ploy to sell me something.
By the way, Christ is an Eschatological title. It is a title that points to a future that is being ushered in by this person. It is an anticipation of the full realization of the coming Kingdom of God, which has no death and dying (a.k.a. sin). So being a slave to this person means that you are participating in the coming of this Kingdom. You are participating in making this partially realized Kingdom a full reality. It is not an honorable position. It is a servants position in which you lose your identity as whatever you are in this current age and you are fully identified in this future. It is a position with a foot in two eras being split in half by participating in both at the same time. Bringing eternity to right now while staring in the face of death and despair. Speaking hope in the place of despair.
I am not a slave of Christ the way I should be. I fall in and out of bondage to the gospel and bondage to sin and death. I would venture that most people who call themselves Christian would not like being called slaves. We prefer follower or occasional church attender. Slave is such a harsh term with a lot of baggage. It was originally meant as an insult, but the early church decided to make the normative title. So normative that today it means almost nothing.
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