When violent persecution scattered the first believers from Jerusalem, it looked like disaster. Yet wherever they fled, the good news took root — and at Antioch, a crossroads city buzzing with trade and languages, something new was born: a young, diverse, dynamic church that would change the world.

In this sermon on Acts 11, Revd. Mark Fletcher traces how Christianity got its name. It was at Antioch that believers were first called "Christians" — a word coined by outsiders as an insult, meaning "little Christs", and marking out those who refused to worship Caesar. Why would anyone gladly embrace a name meant to mock them?

We live in a world that still asks us where our ultimate loyalty lies. Like the church at Antioch, we are called to welcome the outsider, to invest in good and humble leadership, and to keep learning — never to go it alone. And we are invited to wear this name proudly: to belong to Christ and reject the false gods of our age.

What's in a name? Perhaps everything.

Full transcript and video: https://stpeters.ch/sermons/first-called-christians/