The Greatest Guide To What is a Christian?

280 million Christians live as a minority. About half of all Christians worldwide are Catholic, while more than a third are Protestant (37%). Orthodox communions comprise 12% of the world's Christians. This Article Is More In-Depth comprise the rest. By 2050, the Christian population is expected to surpass 3 billion. According to a 2012 Seat Proving ground survey, Christianity will remain the world's biggest religion in 2050, if existing patterns continue.

Etymology The Greek word (Christianos), indicating "fan of Christ", originates from (Christos), indicating "anointed one", with an adjectival ending obtained from Latin to represent sticking to, and even coming from, as in servant ownership. In the Greek Septuagint, christos was used to translate the Hebrew (Maa, messiah), meaning" [one who is] anointed".

The abbreviations Xian and Xtian (and similarly-formed other parts of speech) have been used considering that a minimum of the 17th century: reveals a 1634 use of Xtianity and Xian is seen in a 163438 journal. The word uses a comparable contraction. Early usage The first taped use of the term (or its cognates in other languages) remains in the New Testament, in Acts 11 after Barnabas brought Saul (Paul) to Antioch where they taught the disciples for about a year, the text states that "the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch" (Acts 11:26).

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The 3rd and final Brand-new Testimony reference to the term remains in 1 Peter 4, which exhorts believers: "Yet if [any man suffer] as a Christian, let him not repent; however let him glorify God on this behalf." (1 Peter 4:16). Kenneth Samuel Wuest holds that all three initial New Testimony verses' uses reflect a derisive aspect in the term Christian to describe followers of Christ who did not acknowledge the emperor of Rome.

Nevertheless Peter's apparent endorsement of the term resulted in its being preferred over "Nazarenes" and the term Christianoi from 1 Peter ends up being the standard term in the Early Church Dads from Ignatius and Polycarp onwards. The earliest events of the term in non-Christian literature include Josephus, referring to "the people of Christians, so called from him;" Pliny the Younger in correspondence with Trajan; and Tacitus, writing near the end of the 1st century.