Called 'Christian'

[1 Peter 4:16] Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, …
Christian was the name given in contempt first at Antioch. Acts 11:26; 26:28; the only three places where the term occurs. At first believers had no distinctive name, but were called among themselves "brethren," Acts 6:3; "disciples," Acts 6:1; "those of the way," Acts 9:2; "saints," Ro mans 1:7; by the Jews (who denied that Y’Shua was the Messiah, and so would never invent the name Christian), in contempt, "Nazarenes." At Antioch, where first idolatrous Gentiles (Cornelius, Acts 10:1, 2, was not an idolater, but a proselyte) were converted, and wide missionary work began, they could be no longer looked on as a Jewish sect, and so the Gentiles designated them by the new name "Christians." The rise of the new name marked a new era in the Church's life, a new stage of its development, namely, its missions to the Gentiles. The idle and witty people of Antioch, we know from heathen writers, were famous for inventing nicknames. The date of this Epistle must have been when this had become the generally recognized designation among Gentiles (it is never applied by Christians to each other, as it was in after ages.--an undersigned proof that the New Testament was composed when it professes). When the name exposed one to reproach and suffering, though not seemingly as yet to systematic persecution.