Where Did Christianity Come From?

Where do blueberries come from? I asked myself this question the other day watching my kids enjoy blueberries at the dinner table. The bluish hue that bled across their lips and tongues reminded me of the purple of Roman imperial robes—a color so rare and costly in the ancient world that it marked the heights of status and splendor. “Why didn’t they just use blueberries?” I thought.

The answer, of course, is geographical. Blueberries are native to North America. The ancient peoples of the Mediterranean never knew them. Yet, asking questions that often seem trivial at first glance can have a way of pointing us to more profound discoveries. Take, for instance, a seemingly simple question: Where did Christianity come from? The answer leads to deeper understandings rooted in geography, identity, and divine intent. Let’s consider each in turn.

1) Christianity comes from the Middle East.

It’s easy to forget, especially in the modern West, that Christianity is not a Western religion. It’s a Middle Eastern one. It was born among Semitic peoples, in lands long shaped by monotheism and the idea of divine sovereignty. These ideas offered a strong contrast to the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, whose gods bickered, lusted, and stumbled in their dramas. Christianity, on the other hand, emphasizes that God is one and holy. He rules not from Mount Olympus but from the heavens, maintaining justice and order. He can’t be manipulated or controlled, and we owe Him our allegiance as the emperor of the universe. Contrast that with the Greek and Roman gods who were often regional, fickle, and merely super-human rather than divine. As a result, Christianity offered a vastly different understanding of God than the polytheistic world in which it took root.

2) Christianity comes from the name of Christ.

Acts 11:26 says that “in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.” This is because people understood the early Christians to be following Christ. Christ, of course, means “Messiah” in Greek. Christians are people who believe the Messiah has come; He is Jesus of Nazareth. Christians, however, weren’t always called Christians. In the early days, they were frequently called followers of “the Way” (Acts 9:2; 19:9; 19:23; 24:14; 24:22). Sometimes they were called Nazarenes (Acts 24:5). Other general terms appeared as well, such as “disciples” (Acts 6:1), “saints” (Acts 9:13), and “believers” (Acts 2:44). But Christian is the name that stuck, and the religion that they keep is therefore Christianity.

3) Christianity comes from God.

When Adam and Eve fell, God promised to send a seed to crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). This was the first time in the Bible that God promised a Messiah—someone who would come to save His people from their sins. So, the idea Christianity represents—God redeeming a people for Himself—is as old as the world. But going even further back, Paul tells the Ephesians that God chose them “before the foundation of the world, that [they] should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4). So, while the name Christian may have appeared at Antioch during the first century, nevertheless, Christianity points to the redemptive work of God that He purposed from before the world was created. That is to say, its origin is divine, and the unfolding of God’s plan is as old as eternity.