Hope
Yes, I agree but it still begs the question why ALL Christians call themselves that??
Not all do.
Are there ANY Christians who call themselves Jews. How can they if they 'follow' the 'NEW' Testament.
There are Messianic Jews, who follow New Testament teaching on the grounds that they believe that it is the fulfillment of the Torah.
There are those here who cannot give themselves a wide enough gap between themselves & the Jews. It almost verges on anti-Semitism.
I think the reason why 'Christian' is so common a term is that the early church decided to take the term on board, perhaps as a way of blunting the derisive original nature of it. This kind of thing happens very often within society. The term 'Mesianic Jew' is pretty new and perhaps reflects the negative connotations understandably felt by the Jews towards Christianity. These ethnic Jews want to express their belief that Jesus was the Messiah that the Jews were waiting for 2000 years ago.
Also why don't Jews accept this? YEAH YEAH I KNOW Ask the Jews. Are there any Jews wasting, SORRY, SPENDING time on these boards ?
Nick
Well, it was the Jews who first accepted it, Nick. After all, it would seem that it was Peter who first endorsed the term in a positive way. The reason many didn't could well have had something to do with the political situation that prevailed in Palestine at the time, when for the previous 2-300 years, 'the Messiah' had been thought of as a military/political entity rather than a spiritual one, as the term had originally implied.