Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Acts 11:25-26
“Seeing that the Church which is at Antioch in Syria is, as report has informed me, at peace, through your prayers, I also am the more encouraged, resting without anxiety in God, if indeed by means of suffering I may attain to God, so that, through your prayers, I may be found a disciple [of Christ].
It is fitting, O Polycarp, most blessed in God, to assemble a very solemn council, and to elect one whom you greatly love, and know to be a man of activity, who may be designated the messenger of God; and to bestow on him the honour of going into Syria, so that, going into Syria, he may glorify your ever active love to the praise of God.
A Christian has not power over himself, but must always be ready for the service of God. Now, this work is both God’s and yours, when ye shall have completed it. For I trust that, through grace, ye are prepared for every good work pertaining to God. Knowing your energetic love of the truth, I have exhorted you by this brief epistle.”
Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 35-108) in The Epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp 7. Ignatius was a bishop in Antioch, the town where disciples of Jesus were first called “Christians” according to Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. In his letter to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, he reports that despite the fact that Emperor Trajan has captured and is delivering him to Rome for martyrdom, the church is at peace.
They will need to identify a successor to him, specifically a “man of activity” to oversee God’s church. From there, Ignatius defines what a Christian is. His other letters remind Christians that they are not bound by the OT Law but set free to serve others in love. Today, I was moved that a Christian must “always be ready for the service of God” and that grace both prepares and energizes our loving service.