History of Christianity

The word Christian and Christianity in recent time have been of great interest to me. Since then I began to do endless research about the two word Christian and Christianity.
To understand fully what Christian and Christianity we need to start by defining the two word.

Who is a Christian?
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity.

What is Christianity?
Christianity is Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, who Christians believes is the 1. messiah (messiah is a greek word meaning Christ) prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Christians also believe he is the Son of God.

What is a chriatian?
Christian is a wide range of belief and practices found across the world among those who call themselves Christian. The Nicene Creed was established in the 4th century as an expression of Christian faith in the face heresy (heresy means false doctrine, as opposed to Christianity).

What is the difference between who is a Christian and what is a Christian?
The above sound controversial to me hence I want to clear the bleak thing about it.
The word are same but different in meaning the first one that is who is a Christian is a person who adhere to the last one that is what is a Christian in other word what is a Christian can be likened to what is Christianity while who is a Christian is the person practicing it.

Types of Christianity
There are various type of Christianity some of these Christian are explained below.

Active Christians
These types of Christians are committed to attending church, bible reading, and sharing their faith that salvation comes through Jesus Christ. These group of Christians also accept leadership position in the church.

Professing Christians
These types of Christians are committed to “accepting Jesus Christ as savior and lord” as the key of been a Christian, but focus on a personal relationship with God and Jesus more than on church, bible reading and sharing of faith.

Liturgical Christians
These types of Christians have high level of spiritual activity, mainly expressed by attending and recognizing the authority of the church, and by serving in it or in the community.


Private Christians
These types of Christians believe in doing good things, but not within a church context. In the American survey, this Christian group was the largest and youngest segment of the church.

Cultural Christian
These types of Christians do not view Jesus as essential for salvation. They are likely to align their belief or practice with biblical teachings or to attend church. They favor a universality theology that sees many ways to God.

Other countries may not show exactly these varieties of Christian group, especially in country where there is active persecution of Christians.

Christians who have a distinct heritage and come to believe in Jesus Christ may also identify themselves differently. Messianic Jews: these are Christians believe that they are set of Judaism and that Jesus Christ is the Jewish messiah and divine savior. These Christians also seek to live in obedience to the remaining aspect of mosaic law found in the Torah.
As the identification of the messiah with Jesus Christ is not accepted within Judaism, in Hebrew Christians are called Notzirm (“Nazarenes”), originally derived from the fact that Jesus Christ came from the city of Nazareth in Israel. However, Messianic Jews are referred to in modern Hebrew as (yehudim meshihi’im).

Among Arabs (whether Christian, Muslim or belonging to other faiths), as well as in other languages influence by the Arabic language (mainly in Muslim cultures influenced by Arabic as the liturgical language of Islam), two words are commonly used for Christians: Nasrani and masihi meaning followers of messiah.
Where there is distinction, nasrani refers to people from a Christian culture and masihi means those with religious faith in Jesus Christ. In some countries nasrani tends to be used generally for Non-Muslim white people. Another Arabic word sometimes used for Christians, particularly in a political context, is salibi; this refers to crusaders and has negative connotations.

The word nasrani is generally understood to be derived from Nazareth through the synac (Aramaic), in some areas of the Arab world, tradition holds the it is derived from nasr (“victory”), and means “people of victory” in reference to the early success of the Christian religion or to the initial Christian Ethiopian support to Muhammad during his early conflicts in Arabia. Nasrani is also sometime said to derive from ansar which means “disciple”. The Syrian Malabar Nasrani or Nasranee people are Christian ethno-religious group from Kerala, in India, possibly Jewish in ethnic origin.

Etymology of the word Christian.
The word Christian comes from Greek word (christianos), from (christos) meaning the anointed one. In the Greek version of the Hebrew bible, christos was used to translate the Hebrew word (messiah), meaning [one who is] anointed.

The first known usage of the word Christian can be found in the New Testament. “the disciple was first called Christian at Antioch. They were disciple and followers of Jesus Christ. The other two New Testament uses of the word Christian also referred to the public identity of the Jews who followed Jesus Christ prior to the adoption of Christianity by no-Jews. The Jewish king said the apostle Paul had almost persuaded the king “to become a Christian,” at the meaning the Jewish Messianic sect following Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Peter encouraged believers who are abused “because you are a Christian,” don’t give it a second thought. Be proud of the distinguished status reflected in that name “Christian”!
The recorded use of the word Christian outside the bible was when Tacitus recorded that Nero blamed the “Christians” for the Great Fire of Rome in AD64.

“Christian” also means a member or adherent of a church or other organized group within Christianity. As an adjective, the term may describe anything associated with or thought to be consistent with Christianity, as in “the Christian thing to do”