When you leave traditional Christianity in favor of the faith once delivered to the saints, things get confusing pretty quickly. This page is meant to help inform new people with a glossary of terms for navigating this site and also the various Sabbath and Holy Day observing groups.
Q: Why the name First Century Christianity?
A: Because getting to the faith once delivered to the saints should be the goal of all believers. This ministry strives to get to the doctrines and behaviors of the first believers. As you read the rest of this page, you’ll see there are many different names for congregations who strive for this goal, which is quite a blessing!
Q: What’s the difference between Messianic and Christian?
A: In reality, the two terms are identical. Messianic means “follower of Messiah” and Christian means “follower of Christ”. The word christ was used for the word messiah when the Tanakh (Old Testament) was translated from Hebrew into Greek about 120 years before Christ (it’s called the Septuagint and is the oldest complete Old Testament in existence). The word Christian is more associated with mainstream Christianity and the word Messianic is associated with people who follow the entire Bible and worship as the early church.
Q: What is Messianic Judaism?
A: These would be congregations of Jewish people and converts to Judaism who have accepted Yeshua as the Messiah. There are Messianic Jewish synagogues all over the world. Members of our congregation and followers of this ministry will call ourselves Messianics but are not Messianic Jews, even though we do observe some Jewish traditions and have no problem worshiping with Messianic Jews.
Q: What is the Hebrew Roots Movement?
A: This is another term used to describe people who keep the commandments of Yahweh and the faith in Yeshua. It’s a very loosely affiliated group of believers with a wide range in doctrines.
Q: What are the “churches of God”?
A: The “churches of God” (COG) refers to assemblies that are offshoots of the Worldwide Church of God. That denomination was established in the 1930s and became the single biggest group of people who kept the commandments and believe in Jesus. WCG (The Worldwide Church of God) dissolved in the 1980s and has various COG offshoots, whether they be denominations or stand-alone congregations, still functioning today.
Q: What is the Sacred Name Movement?
A: These are congregations or believers who share many beliefs with us and the other groups described on this page but also require their believers to only say the Names Yahweh and Yeshua or have other specific pronunciations for those names.
Q: What is the deal with the random Hebrew words?
A: When we understand that most of the bible was written in Hebrew, we desire to get to the original language to learn more about the faith. Hebrew isn’t just a language it’s also a culture, so learning more about the culture means learning more about the language and vice versa. For example, you will hear many people say Shabbat Shalom instead of Happy Sabbath because shalom means much more than just being happy.
Q: What is the deal with using the sacred names?
A: This is a long topic and a couple sentences doesn’t do it justice. Using the Names for Yahweh and Yeshua makes the bible make more sense. The Rabbis decided not to say the name YHVH (Yahweh) a long time ago so they recorded it as Adonai (my Lord). But sometimes the Tanakh (Old Testament) is supposed to say “my lord” or even “my Lord”. Then in the New Testament, it’s common for people to be called “lord” (kurios in Greek), so you can see the confusion. Calling God Yahweh and calling His Son Yeshua makes it easier to understand the scriptures. Exodus 20 shows that the nation heard YHVH introduce Himself and they all knew His Name. It was mankind that decided to make the switch away from using their actual Names.
Q: Why do you pronounce the name YHVH “Yahweh” and Jesus’ Hebrew Name as Yeshua?
A: The pronunciation of YHVH has been lost for antiquity. Yahweh is the most common and, if you can get a real scholar to pronounce it, the way they would. Jesus’ real name is Yeshua which means “salvation”. This name is still in use by Jewish people so the word and its pronunciation have been preserved in the Tanakh. We can be very confident how to say the Name of the Messiah in Hebrew.
Q: Why do some say HaShem, Adonai, and/or write God G-d?
A: HaShem means “the Name” in Hebrew. The Rabbis felt that YHVH’s Name is so holy and precious that it should only be referred to as “The Name”. Many Christians in our movement have adopted this practice. Adonai means “my lord” in Hebrew and can refer to YHVH. Long ago, the Rabbis decided to replace YHVH with Adonai and then our English translators carried that over into our bibles with LORD. Leaving the vowel out of God is associated with these topics and also with the Sacred Name Movement. The word “gad” in Hebrew means “fortunate”, refers to a tribe of Israel, and is also the name of a pagan god. The “a” is long in g-a-d so it is pronounced “gahd” sounding almost like an “o”. Some have stopped saying the word God and write it with a dash in order to not say the name of a pagan god. This is all rather confusing and another reason we have returned to calling Adonai Yahweh and His Messiah Yeshua.
Q: If you guys know the truth about the Names, why do you still use Jesus and God?
A: When most of us were baptized, that’s what we knew them as. We have to be able to communicate with the world in order to evangelize. While we prefer to use their proper names, we do not believe it is salvational.
Q: What do people ask me what calendar I keep? Isn’t there only one calendar?
A: The world operates on what is called the Gregorian calendar. That’s the calendar on our walls, phones, desks, etc. The Hebrew calendar is different. It begins in the spring and is what we use to observe the Festivals in Leviticus 23. These dates change each year on the Gregorian calendar because the Hebrew calendar is, well, different. There are several ways to observe the Hebrew calendar and many assemblies hold dear to a particular observance. Our assembly uses the official Jewish calendar. Our holy day observances will occur on the dates written on a modern calendar (for example, when your desk calendar says “Passover”, that’s when we would be observing Passover).
Q: What are the Holy Days?
A: When people who believe like us refer to “the Holy Days”, we are referring to God’s appointed times as recorded in Leviticus 23. One of the biggest differences between us and traditional Christianity is that we observe the days commanded in the Bible and we do not observe Sunday, Christmas, or Easter.
Q: What is “The Feast”?
A: When someone refers to “the feast”, they are most likely referring to the Feast of Tabernacles. Leviticus 23 calls out several feast days but the largest observance, where we take time off of work and go somewhere to congregate with hundreds (or thousands) of believers at once is the Feast of Tabernacles, aka Sukkot.
Q: What is Torah Observant?
A: This is another term used to describe Christians who observe the commandments.
Hopefully this page helps you in your walk! If it did, please share the page and consider signing up for our newsletters. If you have an idea for something to add or correct, please drop us a line.