What does it mean to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord?
To say that Jesus is Lord is to echo one the earliest and most basic Christian confessions. Lordship language came right out of the Roman culture: Caesar claimed for himself the titles “son of God” and “Lord.” To claim the Lordship of Jesus flew in the face of the powerful Roman Empire. No wonder Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3b). Of course, anyone might say it and not mean it, but in the context of the Roman empire why would you make such a claim and put your self, your family, and your faith community in danger unless you were serious? But even before the Roman emperor was called “Lord,” this was a title ascribed to God. The Greek word kyrios was employed in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) as a substitute for the unspeakable name of God. The early Christians did not claim that Jesus was God, but they believed as the “Son of God” he acted as God’s med...