A church group invited a speaker to address their meeting. “Talk about God,” the group leader told him, “but leave out Jesus.”

“Why?” the man asked, taken aback.

“Well,” the leader explained, “some of our prominent members feel uncomfortable with Jesus.  Just use God and we’ll be fine.”

Accepting such instructions, however, was a problem for the speaker who said later, “Without Jesus, I have no message.”

Something similar was asked of followers of Jesus in the days of the early church. Local religious leaders conferred together to warn the disciples not to speak about Jesus (Acts 4:17). But the disciples knew better. “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard,” they said (v. 20).

To claim to believe in God and not in His Son Jesus Christ is a contradiction in terms. In John 10:30, Jesus clearly describes the unique relationship between Himself and God: “I and the Father are one”—thus establishing His deity. That is why He could say, “You believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). Paul knew that Jesus is the very nature of God and equal with God (Phil. 2:6).

We need not shy away from the name Jesus, for “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).