The word ‘Christadelphian’ seems like an unusual and complicated name to call a group of Bible believers. But in fact it’s no more difficult than the name of a famous American city. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (below) is familiar to most of us, and its name comes from the Greek word for ‘brotherly love’. It seemed a pleasant and hopeful name to give to a new community in the land of opportunity.

And the name ‘Christadelphian’ is similar – it comes from the Greek for ‘brothers in Christ’. The adelphia part, meaning ‘brothers or sisters’, is the same in both words.

The name was chosen back in the 1860s during the American Civil War, by a man called John Thomas (above), who can be said to have founded the Christadelphian community. The need for a distinct name arose when he was trying to register this new community of believers on the military service exemption list (more on that in a future post).

However, we acknowledge that the name can be hard to spell, or remember, which is why this website address is the simpler, and easier to spell, ‘bible4burton’. For a similar reason, we chose .com instead of .info or .org, purely because it is easier to remember, and certainly not as an indication of commercial activity. We hope this doesn’t confuse or mislead anyone!