Why is the fish a symbol of christianity
The Meaning of the Jesus Fish Symbol (ICHTHUS)
hey this is Jared DS at the religion
teacher calm and you may have seen a
symbol or four often called the Jesus
fish looks like this a very simple
picture of a fish on the back of cars is
a bumper sticker I've got mine here my
Jesus fish bumper sticker I've also got
here in Christmas ornament a Jesus
Christmas ornament you can see there are
some letters and Greek printed in the
middle of this symbol because in reality
the Jesus fish symbol is an acronym in
Greek this is a very ancient symbol that
early Christians used in the Roman
Empire to avoid persecution it was
illegal to be a Christian to be
worshipping the gods other than the
Roman gods and because of that
Christians had to worship in secret so
they had to use artwork symbols to be
able to communicate truths and to be
able to talk with other Christians about
the faith that didn't make it clear that
they were practicing Christians and one
of those symbols was the Jesus fish in
the words in Greek spell out a phrase
that in English we would say eye an eye
is like a Jay in Greek so the first two
words are probably pretty obvious Jesus
in Christ so the Jesus fish helps us
remember that Jesus Christ and what
about Jesus Christ do we want to
communicate with this symbol th-the
first two letters of the Greek word for
God Theo's God why or often an H sound
would spell the word heõs which is Sun
and the last one Souter s o ter means
Savior
so the Jesus fish is actually a phrase
Jesus Christ son of God Savior that's
the meaning of the symbol
there are certainly biblical stories
about fish in the Bible but really this
or the origin of this symbol is meant to
express Jesus and what about Jesus he's
the son of God he's our Savior that's
what that symbol means in the back of
bumper stickers of cars that's what that
symbol has meant for hundreds and
hundreds of years especially there
during that time of Christian
persecution in the Roman Empire so go
make disciples god bless
[Music]
