This article addresses the issue of "self-designations" in the Pastoral Epistles. What were the "names" used in early Christianity in this way to designate other members of the church? How did authors refer to members of the churches to whom they were writing? Does the term "Christian" provide the answer to these questions?

This article is a critical confrontation with Walter Bauer’s book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. The author focuses in particular on what Bauer says about Christianity in Western Asia Minor.