Dear reader,

Welcome to this site which brings some texts from the former general site of the Free Belgian Christadelphians.

As Brothers in Christ, we are followers and witnesses for Jehovah and of the Nazarene teacher Jeshua ben Josef - Jeshua ben HaElohim, better known as Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

Coming from French Huguenot refugees the son of a Dissenting minister, also named John Thomas, John Thomas Junior studied medicine but had a firm faith in Christ. Trained as a surgeon and had an interest in chemistry and biology, publishing several learned medical articles for The Lancet.

When he went to the New World there was such a heavy storm that Dr. Thomas prayed to God and promised to work for him when he would survive that horror.  From New York he travelled on to Cincinnati, Ohio where he became convinced by the Restoration Movement of the need for baptism and joined them in October 1832. He later came to know a prominent leader in the movement, Alexander Campbell, who encouraged him to become an evangelist. Convinced of the task a follower of Christ had to do Dr. Thomas spent his time travelling around the eastern States of America preaching, until eventually settling down as a preacher in Philadelphia, where he married Ellen Hunt and was the editor of the Apostolic Advocate which first appeared in the year of his marriage 1834. 

By his profound study of the Bible, Thomas came to new insights and came to understand that there were so many false teachings in Christendom that he preferred himself to see a true follower of Christ and as such better not to call himself and his followers 'Christian'.
More people saw how his ideas were in line with scriptures and started following him. In 1848 the movement became international when he travelled back to England in order to preach what he now saw as the true gospel message.

In the States some of the followers of Thomas let themselves being called  Thomasites, whilst others called themselves Bible Students. One of his pupils (Charles Taze Russell) would later get a very big following and create the American Bible Students and Russelites.  Others stated calling themselves Thomasites. But in the U.K. the group became known as the Royal Association of Believers.

During the American Civil War in order to be exempted from military service, it was required that believers had to belong to a recognised religious group that did not agree with participation in war. Therefore in 1864, Thomas coined the name Christadelphian to identify the members of his movement as "Brethren in Christ".