Today, the longing for cultural Christianity on both the left and the right hearkens back to an older version of Christendom that was a mixed blessing for the church in the western world. The cultural mediation of Christian views on created order has certainly benefitted the civilization we’ve inherited. But the gospel itself isn’t something that can be reduced to cultural mediation either. Instead, the gospel as a message stands apart from all human accomplishments and achievements, no matter how beneficial they might be.
Josephus does not tell us that Christianity is true, and Christians do not need Josephus to tell them that Christ is risen. But Christianity makes claims about things that happened in public history under identifiable rulers, priests, and governors. For that reason, testimony from outside the church matters.
The student of Scripture should always have a map open next to their Bible as they read. If possible, they should also travel to Israel, not to make a pilgrimage, but to see the context of the land in which these stories took place. These are not fairy tales made up about fictional fantasy lands; these are stories about real people in real places interacting with a real God.

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She wasn’t so much giving up on her husband as giving up on herself. She was giving up trying to be the person who changes another person. It was going to take more than her to reform the man she loved.
The God who calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves will seem hopelessly out of touch with your insulated life of self-sufficiency.
Their love story was a long time in coming. He was 82 and she 74. And this was the first, and the last, marriage for both.
Life is too short to dream big dreams. They tend to devour everything that gets in their way, including family.
But one key theme that kept surfacing again and again was love: Jesus loved people, the Church showed me genuine love, and above all, God’s love in Christianity is unconditional.
A single, fifteen minute sermon that proclaims Christ and him crucified for you is more important than hundreds of hours of lectures by experts on revitalizing your ministry.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Yes, how good it is for you to have enemies, for without them, when would you ever have the opportunity to fulfill, joyfully and willingly, the law of Christian love?
God’s Son is infinitely more than our fragile egos have flattened him out to be.
The preacher does not merely send out the raven. From the pulpit flies forth the dove of the Gospel.
Hers is not a beauty of breathtaking cathedrals, stained glass, or towering arches, but of a body.
Old Testament narratives foreshadowed the gifts that our Father gives us in baptism.