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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The common knock against “grace people” (or to put it another way, “Christians”) is that preaching too much grace will encourage licentious living.
Have you ever wondered, of all the adjectives we could use to describe this day why in the world we chose the word “good?” Yeah, me too.
If I'm honest, when I survey my life I don't exude much contentment.
Over the last 11 months I’ve spent the bulk of my time working to plant a church in New York City.
It seems that no matter where we look in this world, we never quite find what we really need.
Surely everyone reading at one time or another in their lives has heard the popular phrase I’m writing about today.
It had just been a few weeks in my friend’s life since he had been converted to the Christian faith. He was very much still learning the ropes of what it meant to be a Christian.
I’m pretty sure that right about now everybody is offended about everything (including this article). At least that’s the way it seems on social media and in various news stories these days.
You know what used to be easy? Going places. It’s true. When I was younger if somebody called me up on the spot and asked me to come over, I literally could say, “Alright, I’ll be right over,” and it was accurate.
What he meant is that man is searching for something, but he knows not what. All of us do the same in some way or another. We reach out to find something that we think just might fix us, something that will fill the void that sin has created within.
Job’s friend Zophar had it up to here! He was done hearing Job defend himself in the midst of his suffering. Surely, Job must have done SOMETHING to bring all this calamity upon himself.