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.
The word of assurance given to Moses at Sinai echoes through eternity on the lips of the Savior, untroubling troubled souls with the good news that there is one who walks the paths of life with you, and soon he’s coming to bring you to himself.

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No one is harder to convert than a religious expert.
Through baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, Christ meets you with his radical forgiveness which changes everything, even the self!
Do not disregard Luther’s early disputations, but appreciate their specificity and recognize their pastoral and theological continuity with his later works.
May we, as preachers, rise and proclaim that Jesus Christ is sufficient for all our spiritual hunger.
Christ’s saving work is finished, but his love is not locked away in the past.
The resurrection means your ultimate problem is no longer ahead of you. The grave is not waiting for you. It is behind you.
The Church’s unity is not uniformity in every matter of her well-being. It is faithfulness in what constitutes her being.
For many years, I held piety as my god.
When we despair of ourselves, we repent of these self-justifying schemes and allow ourselves to be shaped by God, covered in Christ’s righteousness, and reborn with a new heart.
We believe in a Savior who raises the dead: this is why the church is the one place on earth that can speak plainly about abortion without collapsing into despair.
Fulfillment can sound awkward as a title or name, but it is one of the most prominent proclamations concerning Christ found in the New Testament.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.