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.
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.
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.

All Articles

When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.
This is what Christian catechesis does; it turns the knobs of the Scriptures and throws the doors of God’s word wide open to tell us the story of salvation.
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!
The heavens are neither geocentric, nor even heliocentric, but Christocentric. It is the cross and the crucified and risen Jesus who has the whole world, and each of us, in his nail scarred hands.
Christ’s saving work is finished, but his love is not locked away in the past.
The testimony of the apostles is not an escapist message in which Christians are redeemed by leaving bodily life behind.
What Israel’s story makes painfully obvious is that following the Lord is a lifelong lesson in “I believe, but help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
The resurrection means your ultimate problem is no longer ahead of you. The grave is not waiting for you. It is behind you.
Job needs a savior, and he knows it. And in Jesus, he gets one.
On Maundy Thursday, Christ explicitly gave his disciples the new command from which the day takes its name, for the Latin words novum mandatum are the Vulgate’s translation of “new command.”
Spy Wednesday asks us to look inward. It's the day the liturgical calendar acknowledges what we already know: we are not the best version of ourselves.