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.

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God preaches a concrete word to us in the present tense. We hear the Good News that Jesus is God’s mercy for us.
Never has the law fallen so hard on me as in motherhood. Never before was I more aware that my best wasn’t good enough.
Each week, we will reflect on a few of the theses leading up to this year’s Here We Still Stand Conference in October. Each post will also include a new translation completed by Caleb Keith.
It’s the First Century, the early days of the of the Post-Pentecost Church. Something is in the air.
Writer’s Block, however, entertains no such fantasies. It goes straight for my ego’s jugular and pounds home the fact that I’m not good enough.
The Gospel is simple to confess. That is, we are justified by faith alone, through Christ alone, without the works of the Law.
It may seem like a strange place to begin: the end of the beginning.
You may have seen the uproar from a recent blog post suggesting that virgins who forego college, learn to cook big meals and abstain from tattoos make more desirable wives.
Our meditation listens to the King of Kings when He says; it is finished.
I have a confession: I don’t believe the Bible is true because it says it’s true.
We expect that if it is God’s word, it must have fallen out of the sky on golden plates.
The Law gets a bad rap. There is certainly a negative component to the Law. The work of the Law is very different than the work of the Gospel.