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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Jesus’ life and work is now ours through faith.
These teachings are the heart of the Reformation…If it is about you, it isn’t about Jesus.
The cross presents us a radically different standard. In God’s justice executed in the cross of Christ, nobody gets what they deserve.
But where love is necessary we pray for our enemies and bless them in the hope that God will repent and convert them to the Gospel.
If you’re looking for a book of the Bible to blow apart works righteousness and justification by adherence to the Law, Galatians is the book for you.
The Sixth Sense is a suspenseful and scary movie where a little boy is born with the strange gift of seeing dead people.
The wound on my hand would not let me forget what happened. The crackled and blistered strip of skin was a memento of the searing pain I felt that day. For the remainder of that year, I was constantly reminded of what I had done.
Conflict demands resolution, tension demands a balancing act in the face of uncertainties.
How strange and yet how comforting: God prays to God for us, the Spirit to the Father. He sees through the fog of our emotions to what we truly need.
While Lynch might not be everyone’s cup of tea, he certainly paints a world that many of our neighbors can relate to: a strange place governed by inexplicable entities, causes and forces.
We demand that our Creator defend His judgment and justification of sinners in a courtroom where we are judge, prosecuting attorney, and jury.
There’s something very attractive about both the cross-ladder and the cross-crutches. In fact, there’s something about both of them that the woodworker within us finds eminently more appealing than the simple cross of Jesus.