David finally found the truth that it was not his seed of kingship but the promise made to Abraham that made him holy. From that, David refused to be moved and wrote this Psalm by the necessity of the Spirit as the assurance of faith. The law never made a man holy, not even one as robust as David; yet faith did this great thing without lifting a finger.
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.

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What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
Unprompted, without any warning, for no reason at all, without any instigation say, "I love you." And that will wash over your parents like a beautiful absolution.
Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
The further up and further into the season of Epiphany we get, the bigger the grace of God in Christ is, the brighter the Light of Christ shines, and the more blessed we are in Jesus' epiphany for us.
God gives us the power and authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to burdened sinners who entrust us with their pain, guilt, and defeat.
Repentance is meaningless unless we are willing to acknowledge who we are: sinners needing mercy.
The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
A.I. can’t make the proclamatory move that delivers God’s word in a way that is specifically for me.
The more awareness we have that we are weak and low and frail and incapable of doing this thing called life, the more perfectly we are positioned to meet the God of grace.