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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What is most remarkable about this tale is not how clever it is, but that the original storyteller was just as greedy as the three fictional young men were.
Why would God reject from Cain what he later accepted from and mandated of his people? So as far as the material itself, neither Cain’s nor Abel’s offering was superior.
Indeed, our Lord pronounced no beatitude upon the man who is loved by his wife and cherished by his children, but He does say, "Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me," (Mt 5:11).
I don’t need to watch a blood-soaked story on CNN or visit someone of death row to familiarize myself with the beast of depravity crouched within the human heart. I just need to look in the mirror, to stare deeply into the eyes that are a window to a soul that has journeyed down dark paths whose only illumination comes from the fires of hell.
I lack the wisdom, and the experience, to counsel those who have been hurt so deeply. There is no pain like the pain of being mistreated by those who, above all others, you expect to love you unconditionally.
She against whom I preached, in her unexpected response actually “preached” to me three truths I have never forgotten.
Though the theophanic elements at the Jerusalem Pentecost were not as diverse as those at Sinai, there is one prominent commonality between the two: divine speech out of divine fire.
Let him feel the heft of stone cradled in his palm, and consider the gravity of guilt cast upon the hypocrite.
This is the night when the earth is formless and void; and the darkness of blood is over the face of Thy Son. And the Spirit of God moves out of His body as He gives up the Ghost.
The prophets had foretold, His coming Incarnation; The Word would make our flesh, His only habitation.
Never are we more Hollywood than when we admit wrongdoing. Our confession is scripted, edited, practiced. Move over Brad Pitt; I’ve got this role down pat, for it’s my version of me.
People take off their public masks when around relatives. They let their darkness shine. That’s why Manuel spends his December 25 in the graveyard, talking to the dead.