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.
The word of assurance given to Moses at Sinai echoes through eternity on the lips of the Savior, untroubling troubled souls with the good news that there is one who walks the paths of life with you, and soon he’s coming to bring you to himself.

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Good works do not give us a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Rather, good works result from righteousness given by the good work of the Righteous One on the cross.
Epiphany celebrates that we have not been left in our hearts’ cold darkness and this spoiled creation.
Bonhoeffer’s Advent preaching was carried out under the dark shadow of war yet within that night the word of promise sounds forth with radiant clarity. There is much in his preaching to inspire, deepen, and sharpen our proclamation in Advent 2020.
God is coloring over your sin and making you fragrant; he is making you righteous in his sight. The old is gone, forever covered over by this new work.
Unlike human marriage, which is marred by sin, Jesus never seeks to divorce us due to irreconcilable differences.
When we genuinely measure ourselves, we will find ourselves dreadfully lacking.
The parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew hinges on whether a guy is wearing the right costume for the party.
We now stand holy and blameless before our Heavenly Father as his own dear children, and we are set free to serve our neighbor in love.
The only reason we're aware of our old self is in baptism, God created a new self for us.
Character development? Change? Saying that it’s behind you? Yeah right. You’re just saying that because you want your nice polished image back. You haven’t changed. We know. We’ve got the receipts.
A truly Christian work is it that we descend and get mixed up in the mire of the sinner, taking his sin upon ourselves and floundering out of it with him, not acting otherwise than as if his sin were our own.
That is the good news that ifies all hand wringing and wipes away every tear from every eye.