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.

All Articles

Only by faith in Christ are we truly awake.
Cranach became the evangelical interpreter for the masses
God is consistently rooting us in reality—both what is seen and unseen—because that is where he is.
Take heart: God is near and he is here for you.
At the heart of The Idiot is Dostoevsky's confession of faith and the confession of all Christians.
In the place of God, Marx sets the material, autonomous, self-creating man.
Through Martin Luther, God would unleash a far greater storm than the one which overwhelmed Luther on July 2, 1505.
It’s God’s power that we are dealing with here that is made perfect in weakness, not ours. God’s power is made perfect in the weakness of the cross.
Ethics begins not with our doing, but with the Triune God’s giving.
That on Pentecost God’s Spirit should function through a dozen seeming inebriates should be no surprise when this same God saves through the ignominy of the cross.
The list of things our kids need to know when they leave the house is much simpler than we might believe.
In the face of abject evil, these two faithfully cling to the words and truths of he alone who is Good, Jehovah God.