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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A friend of mine recently expressed to me his rather unique thoughts on Narcissus.
Babies need to be baptized for the same reason that all Christians need to be absolved: All of us are born into and contribute to this sin-wrecked show of a life.
She was the kind of woman in whom I see myself, in whom thousands of us see our own reflections. So often our lives seem pointless, a vain existence in a world that worships vanity.
What comes to us at Christmas is not a great seasonal bargain to enhance our happy holidays. It is the priceless gift of God’s Son.
We aggrandize time. It certainly possesses power over us. It irreversibly moves us in one direction and can’t be replayed to different ends.
Blessedness comes to us camouflaged as simple earthly words, water, bread and wine.
Christ rose from the grave so that the eternal Light of Christ would be your forever identity.
God graciously bursts our foolish plots by coming our way, into our very flesh, and being God with us.
I’m going to begin at the beginning. But which one? Birth? Kindergarten? My first drink? The first time I had sex?
We are all sojourners in a perilous cosmos, what is sometimes conceptualized as the theology of the pilgrim.
Even “our faith” is a gift from God’s fatherly hand. Our performance, desire, and perseverance do not factor into God’s will for us.
Jesus loves His church. He cleans her up. He takes her as His own. And He leads her.