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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This is an excerpt from “All Charges Dropped! Devotional Narratives from Earthly Courtrooms to the Throne of Grace,” written by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2022).
Love bids us to choose life, always life, because the love of Jesus has already set us free for a life beyond our wildest imagination.
The reason nothing can come before Jesus is because nothing endures beyond the grave except for Jesus.
As the Spirit does His work, He produces new ways of living for individuals, households (like Philemon’s) and communities, that is, the Church.
The legal record of debt for our sin was canceled because Jesus satisfied the legal demands for us by his life, death, and resurrection.
Love for the brethren should be the hallmark of the Christian Church. It is basic to our witness to an unbelieving world .
In the text, Jesus enters a Pharisee’s house for dinner. Between the invitation and the meal, however, Jesus transforms this man’s home into a place of God’s care.
We need to know the Christian faith—such as it does not capitulate with Zeitgeist—always comes with a price of being maligned, persecuted, marginalized, blamed, you name it.
When offering encouragement to His disciples to follow Him, Jesus did not promise a pain-free life in this world. Instead, He highlighted the struggle and the difficulty. Why?
The battle is not so much recognizing sins as admitting them. It is also not so much confessing them as repenting them or laying them aside. But we can do it. Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith...
This is true discipleship. We live with Jesus, we hold on to Jesus, we suffer with Jesus, because Jesus brings a divisive peace that saves.
To base and entrust your life on what can be seen in this world is to commit oneself to unreality. The reality of things, indeed, the way, the truth and the life of the world is in what is not readily seen: Christ as Lord.