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.

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Is a god fully understandable and explainable according to the finite logic and world we inhabit, is that a god one can trust and truly believe?
When we say in the benediction, “The LORD make His face shine on you,” grace is what we mean.
The Gospel is our freedom from sin. It is Christ in the mirror, Christ for me and for you.
God acts through His Word and means in order to create, restore, and renew inward faith.
Divine election hacking happens with the proposal that God’s Word is irrelevant and powerless, weak and impotent.
While 500 years is certainly something to be celebrated, to always focus on the anniversary number could run the risk of forgetting the true meaning behind the reason we remember the Reformation as an important period in the history of the Christian church.
Rather than calling me to pick burrs off my coat, God’s love strips me of my delusions and cuts to the heart of my disease.
The following is an excerpt from the introduction to Theology of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation written by Steve Paulson and edited by Kelsi Klembara and Caleb Keith (1517 Publishing, 2018).
What postmoderns see in modernism is a misuse of power through the control of dominant narratives.
But these good works aren’t done under compulsion. They’re done freely. They aren’t done so that God will love us. They’re done because He loves us.
For all its stewing, regret ironically does not truly focus on the past. Often it is more concerned with the present and the future and how they would be if only we had done something differently.
What we notice less often is that this same fear wonders about both the efficacy of the Gospel and the Law.