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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Merry Christmas, Christ has spoken, and his verdict stands.
“The well that washes what it shows” captures the essence of Linebaugh’s project, which aims to give the paradigmatic law-gospel hermeneutic a colloquial and visual language.
Caesar gets your taxes. Christ gets your heart.
Every age has its emergencies, and the church must never ignore them. Yet, our response cannot be one of panic or propaganda.
On this, the birthday of Martin Luther, I will pause to thank God for his birth.
Something Reformation Christians ought to do is familiarize themselves with Roman Catholic theology.
Curiosity, while it might kill the cat, just might be one of the most needed virtues of our time.
This is the fourth installment in our article series, “An Introduction to the Bondage of the Will,” written to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.
This is the third installment in our article series, “An Introduction to the Bondage of the Will,” written to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.
This is the second installment in our article series, “An Introduction to the Bondage of the Will,” written to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.
When a congregation is abused by its pastor, it loses more than a shepherd. It loses its threshold place; that fragile seam between earth and heaven.
Nothing good happens when you get ahead of God and take matters into your own hands.