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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The redeemed are dressed in white robes.
Every Christian is abundantly rich through baptism.
Hear that confession of saving faith? Rahab may have been a prostitute in Jericho, but she was secretly a virgin daughter of Yahweh.
As an avid movie-goer, one of the ways Scripture comes alive for me is to picture the stories as if they were scenes and beats from a live-action movie.
It's easy to forget that today, just like then, most people who laud Luther publicly as a reformer, revolutionary, and so on, secretly reject his teaching because it's too much to take.
The church is God’s flock. Jesus is both a lion and a lamb. The zoo turns out to be as packed with theology as a seminary, if not more.
You matter so much to God that he would rather die than lose you. You matter so much to Jesus that no suffering was too much, no deprivation too burdensome, no punishment too severe for him to endure to have you as his own.
This evening we will together take a very abbreviated look at what led Luther down the long road to the discovery of the Gospel.
Lose trust in the free grace of the righteousness of Christ alone, and the holiness of the Church and all in her is lost.
The same can be said of the Reformation. I have often heard both Roman Catholic and Lutheran brothers and sisters bemoan the celebration of the Reformation.
True freedom, Luther discovered, is found in Jesus crucified who sets us free.
The Word of God wrecked the room. The wise and seasoned pastor along with the smart mouth vicar were all silenced in the fear and awe of a God who can seem so absent at times.