David finally found the truth that it was not his seed of kingship but the promise made to Abraham that made him holy. From that, David refused to be moved and wrote this Psalm by the necessity of the Spirit as the assurance of faith. The law never made a man holy, not even one as robust as David; yet faith did this great thing without lifting a finger.
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.

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The only one truly blessed of God, who in himself is God’s incarnate makarios, surrounds himself with a multitude of the accursed, the non-makarios.
It is not her sacrifices that define Jane's faith, but her belief in the one who sacrificed for her.
Despite what the Pharisees believed and advertised, Jesus was not intent upon deconstructing the fundamental tenets of the Old Testament law. Actually, he proceeds to do just the opposite.
Jesus comes to you. He binds your wounds, and he pours out his body and his blood for the forgiveness of your sins.
Everyone is living as a naked sufferer who’s been duped into believing that the nakedness of suffering has to be covered up.
God daily broadsides us with his abundant power and glory as we observe nature around us. And yet, as glorious as this book of nature is, it is not enough.
God bestows faith that it should deal not with ordinary things, but with things no human being can master such as death, sin, the world, and Satan.
The law is good and holy but so often when we are “shoulding” on one another, we actually are just going to end up “burning” each other’s fields.
The Holy Spirit is sent, not to talk about himself, but to point us to Jesus.
Pentecost reminds us of not only what happened on that day described in Acts 2 but what is happening every day: the Spirit of God working in and through God’s people, according to his word.
You and I have a God who pardons all our wrongdoing by taking all of them onto himself. He doesn’t zap us into oblivion at the first sign of rebellion.
Sin, death, and Satan may have had more than a puncher's chance to beat us, but when God stepped into the ring, they should have admitted defeat and thrown in the towel.