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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These teachings are the heart of the Reformation…If it is about you, it isn’t about Jesus.
The Christian who understands Gospel-based love recognizes the false promises and rewards of the Playboy Mansion.
Conflict demands resolution, tension demands a balancing act in the face of uncertainties.
By focusing intently on what one wants to avoid, we often crash right into the moral hazard we are trying to evade.
The Law though it does many things—restrains, exhorts the Christian unto righteousness, punishes—always rightly accuses and condemns sinners of their sin before a righteous, holy, and just God.
This emphasis in Luther also applied to his understanding of the sacraments, and particularly comes out in his writings on the Lord’s Supper in his Large Catechism.
As the devil awakens after a long slumber, recovering from the resurrection event, he finds his shackles loosened and the glorious screams of torment throughout his dark empire
Desiderius Erasmus and many humanists had for a while held out hope for Luther’s call for reform and many of the reformers were themselves, to some degree, humanists.
The sight of indulgences being bought and sold is just not something I witness on a regular basis.
"Are you Republican or Democrat?” “Liberal or conservative?” “Yankees or Red Sox?” “Star Wars or Star Trek?”
Ultimately, however, we find in the Heidelberg Disputation the root and core of Luther’s theology, which he would build and expound upon throughout his life.
This short series has attempted to show that many, if not all, of the attempts that have been made to reveal or identify tensions or error in Melanchthon’s theology.