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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We stand before God with a unique set of problems, diseases, and sins. The comforting truth of the Incarnation is that Jesus took my flesh. All of it.
Love continues to gently but endlessly pursue the narrator, despite his persistence in pulling away in the opposite direction.
Heaven is Miller Time. Heaven is the party in the streaming sunlight of the world’s final afternoon.
The following is an adaptation from "Law and Gospel in Action" written by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2019).
When we genuinely measure ourselves, we will find ourselves dreadfully lacking.
Now more than ever, it's good to take a closer look at the Christian confession about evil, pain, and suffering.
Good works do not make a Christian, do not secure the grace of God and blot out our sins, they do not merit heaven.
As we face our own struggles and successes, let us pray that we may be humble. Let us be grateful for whatever God has provided and not become arrogant in what we have or what we've lost.
It’s easy to slip into thinking about forgiveness solely in terms of our authority over it.
We need to remember that we belong to God by Grace Alone. It’s not by our best works. Not by the sweat of our brow, it’s not even by our best attempts to repent.
The command to love those nearby is as challenging as it is simple. Jesus took the initiative to come near to us in loving sacrifice.
The Gospel is a precious and comforting word. It comforts and refreshes the sad heart. It wrestles it out of the jaws of death and hell and transports it to the certain hope of eternal life, through faith in Christ.