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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Good works do not give us a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Rather, good works result from righteousness given by the good work of the Righteous One on the cross.
The church does well to remind the world that God is unmasked, indeed, that God has unmasked himself in the person of Jesus.
Any good work we perform among you; any doctrine we write upon your heart – that is God’s own work.
Fred Rogers did not teach children how to live through a pandemic, but he had many profound things to say about loving our neighbors and finding our identity in that calling.
As we close out an old year, Saint Silvester can remind us God is the Lord of history and He has used and is using even people whose lives sink largely or totally into obscurity to keep the confession of our faith in Jesus Christ alive.
Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the power of death is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error-driven out, and truth has been brought back.
This story of despair met with the hope of the gospel is rightly told by many during the holiday season.
Luther’s Christmas sermons remind us that unless Christ is proclaimed FOR YOU, He is not preached.
St John of the Cross' feast day on December 14 commemorates the day of his death in 1591, at the height of the Catholic renewal movement that followed the Reformation.
Christ urges us to love our neighbor as He loved us, forgiving all of their sins - giving them the absolving, shirt-pulling, embrace that we would also want.
It wasn’t a perfect image, but it was still there, even in its cartoonish movie magic distortion. It was an element of the Gospel right there in front of me.
On this day in the year 1093, Anselm was consecrated as the archbishop of Canterbury.