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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This hymn is not for people who feel strong, but those who are weak.
In the sacrament, we receive an earnest of that future promise here and now in the body and blood of Jesus given and shed for us.
The story of salvation is the true story of God doing his unexpected work of salvation for us.
A set of Holy Week poems written and published first by Tanner Olson on his website, writtentospeak.com.
Today I would like to share The Legend of the Dogwood, inspired by the words of Stoney Cooper.
What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
The further up and further into the season of Epiphany we get, the bigger the grace of God in Christ is, the brighter the Light of Christ shines, and the more blessed we are in Jesus' epiphany for us.
If a key part of the Reformation was placing God’s Word back into the hands of the people in a clear, understandable way, then John of Ragusa can be called a “Prometheus” in his own right.
The German Bible made Sola Scriptura a reality for all believers.
Luther's September Testament not only shaped the reformers’ theology but also was as big an influence on the German language as Shakespeare was for English.
At the heart of The Idiot is Dostoevsky's confession of faith and the confession of all Christians.