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 Father uses this last festival of Epiphany, the Transfiguration, to announce one more time to us just who Jesus is: His beloved Son, the Chosen One
Your eternal salvation isn’t dependent on performance or effort. Well, not your performance anyway...
Did the Apostle Paul just say that “he fills up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ?" That seems a little at odds with Jesus’ statement, "It is finished."
To be human is to be preoccupied with averting pain and despair. But despair gets a bad rap.
In honor of the anniversary of Philip Melanchthon’s Birthday, the following is an excerpt from Meeting Melanchthon written by Scott Keith (1517 Publishing, 2017).
The history of the early Reformation in the New World is both a tale of pirates and the battle of catechisms.
In our democratic society we love to talk about freedom. But anybody out there ever tried to be perfect? Ah, shucks. Turns out we’re not as free as we thought.
Jesus is the heart of the Gospel, and the Gospel is Good News. But it is always Good News that comes to us best on the lips of another.
Such faith is faith alone. Even our Spirit-produced fruit is not to be trusted. Rather, faith rests entirely in Christ’s work for us.
Jesus’ coming and death and resurrection guarantee us the victory over the lies, the desire to be pitied, and the appeal of stuff.
Advent is one big answer to the question of free will in matters of salvation. God is free. Our will is bound.
The Pope Leo X used the psalm description of a boar uprooting grape vines in a vineyard as a metaphor for what the upstart German monk had been doing at that backwater university.