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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Christians have the rare faculty, above all other people on earth, of knowing where to place their care, while others vex and torture themselves and at length must despair.
In this parable, notice how Jesus invites us to consider that forgiveness is something more than a moment. It is a way of grace that extends throughout an entire kingdom.
Paul attempts to break down the walls which the early Christians effortlessly erected between those of different ethnic origins — specifically Jews and Gentiles — to drive them to the will and mind of Christ: Worship together as one body.
The gospel fires up within us the gratitude, joy, and love to pull off what the law never could get us to do.
We forget that Christians need the Gospel. Not as a side note, but as the front-page headline.
No good will come to the cause of the Gospel by followers of Jesus being regarded as crazy dissidents who will not cooperate with the most basic social mechanisms.
Sunday after Sunday, God’s people appear to have it all together… which makes you wonder why Jesus even continues to come. After all, everything is great among God’s people here.
Any note on its own can be perfectly fine. But bring it together with others and they will strike a chord or a discord – harmony or disharmony. It is the same with us.
Peter stands again this week as a model Christian. He is not the type of model to emulate, however.
We’ve become experts at making deals with God.
A truly Christian work is it that we descend and get mixed up in the mire of the sinner, taking his sin upon ourselves and floundering out of it with him, not acting otherwise than as if his sin were our own.
This is an excerpt adapted from “Let the Bird Fly” written by Wade Johnston (1517 Publishing, 2019).