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.

All Articles

The Lion of Judah, Christ the King, Jesus of Nazareth, will not be away from us for one night.
This great victory, the true defeat of death, I receive not by my thinking, willing, or working, but simply by believing.
This is an edited excerpt from Addendum A, “The Church Year,” On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service, written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023), pgs. 113-120.
In Christ, this world’s never-children are his always-children, because he isn’t a God of death, after all.
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.
For you who are struggling to navigate grief, to cope with pain, or breathe through anxiety, the gospel announces that there is a person whose heart throbs for you.
Jesus continues to do the same for me and for you as he did for his disciples. He still shows up for us. He still speaks his peace to us.
You are the baptized, for in Christ we are all wet. The demographic dividers are washed away.
What if the dissonance in this calendrical coincidence can be harmonized into a deeper melody?
My goal here isn’t to selfishly reflect on all the reasons I will miss Rod because I know that if you are reading this, you may miss this man, too.
A “good death” and “good life” are not accomplished through personal striving but are grasped by faith in the promises of God.