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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God bestows faith that it should deal not with ordinary things, but with things no human being can master such as death, sin, the world, and Satan.
Trinity Sunday is a day we confess the mystery of our faith. It is a mystery that saves.
You and I have a God who pardons all our wrongdoing by taking all of them onto himself. He doesn’t zap us into oblivion at the first sign of rebellion.
Sin, death, and Satan may have had more than a puncher's chance to beat us, but when God stepped into the ring, they should have admitted defeat and thrown in the towel.
If the Risen Christ is ushering in a new kingdom and a new creation, then maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to see some earth-shaking and mind-blowing things taking place.
By his initiative alone, he remakes our hearts to love him and others unselfishly.
There is no life when one is separated from the Promised Land because that will be the place where God will send His Messiah.
Somedays we are simply looking for a mark, a rock at the foot of a tree, something to direct us forward, a few words to let us know we are going in the right direction.
We confess the ascension of Christ every Sunday in the words of the both the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creed.
In Christ, we live beneath an open heaven having the definitive proof in the cross of Christ that God is outrageously for us, not against us.
The One who has defeated sin, death, and the Devil himself is now living in Heaven and praying for you.
Jesus will suffer, die, and rise again for them. By this love, they are forgiven. By this love, they are made His friends: Friends of God.