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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So it is with my little garden as well; dead, so it would seem. Nothing. Barren.
Have you ever grown despondent from trying so hard to stop behaving in certain destructive ways, but always failing?
The devil is effective with this attack because it calls out all the things a Christian sinner experiences as simultaneous sinner and saint.
This time of year, Christmas time, the world isn't so much Christ-expectant as it is Christ-haunted.
If the devil took over a church, I suspect it would be bursting at the seams every Sunday, with smiling faces, clean noses, straight morals, conservative voting, institutional fidelity
Old Adam's works are good because he says they're good. End of conversation.
A while ago I ran across a great comedy routine. In it Brian Regan riffs on those who he calls Me Monsters. This is a person who must be at the center of every conversation.
My husband and I just adopted Duke, a very cute beagle mix, from a nearby shelter. He is about three years old and was found wandering in a park several months ago.
There was another criminal next to Christ the day he died. He was aware of who Jesus was, and why he was there.
It’s time to call bull on a theology the dominates Christianity.
Today, I almost died several times.
We want to know how God rules this world, how he is present in all things, how he exerts his control over the course of world events. We want to know why some get cancer and some don’t, why terrible things happen to the best of people, why volcanoes erupt and hurricanes strike and fires consume.