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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Some lie and tell us that to sin is to be ourselves. But it is not. Sin is not natural to humanity.
The little psychologist within us is often hard at work to pinpoint the origin of life’s problems.
Jesus is the end of religion.
God’s Law is a death sentence for us sinners. There is no winning beneath the Law of God.
The Gospel predominates when hearers receive the saving gifts of Christ as God’s final word to them.
We have to endure darkness before we’re ready for the light again. God is doing what he does best: he’s conforming us to his Son, to Jesus, who was buried in the darkness and rose again into the light on Easter.
What did Christians do, both when they encountered a Rome in its glory, as when Christ was born, and in it decline, as when Constantine tried to pull stuff back together?
There is just something about the idea of not being ‘under Law’ that sets off all kinds of alarms in the minds of many Christians.
There is something about high art forms that touches the soul.
Jesus is the great Houdini of the grave for us. And through His death, He gives us the Great Escape from death that leads to the great joy of the Resurrection.
God’s telling a joke. And after we’re done laughing at this silly divinity, we realize that the true joke is on us.
If there is no resurrection, then we have no true hope, and the arts above all vocations would be the folly of follies.