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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I walk in the local mall for exercise several times a week. I purposely avoid weekends and hours when the mall is likely to be crowded because, while I am not a racewalker, I do like to keep up a steady pace as opposed to stopping, starting and inching and this is difficult to achieve even when there are few people around.
A confessing church is a church more worried about souls than appearances, family lines, or institutional bottom-lines.
What do we do when Christians are more focused on their doing for God than God's doing for them?
In Christ we are already dead to sin and the eternal consequences of sin. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul (Romans 8:1).
One of the biggest challenges to the Christian faith is sorting through our question of “Where is God in the trials of our lives?”
If affairs always begin by believing lies, then repentance always begins by believing the truth: the truth that you are in the wrong, the truth that you have a God who loves you in Jesus Christ, and the truth that he and he alone can save you not only from adultery but from every sin that seeks to lead you down the path of destruction.
Heaven is not our ultimate hope. Our promise is not to live forever riding on rainbows and soaring in the clouds.
I’ve seen many Christians attempt to wear the world’s hatred as a badge of honor. They count it a huge win if they can get some atheist to rip them up on Twitter or in the comments on Facebook, blogs, or on YouTube.
The only recourse we have is to die before we die. To give up on a fake-life. To acknowledge that this stupid, selfish game we’re playing with our immortality projects has zero success.
Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands, I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son.
The world doesn’t need dads who are more stressed than they already are. It needs fathers who care for their families, not in heroic ways, but in common, everyday ways.
From a secret place deeper than the muscle tissue of her brain she spoke Jesus’ words. Words He planted there long ago.