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.
The word of assurance given to Moses at Sinai echoes through eternity on the lips of the Savior, untroubling troubled souls with the good news that there is one who walks the paths of life with you, and soon he’s coming to bring you to himself.

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What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
Ash Wednesday's purpose is not to motivate our resolve to redouble our efforts to do better.
Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
Even as he was dying, the heart of God poured itself out for the sake of sinners.
The further up and further into the season of Epiphany we get, the bigger the grace of God in Christ is, the brighter the Light of Christ shines, and the more blessed we are in Jesus' epiphany for us.
Repentance is meaningless unless we are willing to acknowledge who we are: sinners needing mercy.
You are the friend in low places. It’s only from this place that you are free to look outside yourself for the remedy to the issues that plague you and humanity.
In the Reformation, as in the tabernacle, God gave skill, artistry, and craftsmanship to put his Word in images so that through art, his Word would be revealed.
Jesus is the anti-Cain: a giver, not a taker.
Hymns were a means by which people were brought into direct contact with the Gospel that brought justifying faith. Set to music, they could readily memorize it, take it home with them, and rehearse its messages around the hearth and at work.
This is an excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).
This is an excerpt from “All Charges Dropped! Devotional Narratives from Earthly Courtrooms to the Throne of Grace,” written by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2022).