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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Like the serpent on the pole, God still puts real-life things up for us to look to for salvation.
Bathed in the waters of baptism, you are placed in God's path of totality, a path he won for each and every one of us.
Heaven is yours now.
You are the baptized, for in Christ we are all wet. The demographic dividers are washed away.
The seemingly small, the particular, the previously overlooked, magnifies in importance.
We can interpret "be the Church" as either law or gospel.
We are not pursuing dragons; we are the dragons. We are, all of us, Eustace Scrubb.
Rod Rosenbladt, the encourager of all things good, true, and beautiful and a tireless warrior for Jesus and the Gospel message, finally rests at the marriage feast of the lamb.
The more I got to know Dr. Rosenbladt, the more I saw that he wasn’t a man divided.
He was rooted in his own tradition but gracious with others when they wanted to learn about his faith or their own.
Anyone could tell he enjoyed teaching theology and loved his students.
One way or another, Rod always found a way to bring whatever story he was telling back to the gospel and God's grace in Christ.