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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The crisis is not merely that people are leaving. The crisis is that we have relinquished what is uniquely Lutheran and deeply needed.
The story of your life stretches beyond the dash on the tombstone.
Merry Christmas, Christ has spoken, and his verdict stands.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.
Illness is not romantic. It is not a test, a metaphor, nor a blessing in disguise.
“The well that washes what it shows” captures the essence of Linebaugh’s project, which aims to give the paradigmatic law-gospel hermeneutic a colloquial and visual language.
Caesar gets your taxes. Christ gets your heart.
Every age has its emergencies, and the church must never ignore them. Yet, our response cannot be one of panic or propaganda.
For the Christian, the iron gate of death was opened by the blood of Christ and the empty tomb.
Forgiveness is not ours to manufacture. It is ours to proclaim.
When we fail, our first impulse is the same as that of our spiritual ancestors: to sprint headlong into the bushes.
On this, the birthday of Martin Luther, I will pause to thank God for his birth.