Luther neither removed the Apocrypha from the Bible nor discouraged its use. Rather, he received and preserved the ancient distinction inherited from the fathers: the Apocrypha is valuable, edifying, and worthy of reading, but it is not Holy Scripture and therefore cannot serve as the foundation of Christian doctrine.
The confessors at Augsburg remind us that every generation of Christians is called to bear witness to the gospel amid the challenges and pressures of its own age. As they confessed Christ before emperors and kingdoms, so the Church continues to confess Him before the world today.
When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.

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When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.
This is what Christian catechesis does; it turns the knobs of the Scriptures and throws the doors of God’s word wide open to tell us the story of salvation.
I pray my children see God’s faithfulness not in the riches of this world, but in the riches of grace through Christ Jesus.
The same words of hope and peace that were entrusted to Israel are available to all, to “everyone who believes” (Acts 10:43).
No one is harder to convert than a religious expert.
Through baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, Christ meets you with his radical forgiveness which changes everything, even the self!
Humanity, despite our best efforts, cannot answer the question as to why God allows evil to occur.
This is an excerpt from the third chapter of By Water and the Word: God’s Gift of Baptism for You by Brian Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 52-60.
Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.
God Meets is the rare cancer book (and as above, I use that term advisedly) that addresses both the judgment God places on human creatures in the Garden (death) and the hard road anyone walks toward that end (100% of us).
In spite of the pain, Sasse exudes a peace from above that is quite literally impossible to explain apart from the assurance he has in Christ.
What Israel’s story makes painfully obvious is that following the Lord is a lifelong lesson in “I believe, but help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).