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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Today, I almost died several times.
Years ago I picked up a used copy of Thomas Á Kempis’ Imitation of Christ at a second-hand bookstore.
One of the things you get used to if you talk about this thing called “grace” often enough, is sooner or later you’ll be looked down on by your peers.
We can leave all the stuff of life behind, because our great treasure God flaunts before the world on Calvary.
It seems that no matter where we look in this world, we never quite find what we really need.
We treat the Scriptures as if they’re our literary property to toy with as we please.
One of the interesting things about Paul’s writings that is not noticed enough is that Paul doesn’t really have an “application” section.
A promise was made to my older brother roughly 50 years ago. He was just an infant and had no idea that this promise was being set upon him.
Being a Christian is hard because it’s easy.
I am not one of those people who can put together a jigsaw puzzle without using the picture on the box.
Jesus takes that burden away in the “I forgive you and them” and gives us His “light” burden.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.