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 I first began to hear that the Bible’s good news was a whole lot less about me and a whole lot more about Christ, I just didn’t get it.
With the proclamation that grace and peace come through the bloody suffering and death of Jesus, we're awoken to the fact that God's grace covers all our sin and His peace calms our busy heart and mind.
I don't remember the first time I heard the gospel, but I do remember the first time I began to understand it.
In the twinkling of that eye the perishable will become imperishable, and our bodies will be changed and become more glorious than we ever could have imagined.
We just can't stop ourselves from putting the brakes on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
On a recurring basis, Christians spot news headlines that signal yet one more moral collapse in society, the growing paganization of the cultures in which we live, the spread of antipathy toward the faith.
The more I heard the song, the more I heard the heart of the Gospel in the song.
Who should we baptize and when? How old does the person have to be? What if we get it wrong? Will something terrible happen to us?
Kierkegaard attempts to take us through Abraham’s mind as the patriarch prepares to sacrifice his son, his only son, his son whom he loves.
Today, people often bemoan the loss of children in the church.
Their love story was a long time in coming. He was 82 and she 74. And this was the first, and the last, marriage for both.
But when God's Word of Law and Gospel are tuned up, when they're properly distinguished, then Jesus' words rain down on us like thunderbolts.