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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God coming to us at Christmas encapsulates the essence of Christian faith: we don't make ourselves strong and then work our way up to a strong God.
So it is with my little garden as well; dead, so it would seem. Nothing. Barren.
Have you ever grown despondent from trying so hard to stop behaving in certain destructive ways, but always failing?
The devil is effective with this attack because it calls out all the things a Christian sinner experiences as simultaneous sinner and saint.
This time of year, Christmas time, the world isn't so much Christ-expectant as it is Christ-haunted.
A while back, my wife and I attended the wake and memorial service of a friend from a prior church we attended.
If the devil took over a church, I suspect it would be bursting at the seams every Sunday, with smiling faces, clean noses, straight morals, conservative voting, institutional fidelity
Old Adam's works are good because he says they're good. End of conversation.
Duke is my dog-in-training; although, sometimes I suspect I am actually his person-in-training. Regardless, we have both been learning a lot.
A while ago I ran across a great comedy routine. In it Brian Regan riffs on those who he calls Me Monsters. This is a person who must be at the center of every conversation.
I often dance around the idea of denominations. I've been Pentecostal and I guess Evangelical.
Have you ever really thought about how crazy your salvation is? You may have never thought of it in those terms, but truly, your redemption and rescue from eternal damnation is a jarring truth, one that should spawn tears of joy and shouts of praise.