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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In The Journal of Neuroscience, there was a man referred to as E.P. He was an 84-year-old retired lab technician. E.P. suffered from one of the most severe cases of amnesia ever documented.
Instead of answering this question theoretically, perhaps it will be easier to illustrate the problem of understanding God through our human speculation by considering the legend of St. George and the Dragon.
Today I had one such reflection session with the Old Testament reading, Numbers 21:4-9. The narrative involves Moses, divine herpetology, and healing. My reflections are twofold.
Premeditated or not, you and only you invited this venom into your body, this evil percolating in your soul, and now you don’t know where to turn.
If Abel’s blood is spilled all over the ground or if a mere speck had been lodged in the fabric of Cain’s shirt, that blood cries out. It has a voice and it will speak to whomever is willing to listen.
When I was a kid, I roamed the alleys and nearby fields with a pocket full of pebbles and a slingshot in hand. My grandfather had carved me the slingshot from the fork of a mesquite tree, native to our New Mexico soil.
We tend to think about apologetics as an academic enterprise, as something that requires formal training.
On January 21st, former Newsboys guitarist and co-founder George Perdikis wrote an article titled, “I Co-Founded One of the Most Popular Christian Rock Bands Ever… and I’m Now An Atheist” which gained quite a bit of buzz.
Paul's conversion is a death and resurrection story. And in reality, so is every conversion, whether it was an awe-inspiring experience like Paul's or not. Dead to sin and alive in Christ.
Today, however, it seems that apologetics tends to be a performance rather than an authentic dialog, an exercise in being clever rather than being compelling, and a source of self-satisfaction rather than an invitation to risky but respectful engagement.
Scattered throughout all denominations are moms and dads whose greatest disappointment in life is that their children have seemingly abandoned the faith.
Case in point: Jonah. Calling this man to be a prophet makes about as much as sense as hiring an executioner to be the CEO of a hospital.