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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The world doesn’t need dads who are more stressed than they already are. It needs fathers who care for their families, not in heroic ways, but in common, everyday ways.
This article comes to us from 1517 guest contributor, Karen Stenberg.
Only when we’re ready to accept the impossibility of human perfection can we move beyond the paralyzing myth that we are capable of anything good apart from Christ.
Jesus comes to you. He binds your wounds, and he pours out his body and his blood for the forgiveness of your sins.
Here is someone to love; they’re not a Christian. They’re not very clean and don’t seem to care. Love them. Let your life become intertwined with theirs. Let it cost you something.
The law is good and holy but so often when we are “shoulding” on one another, we actually are just going to end up “burning” each other’s fields.
By his initiative alone, he remakes our hearts to love him and others unselfishly.
In Christ, we live beneath an open heaven having the definitive proof in the cross of Christ that God is outrageously for us, not against us.
We all know what I think (maybe) Rachel knows: Celebrating ourselves isn’t enough. It won’t ever be enough.
Now, if there were another way to heaven, doubtless, he would have made it known to us.
It’s God’s love that sets us free to love in the first place.
Forde’s work testifies to the liveliness and vitality of confessional Lutheranism, and its promise for the continuing need to preach Christ crucified in this, and every, age until the Lord’s return.