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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Why was Jesus crucified? Not to save victims, but to save sinners.
I am not one of those people who can put together a jigsaw puzzle without using the picture on the box.
The dying words of Jesus were not, “Make it worth it,” but “It is finished.”
Jesus takes that burden away in the “I forgive you and them” and gives us His “light” burden.
There is no pain like the pain of being mistreated by those who, above all others, you expect to love you unconditionally.
What we see in the face of this God is not a loathing expression. We find the face of a compassionate man who knew all about shame himself.
No, when the Lord is ready for battle, of all creatures, he commissions Mary’s little lamb.
Like any language, the liturgy has syntax—a structure that provides order and intelligibly communicates meaning through all that is said.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
I became like God’s child David, whom the Lord pardoned of his adultery and murder. I became like Noah, Abraham, Judah, Aaron, Gideon, and so many more wayward children.
I have my list. It may seem strange to you, but, when I think about my own death, I often think in terms of positive failures.
Stephen Fry, the English actor, author and game show host once disparaged the “grammar Nazis” who felt it necessary to enforce all the rules of language but who had forgotten, or just didn’t care, about the joy of language.