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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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.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
Have you ever played hide and seek with a 2-year-old? News flash: They’re terrible at it.
God cannot love me unconditionally without prerequisites, especially after all I’ve done, can He?
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.
We're of little faith. Or rather, we have big faith, but it’s in something else. Our faith is in our ability to control situations, manipulate them to our advantage.
Can God forgive friends who abandoned Him in His hour of greatest need?
Either one of those verses alone is scary; but both of them together are terrifying!
I'm in the middle of a series on Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
Faith does not require that we always Hoorah what the Lord does. God wants children, not brown-nosers.
When Simon the Pharisee got his holier-than-thou panties in a wad over what this woman was doing, Jesus insulted him by pointing out how much a better host this prostitute was than he was.
He has wandered away into the darkness of his doubting, got lost in his grief, confused by the pains he’s suffered. It happens. Shepherds sometimes become lost sheep as well.