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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By the time we pulled off the side of the road, they had spilled out and surrounded our vehicle.
Today I have a hankering to talk about beavers. Who doesn’t love beavers? The binomial nomenclature reads Castor canadensis.
We like to define ourselves, and to have others see us and talk about us, based upon our accomplishments.
Some consider apologetics, with its emphasis on rational arguments and empirical evidence, a distinctly “modern” enterprise. Thus, however legitimate or useful it might once have been, now that we have taken an allegedly “postmodern” turn.
I pray Thy name be hallowed, Lord, But want my name to be adored.
Because I do care now, and will care even after I’m with the Lord, here are some things I hope and pray are not said at my funeral. I care about those who will be there, about what they will hear.
In an American evangelical landscape that emphasizes the importance of an individual’s personal decision to follow Jesus—as if that were the basis for God’s grace towards a man or woman—Lutherans and Reformed Christians insist that justification before God is based solely on Jesus’ work, two millennia ago.
Huxley, Dawkins, Hodge, and Plantinga characteristically illustrate Ian Barbour’s conflict model. The idea is that the universe is not big enough for the likes of science and religion to coexist. The conflict proponent, whether pro-science or pro-religion, adopts an attitude of total domination.
Have we made Christianity too easy? No, God has made Christianity “too easy” because He has made it pure gift.
Ingram Robinson was 91 years old and had seen it all—well, almost seen it all. For what his eyes were about to behold, as the sun rose on his ninth decade in this world, was something entirely, and radically, new.
Seeing, we do not see. Our eyes are busy deceiving us 24/7, like two liars sunk into our faces, calling black white and white black. To see God's work in our world, our eyes must retire and our ears labor overtime.
There is hope and healing for you in Jesus Christ, the God who immersed Himself so deeply in our sufferings that He, too, wept over the death of a dear friend.