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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Make no mistake, sinners are in fact being pursued by a most hideous beast called sin, death, and the devil, unleashed and striking continuously.
In the Church, the cry is, “He loves,” and it is that message which transforms our worldviews from taking to giving, from radical individualism to trans-demographic inclusivism, from selfishness to selflessness, from “tolerate my rights” to “loving rightly together.”
History won’t judge us, Jesus will. We already have his judgment. He gave it to us from the cross, where he acquitted us with his death.
Free-range Christ is fearful Christ because he is present, speaking, and I just crucified him.
Easter must be seen in light of the cross. It must never overshadow Good Friday. They are a packaged deal!
Simon carried the cross, but Jesus was carried by the cross to death.
My one hope of not only entering a right relationship with God but also stepping into glory is the same: it’s Christ. It’s always Christ.
Theologians of glory searched for God everywhere except the Cross of Christ.
Edward's goal of teaching his people to know the scriptures and to believe that their salvation depended on Christ is also essential for us today.
Luther recognized that in the penitential psalms, God gives us the words to cry out to Him in our distress, lament our sins, and confess trust in the promise of His righteousness in which alone is our sure and certain hope.
For Luther, those who refuse Christ as a curse want their sin removed not in Christ but in themselves.
Confession is not another ecclesiastical bludgeon but is instead a gift. There we can tell the truth about ourselves, knowing that Christ has only mercy for us in response.