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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God’s candle is not so easily extinguished. His promise is not some vague light at the end of the tunnel that we may or may not reach. In fact, God’s light has a name: Jesus Christ.
Isaiah speaks to our time. He speaks to our rejoicing now and an anticipated joy-filled future. Christ’s coming, Christmas, brings them both.
We don’t have to worry about deserving, earning, or reciprocating his gifts. Our Lord doesn’t give us what we deserve. We are given what he deserves, what Jesus has won for us.
He also took our own history and suffered all the agony and pain of our own lives.
The thought of losing even one of those for whom his Son died pains God beyond belief, and the angels rejoice when even one of his children repents.
So what, if anything, makes us different from those who are waiting on the grassy knoll in Dallas, TX? Can we be any more sure of our belief in the resurrection?
Jesus is both the image bearer and the image giver. In Jesus’ incarnation we are redeemed and re-imaged.
“The days are coming,” and God said it. God, who kept his promise that Christ would come at Christmas.
There is no other transitionary event in human history that warrants three full months of focused attention and persistent acknowledgment than the incarnation of the Son of God.
If Jesus is indeed the same yesterday, today, and forever, everything his enfleshment brings is already assured: life, salvation, and forgiveness.
In Genesis 1-2, the Lord reveals—or, at a bare minimum, starts dropping some big hints—that he will be quite comfortable becoming a human being himself someday.
The Word of Yahweh is not a trifling thing that can be visited only when it’s convenient. It’s a book of life, for all of life, that imparts life to those who believe in it and the God of it.