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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Your eternal salvation isn’t dependent on performance or effort. Well, not your performance anyway...
We’ve all been there, waiting in line to check out, and the person ahead of us questions the price of something that was just rung up.
Like the Pharisees, as well-meaning, contemporary Christians we too can often add fences to God’s Law.
To be human is to be preoccupied with averting pain and despair. But despair gets a bad rap.
In our democratic society we love to talk about freedom. But anybody out there ever tried to be perfect? Ah, shucks. Turns out we’re not as free as we thought.
We are a people always seeking, always moving, always striving for more: it is the American way.
We expect God to try us, not for our crimes, but for our better moments.
Some things, once they are deemed disgusting or contaminated, permanently carry that quality with them. These things are even thought to be “contagious,” negatively affecting whatever they come into contact with.
In a world where science tells us that everything is deteriorating and we’re all one day closer to our physical death it’s nice to think that there might be something we are getting better at.
Each of these little epiphanies in Middle-earth are like the star the magi saw arise in the sky, a light that reflects and points to Jesus who is the Light of the world.
We who have been given so much are the way by which the Father cares for those in need.
When bishops err we must not follow...We must obey God before man.