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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To know the cure is not to become immune to sorrow.
What God perceives is not what our eyes see; he is focused on righteousness because his love creates what is righteous.
It is death that deserves derision, not the disciple who reaches through sorrow for his Lord.
Illness is not romantic. It is not a test, a metaphor, nor a blessing in disguise.
The unity of God’s people is grounded not in lineage nor land but in the promise of the coming Christ.
Why is it truly meet right and salutary that we should at all times and all places give thanks to God.
“The well that washes what it shows” captures the essence of Linebaugh’s project, which aims to give the paradigmatic law-gospel hermeneutic a colloquial and visual language.
Why would David write this psalm for all to read when he was no longer God’s greatest king, but rather God’s greatest sinner?
It is by his perfect surrender that our true Exodus was accomplished.
The testimony of the Word assures us that God isn’t waiting for us at the top of the stairs, with arms folded and brows furrowed.
Curiosity, while it might kill the cat, just might be one of the most needed virtues of our time.
This is the fifth installment in our article series, “An Introduction to the Bondage of the Will,” written to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.