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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In grace, God chooses to love his people.
Luther’s famous treatise contains great consolation for Christians struggling with grace, suffering, and hope.
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
The Lord has an answer to your tears, your trouble, your weariness, your enemies, your grief, your shame, your sin.
You have real freedom through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a freedom that doesn’t rest on founders, votes, or power plays.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
Press on, church. Yours is the victory through Jesus Christ your Lord.
God can never really be said to be ignoring us, even if our experience with God at any given moment is that he is.
In Christ, this world’s never-children are his always-children, because he isn’t a God of death, after all.
Moltmann is gone now, but his theology will continue to provoke and provide.
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
In our catastrophes - whatever they may be, however large or small they are - we cry out for rescue, deliverance, and salvation.