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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The term Gospel came to mean a new kind of proclamation so that the Law and the new doctrine [Gospel] are distinguished in such a way that the new doctrine gains primary influence.
Really, once you’ve heard and believed the Gospel, the goal now is to learn more and more about the law of God, so that you can mature into a commandment-keeping, law-loving, obedient disciple of Jesus. Right?
Christ alone has finished your salvation. Christ alone could and has made satisfaction for your sins.
So what's the back side? What's the promise? We shall not have other gods, but we do have the one, true God—the promise of a God for us.
The pirates spent their lives seeking after the treasure and after finally attaining it, they discover that it was cursed. Instead of satisfying their empty souls, it only intensified their cravings.
Have you ever read scripture and been caught by a crippling wave of guilt, shame and fear? Have you sat with your Bible open in front of you and thought, “Well, if this is the case, I might as well pack it in right now, because there’s no hope for me!”
We are a sinning church with a preaching problem.
If there was a proclamation of grace, it was an afterthought, given in the sense of “just in case anyone needs this.”
Here’s what lurks beneath this seemingly righteous behavior: they wanted to make a name for themselves, these tower-builders.
Whether you're a fan of the School of Rock legend or not, there's no denying that Jack Black knows how to own the moment when he's given one at the Oscars.
His face was gaunt and his eyes had a haunted look to them as he strode into the office. He resembled a man beaten down, a wreck of an individual who looked disheveled and worn out.
No wonder that when young people grow up in a law-saturated, grace-dry church, they leave the faith by droves for all they’ve heard their whole life is a life they can never live up to.