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.

All Articles

As it turned out, the novels in which I had sought escape, became part of the means whereby the Lord rescued me from my own death.
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 manna God provides is never tasty enough. God never lives up to your expectations. So silently or audibly you wish for an easier way.
The mother of this prophet is visited by the Mother of God. In the coming together of these two pregnant women, we see the coming together of the old and the new.
The advent is an incredible time for the church. We focus in on and celebrate Christ's first coming in anticipation of His second advent: The restoration of all things.
He loved me, to be sure, but in a very nondescript, emotionally detached way, which is the way my grandfather loved him.
As C. S. Lewis, in "The Magician’s Nephew", has Aslan sing the world and all its beautiful intricacies into existence, so the Lion of the tribe of Judah, our Lord Jesus, hymns the heavens and earth into being.
When we begin singing the opening hymn, our voices blend with those of angels in heaven, who have been belting out hymns long before we rolled out of bed that morning.
You know what used to be easy? Going places. It’s true. When I was younger if somebody called me up on the spot and asked me to come over, I literally could say, “Alright, I’ll be right over,” and it was accurate.
Is God the perfect loving father for whom we have all longed; or is he an angry, blood-thirsty deity who can only be appeased by the torture and death of his own child?
Jesus simply can’t help himself. Over and over in the Gospels we find Jesus leaving a wake of physical restoration.
Here’s what lurks beneath this seemingly righteous behavior: they wanted to make a name for themselves, these tower-builders.