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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Their hearts burned, their feet ran, and their mouths opened. “The Lord is risen, indeed!” they confessed, because this is what Easter does: It makes confessors.
John chose to write these things for a specific purpose: “So that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name."
This is no isolated or obscure fragment of New Testament writing. Contained within Paul’s correspondence to Philemon is one of the most striking portraits of the gospel ever recorded.
Instead of remaining silent when we wonder if someone is struggling with suicidal thoughts, and rather than judging for ourselves whether or not suicide is an unforgivable sin, let's lean on God's Word.
Christianity is about forgiveness for the sake of Christ. Yet often, we who have been forgiven much are sitting around expecting much from others.
It is safe to say that Easter this year will be unlike any Easter we have ever seen.
We must put away a whitewashed Christianity that says that God simply forgives because He is nice, kind, loving, gentle, etc. That is not how forgiveness works.
Our God-given faith, despite our lack of sight, has made us sons and daughters of light who walk in the light even during dark times.
Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. But if you pause the story...then it is not just about Jesus raising Lazarus.
This petition is proof that the Christian life is not a practice in perfectionism. Rather, it is a life of dying and rising, lived under the cross of Christ, in the continual forgiveness of our sins.
When the story begins in creation and ends in restoration, all the moments in between are filled with the working of God.
The primary point of Joseph’s life (and every story in Scripture) is to point us to Christ. To tell us something about what God is like and how He interacts with His Creation.