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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Despite what the Pharisees believed and advertised, Jesus was not intent upon deconstructing the fundamental tenets of the Old Testament law. Actually, he proceeds to do just the opposite.
It is necessary for preachers to have both the humility to acknowledge that they must keep watch over their teaching and the means to have their preaching constantly formed and shaped by God’s Word.
Jesus comes to you. He binds your wounds, and he pours out his body and his blood for the forgiveness of your sins.
Everyone is living as a naked sufferer who’s been duped into believing that the nakedness of suffering has to be covered up.
Here is someone to love; they’re not a Christian. They’re not very clean and don’t seem to care. Love them. Let your life become intertwined with theirs. Let it cost you something.
God daily broadsides us with his abundant power and glory as we observe nature around us. And yet, as glorious as this book of nature is, it is not enough.
This is the first direct promise of the Seed who will reunite all mankind to God by defeating Satan on the Cross.
The irony of our idolatry is that many of our idols could and would speak the gospel to us if we would listen.
God bestows faith that it should deal not with ordinary things, but with things no human being can master such as death, sin, the world, and Satan.
The law is good and holy but so often when we are “shoulding” on one another, we actually are just going to end up “burning” each other’s fields.
The Apostle Peter’s monumental sermon on Pentecost declares the Kingdom purposes and divine saving work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which culminates in the new world order with Christ in charge.
You and I have a God who pardons all our wrongdoing by taking all of them onto himself. He doesn’t zap us into oblivion at the first sign of rebellion.