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 Christ we are already dead to sin and the eternal consequences of sin. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul (Romans 8:1).
Those clinging to God in Christ can be assured that it’s all clean.
Yet, just as the Jews had two choices, true God or no God, the Christian has the same, true Jesus or no Jesus.
One of my favorite things to do in the summer is read out under the shade of my backyard tree. There, I have a reclining chair and small little side table.
Abraham didn’t understand God very well (at least not early on). I don’t say that as a dig against the Patriarch. I don’t think any of us understand God very well either.
If affairs always begin by believing lies, then repentance always begins by believing the truth: the truth that you are in the wrong, the truth that you have a God who loves you in Jesus Christ, and the truth that he and he alone can save you not only from adultery but from every sin that seeks to lead you down the path of destruction.
In a world so wired by law and rules, judgement is everywhere.
That week, I began to doubt myself. Did I really believe?
The world doesn’t need dads who are more stressed than they already are. It needs fathers who care for their families, not in heroic ways, but in common, everyday ways.
You have suffered your son to come unto Jesus; but fathers, don’t let him die!
It seems like the sky is falling every other day now. From politics to culture to religion to about anything else, there’s one purported cataclysm after another on the horizon.
Every single child we raise has a completely unique perspective, personality, strength, and weakness.