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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Instead of providing a way out, the LORD gave Elijah a way through, which included the calling of Elisha as his apprentice.
The baptized, those rescued and redeemed by God’s grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone, are given an entirely new life to live, an entirely new way to walk.
Jesus promises more than a disembodied “spiritual” existence after death. He has promised to raise our perishable, mortal bodies to immortality.
The Psalms aren’t the clandestine successes of a faithful soul, but are the journaled hopes of a desperate soul — of one teetering on the edge of oblivion.
We are not saved by the success of our refining process. We are saved precisely because our impurities, no matter what the percentage, ruin the whole thing.
This tiny rural church would bulge at the seams with worshipers from realms seen and unseen, all mixed together in the adoration of the Lamb.
The presence of the Glory Cloud at the presentation of the manna makes clear who is providing this meal.
In His grace, Jesus promises that all who come to Him in faith will live abundantly and eternally.
The unity we have in the Church is a gift, a gracious creation of the triune God and not a work we accomplish or decide on.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of “Urchin at War: Volume 1” by Uwe Siemon-Netto (1517 Publishing, 2021).
Jesus did not need a single act of mercy to get him started on the road to mercy, his essence was by nature merciful.
The Christ Key: Unlocking the Centrality of Christ in the Old Testament by Chad Bird is now available to order