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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Senkbeil is a pastor’s pastor, a master of the art of pastoral care.
Jesus satisfies, fills, and saves because he is the Son of God, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns forever.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
God is a judge, but unlike you, God is just!
Luther’s final thoughts were not meant to bum you out or lead you to despair.
The liturgy ensures that the gospel is never something inward, merely a thought or sentiment of the believer.
The wrong god means love remains frail, fickle, or a fiction. The right God means love is the most reliable thing in all the world.
The gospel is best understood in terms of those two most important words: for you.
It's a new year, and you are still the same you: a sinner who is simultaneously perfect in every way because Christ declares it to be so.
Longstanding tradition must be bolstered by something outside of ourselves that also lies outside of the traditions of men.
The world rushes forward, lighting up screens and decking out storefronts in a mad sprint toward the next thing, but Advent pulls us back.
We love hearing about Jesus, but we also love hearing about how much effort we need to exert to truly pull off this whole “Christian life” thing.