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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Sometimes in hanging on to our useless guilt, we are idolaters. We believe our sin or conscience is more powerful than our God.
Being the baptized just may be the last, great resistance.
If you are going to lose your life for the gospel’s sake, you must begin by hearing it.
Cyril’s fervor for pure explication of the gospel was present throughout his career.
In the place of God, Marx sets the material, autonomous, self-creating man.
There’s no possibility of understanding the grace of Romans 6 and the glory of Romans 8 unless you identify with the excruciating struggle of Romans 7.
The world we inhabit is wrong in so many ways, and a holistic approach to this “wrongness” traces its cause both to sin itself and to the effects of sin.
There are plenty of reasons why you do not already do whatever you want out of fear of the law, and you will find these reasons persist and remain long after the gospel has its way with you.
As the body positivity movement has gained traction, we must also be aware of some of its pitfalls
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.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted written by Gretchen Ronnevik (1517 Publishing, 2021), 122-125. Now available for preorder.
When we stop looking to Christ in faith, we are walking in sin. Anything (including our supposed law-keeping) that does not proceed from faith is sin.