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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I don't remember the first time I heard the gospel, but I do remember the first time I began to understand it.
One of the common things I see my congregants struggle with is the concept of forgiveness. Contrary to what I had assumed would be the case, I find congregants don’t struggle so much with giving forgiveness as they do living with forgiveness.
We just can't stop ourselves from putting the brakes on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
On a recurring basis, Christians spot news headlines that signal yet one more moral collapse in society, the growing paganization of the cultures in which we live, the spread of antipathy toward the faith.
He does not offer a linear route or a series of actions. He offers Himself. In very simple straightforward words, He declares, “I am the way.”
Whatever level of sin you're rummaging around in, forgiveness and grace is yours.
Today, people often bemoan the loss of children in the church.
We have now reached a point where many believe so strongly in individualism that nothing else matters.
A Christian is justified—saved from sin, death, and hell—by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
A single, fifteen minute sermon that proclaims Christ and him crucified for you is more important than hundreds of hours of lectures by experts on revitalizing your ministry.
The preacher does not merely send out the raven. From the pulpit flies forth the dove of the Gospel.
It is the strangest of morgues—people arrive dead as doornails and leave alive.