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.

All Articles

Understanding the doctrine of the hypostatic union can help us understand what God is up to in the Incarnation.
As I sat there in the dark, empty church with my hands buried in the guts of a copy machine I was powerless to fix, I couldn't help feeling sorry for myself.
When a king dies and his throne is up for grabs, we worry about what will happen next. But, heaven's throne is always occupied by the One who was raised from death for us.
When we hear freedom, we have to ask about its opposite, bondage.
We have the freedom to joyfully participate in neighborhood fun with the love of our neighbor in mind.
True love isn't a thing. We can't find true love in our souls, soul mates, or safe spaces. We can't marry true love, buy it, or create it from scratch.
Like the younger son, we can return to our Father every time our sinful hearts rebel against him. Like the older brother, we can complain and lament to our Father without fear of being destroyed.
When it comes to confessing the truth of the Christian faith, Christians are given the words. We don’t have to formulate them ourselves.
Our very lives as parents and children implicitly proclaim this higher and lovely truth: we have no value to God based upon our usefulness.
So long as we entrust death to Jesus, new life is ours. He has lunch ready and he is waiting for us in the power of his resurrection.
If the gospel is promise that means it is essentially relational. It stands that the nature of any promise is that it's only as good as the one who issues it.
We expect the world to shoot its wounded. But not even the world expects Christians to shoot their wounded.