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

Saying the words of the prayer together meant that if my voice became too weak or shaky, other voices would be around to support and continue the message.
This week’s miracle invites you to engage in an honest consideration of something pressing for every believer at some time in their lives: God’s silence.
God’s newly reconstituted Israel occurs in and around Jesus to include both Jew and Gentile, not by ethnic association but by faith and water (baptism) and blood (atonement and Eucharist).
The scandal of this text for the Jewish people is the inclusion of all nations and peoples into the Holy House of the LORD.
Sometimes I think I've gone through the whole forgiveness process, but forgiveness for me often feels like I'm weeding my garden. I forgive and another offense pops up.
There is a power that is stronger and mightier than the power of separation in death. And that power is the power of God’s love for you and me.
God’s goal in all this is that His call to repentance impacts our lives by turning us to find peace and joy in Christ.
It is important to see how the LORD does NOT answer the questions Job and his friends have been wrestling with.
Here we have the other major theme within Romans: God will have mercy on whom He has mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He has compassion
There is no justification except by faith alone. The radical forgiveness itself puts the old to death and calls forth the new.
New normals are always sneaking up on us. Preachers ignore them to their peril and the peril of our hearers.
Jesus’ miracle in this sermon, then, is a type of the compassion He has for your hearers. While they certainly have many physical needs, your hearers also (more fundamentally) need Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness.