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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The crucified and risen Christ comes to renew, restore, and build up.
In Scripture, laments are raw expressions of grief, but they always point to hope. What if our culture’s obsession with holiday lights is an unconscious way of crying out, “We need good news, and we need it now”?
Christ is the beating heart of Christian faith and its only object.
Christ is always the ultimate for God's children, but we sometimes struggle with things that come before.
No amount of ritual, sacrifice, devotion, or money could ever do what Jesus of Nazareth was sent to accomplish.
To preach Christ and him crucified is to keep the message simple and accessible.
Give thanks for St. Michael and the angels who fight for you.
The sinful nature loves self, and pride is its native tongue.
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
In the Bible, we meet the God who also does not prance around naked as a jaybird.
God’s headline for his church prioritizes the person of Jesus and his purpose to demonstrate God’s power by dying and rising again for our salvation.
It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.