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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If this opening verse offers to us both door and doorkeeper, then the doorkeeper stands with the door held securely shut.
God's doing for us that gets done is Word and Sacrament stuff. Everything else flows from His speaking to us, baptizing us, bodying and bloodying us. Jesus sees our need.
We focus on what we have, what we don't have, and how and when God is going to give us what we need. This the opposite of faith.
One thing that makes John different than the other three Gospels is the absence of the Lord’s Supper.
We get the exact opposite of what we deserve.
We were created by our heavenly Father to receive all things from Him as free gift.
She heard it before, but looking around she struggles to see how it matters.
One of my favorite things to do in the summer is read out under the shade of my backyard tree. There, I have a reclining chair and small little side table.
Abraham didn’t understand God very well (at least not early on). I don’t say that as a dig against the Patriarch. I don’t think any of us understand God very well either.
In a world so wired by law and rules, judgement is everywhere.
That week, I began to doubt myself. Did I really believe?
It seems like the sky is falling every other day now. From politics to culture to religion to about anything else, there’s one purported cataclysm after another on the horizon.