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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Generally, we call that path the lectionary. I’m a big fan of the lectionaries in general. They do several things.
When I revisit in my mind the very long list of stupid, mean, selfish things I’ve done, every one of them began with me saying something I shouldn’t have.
God uses our stupid as well as our best thought out plans and efforts
By the time we pulled off the side of the road, they had spilled out and surrounded our vehicle.
Have we made Christianity too easy? No, God has made Christianity “too easy” because He has made it pure gift.
In the beginning I was the Word, and I as Word was the Beginning. By me all things were created, both in the heavens and in the earth, visible and invisible. All things have been created by me and for me (Colossians 1:16). Therefore, already in the opening word of the Hebrew Bible, Bereshith, I am.
We have violated not that of which we are ignorant, but that of which we are fully aware. If you want proof, simply look at how well we attempt to cover up our evil deeds.
The instrument of execution has been changed into an emblem of peace--a hawk become a dove, a sword hammered into a plowshare. Now every time God sees His bow, He who never forgets will nevertheless remember His oath never to draw it again to punish the earth by a cosmopolitan flood.
So the law was shattered, our icon was becoming urine and dung inside our guts, and lots of bloody corpses littered our camp. All this because we decided that it was okay for us to choose how we approach God.
In Sunday morning Bible study, our class is reading 1st Peter. This week was chapter 3 and I’ve always had a challenge with the imagery there. I’m talking about the way Peter brings Noah into the picture and connects it to Christian suffering.
But this dying world is still the world of our living God, who graces us with tokens of a final renewal. As leaf subsides to leaf, and frost to snow, and snow to ice, there comes a day when the gold of nature sprouts anew.
What I will tell you is that, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite what you think and feel and imagine, God is indeed in that dark place. You don’t know it, but he’s licking your wounds, too. And he’s keeping the deeper, blacker darkness at bay.