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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Never has the law fallen so hard on me as in motherhood. Never before was I more aware that my best wasn’t good enough.
Each week, we will reflect on a few of the theses leading up to this year’s Here We Still Stand Conference in October. Each post will also include a new translation completed by Caleb Keith.
It’s the First Century, the early days of the of the Post-Pentecost Church. Something is in the air.
When those who are serving joyfully and willingly are instead encouraged to complain that they are carrying the load for the rest of the body, all hope is lost.
Writer’s Block, however, entertains no such fantasies. It goes straight for my ego’s jugular and pounds home the fact that I’m not good enough.
The Gospel is simple to confess. That is, we are justified by faith alone, through Christ alone, without the works of the Law.
It may seem like a strange place to begin: the end of the beginning.
The force of our love is violent. It is love acted out as, “I will love you in a way that’s best for me, and you’ll like it, and celebrate it, and reward me for it.
No matter which side, it’s easy for all of us to build Bible verses into grenades aimed at obliterating the political other.
You may have seen the uproar from a recent blog post suggesting that virgins who forego college, learn to cook big meals and abstain from tattoos make more desirable wives.
Our meditation listens to the King of Kings when He says; it is finished.
When we imagine we’re living an evil-shunning, virtue-practicing, morally superior Christian life, the problem is not that our halos are too small, but that our heads are too big.