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 love mentioned in 1 John 4:15-21 fourteen times (!) is a love that needs no apology but is determined at all times to sacrifice for the other.
Sometimes in hanging on to our useless guilt, we are idolaters. We believe our sin or conscience is more powerful than our God.
We can appreciate what we have received from God, we can receive it all as free gift, but only when we stop investing in fool's gold.
To say that whoever loves has been born of God is also to say that those who are born of God are recipients of love. They do not have God because they love but because they are loved.
This is an excerpt from the Sinner/Saint Advent Devotional (1517 Publishing, 2022). Now available for purchase!
Do you confess Christ as God in the flesh, born, died, and raised to new life for you? Any answer of yes will do
It seems to me that our greatest task is not that of seeking skills and methods whereby we can inject power into the gospel, but simply to beware lest we obscure the power that the gospel is
Christ is not an idea. He isn’t a concept. He isn’t a religious notion or sentiment. He isn’t a product. He is the Savior, flesh and blood.
Jesus is the anti-Cain: a giver, not a taker.
This is an excerpt from chapter 1 of “A Shepherd’s Letter: The Faith Once and For All Delivered to the Evangelical Church” written by Bo Giertz and translated by Bror Erickson (1517 Publishing, 2022).
When we cry to the Lord in our trouble, he will send us a preacher with words that deliver us from destruction.
Hope is found precisely while we’re dead.