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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Miracles, for all their wonder and encouragement, rely on the dazzling of our senses to work. Because miracle-faith produces sensory-faith, it is of a poor quality.
It is important to see how the LORD does NOT answer the questions Job and his friends have been wrestling with.
Here we have the other major theme within Romans: God will have mercy on whom He has mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He has compassion
If the feeding of the 5000 invited an emphasis on Jesus’ COMPASSION, this week’s miracle invites a sermon focused on Jesus’ AUTHORITY.
We trust God's Word because Jesus never fails us. He is our daily comfort when struggles and afflictions find us.
Your prayers are not what make you acceptable in his sight. You have already been made acceptable through the blood of Christ.
There is no justification except by faith alone. The radical forgiveness itself puts the old to death and calls forth the new.
“Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.”
The Gospels function like literary essays, composed with a specific thesis and purpose in mind. Each account of Jesus’s life acts as a treatise to show us something about the person and work of the Savior.
He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters, even as we curse and yell at him for not pleasing us with our pettish wishes.
New normals are always sneaking up on us. Preachers ignore them to their peril and the peril of our hearers.
Jesus’ miracle in this sermon, then, is a type of the compassion He has for your hearers. While they certainly have many physical needs, your hearers also (more fundamentally) need Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness.