Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern day believers live out the teachings of the First Century Church.

This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard.

Dr. Bernard is dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives.

In Apostolic Life in the 21st century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible

teaches and how those teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this

broadcast. Some Christian groups, I'm thinking primarily of the Roman Catholic Church, but there's others,

have accepted as canonical or semi-canonical several Jewish writings that date from about 200 BC to 30 BC,

and then there's one from about AD 100.

And these writings are commonly referred to as the Apocrypha.

Fourteen of these writings actually appeared in the original King James version.

So can you tell us today what is the apocrypha and why isn't it included in our modern

Bible? Because if you go to a Bible bookstore today and you buy a Bible or buy one from

the Pentecostal publishing house, the apocrypha probably won't be in it. Are apostolic's missing part of God's word? No, we don't need the apocrypha as scripture, certainly.

And I will say, for an extended discussion, I have a book called God's infallible word. And it explains

why we believe the 66 books of the Bible are supposed to be there. The term for that is

the canon. So those are the canonical books. And then it explains why these other books, which are called

the Apocrypha, why they aren't considered part of the Bible. So let me give you the reasons why.

And I will say, if you want to do historical study,

they could be helpful reading for some things. What did people believe in those ancient times?

There are some historical books, the Maccabees, which give you historical information about the

intertestamental times. So I'm not saying they have no value. They can have some value,

but they should not be treated as scripture. Here's the reasons why. First of all, these would be

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