Why are there so many different Christian denominations in the world today? How can we all claim to

read the same book and yet come to such vastly different conclusions about what it says? Dr. David K.

Bernard explains how in this episode of Apostolic Life in the 21st Century. 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. Thank you for

joining us for this episode. Recently on social media, you ask a question. The question was, why do

Christian groups have different fundamental doctrines? And I do. I think that's really interesting,

because you can find Christians of varying stripes that will take the same scriptures and they'll argue

opposing viewpoints. And so as a result, as we've seen, Christians have broken off into us.

It really is a staggering number of different denominations. In fact, I read one study that said

that there are about 45,000 different Christian denominations worldwide.

How do we all read the same book and yet come to vastly different conclusions about what it says?

Let me give you a very broad answer, and then we'll focus more narrowly. And if someone is really interested in studying this question in greater detail,

I recommend my

history series, a history of Christian doctrine, volumes one, two, and three. I narrate the

2,000 years of church history, and in the process, I explain how different denominations

were formed and different religious traditions were formed.

So if you want a detailed answer from a historical point of view, that series, it's also available

as an abridged one volume. Those are some of my favorite books that you've done, by the way.

Well, thank you. And so I tried to, it's not just a history of Christianity, it's history of doctrine. So how these

various ideas evolved. But to give a simple answer, there are basically three different

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