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| Q: | Acts I understand that the Catholic Bible and the NIV are different. Both have the same statement about the Word of God being in their pages. The Catholic Bible was around longer than the Lutheran Bibles. So why are some of the books declared Apocryphal? I am not trying to dispute the NIV, or Lutheran doctrine. I am curious though who decided that the Lutheran Bible would be different? If the Catholic Bible was first are we not deciding against God's Word. (I know this is not true but could not defend against such a statement.) It would appear that we Lutherans changed the Bible after the reformation. Was there a set standard for the Bible before the reformation? I also read that one is expected to believe all doctrines of the WELS to be in fellowship with our synod. For me to attempt to do this I need to question and question and question. There are many "mysteries" I do not understand even when trying to. I do not worry about these matters because if God was concerned about my understanding these issues he would give me the understanding. Is this a correct understanding? | ||||||
| A: | In the first centuries after the death of Christ and his chosen apostles, the Apocrypha were not part of the Bible. In the centuries that followed, some people began to include them as part of the Bible. Not all Catholics accepted them as part of the Bible until 1546 A.D. when the Catholic Council of Trent declared them to be part of the Bible. Luther included them in his German translation of the Bible. He said they were beneficial books to read but that they could not be recognized as part of the inspired books of the Bible. Bible translations today that do not include the Apocrypha are not excluding books that were always part of the Bible. Rather, they are including only those books that were part of Bible in the early church and omitting those books that were added to the Bible later in the Roman Catholic Church. It is good that people compare what the WELS teaches with what the Bible says. The Bible commends the Bereans as noble people because "they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said is true (Acts 17:11)." If our understanding of what Scripture teaches is weak in some areas, it is good that we study all the passages of Scripture that deal with that doctrine so that our understanding grows. Some things, of course, are miracles (e.g. that Jesus is both God and man in one person; that God made everything out of nothing) and so will always be beyond our understanding. But studying these things is also good because all of them are truths that teach us more and more about God's great goodness and mercy. | ||||||
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