Why don’t we (Protestants) read the apocrypha? The first Christians read Scripture with wider eyes. Their Bibles included books like Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, and the Maccabees. These books shaped their imagination, their theology, and their understanding of God.
Modern scholarship confirms this (N T Wright, Larry Hurtado, Lee McDonald). Jesus and the apostles inherited a Greek Jewish Bible that included these writings. In other words, the world of the New Testament is Deuterocanonical.
A Lost Inheritance
During the Reformation, these books were not removed because they were unspiritual or unorthodox. They were moved aside for practical and historical reasons, not theological ones (see Alister McGrath, Bruce Metzger). The Reformers wanted to emphasise Hebrew manuscripts and guard against medieval excess, but in doing so they quietly set aside a treasured part of the early Christian imagination.
The result was a thinner canon. Not heresy-free, but texture-free. A loss of the voices that shaped the spiritual air that Jesus and the early Church breathed.
What These Books Give Us
The Deuterocanon does not contradict Scripture. It enriches it. And the New Testament writers show they knew these books intimately.
1. A wider imagination of divine mercy
The Deuterocanon constantly describes God as patient, restorative, and willing to heal what is broken. Wisdom 11 – 12 speaks of God whose judgment is measured by compassion. Sirach 2 and 17 emphasise mercy that endures and seeks the sinner. Baruch 4 – 5 offers hope of restoration for the scattered.
This is the same tone we hear in the New Testament. Paul’s language of God’s patience in Romans 2 resonates with Wisdom 12. James 1 echoes Sirach 2 almost line for line. Jesus’ teaching on generous mercy mirrors the moral vision of Sirach and Wisdom (see Ben Witherington, Richard Bauckham). Readers who know the Deuterocanon recognise these currents immediately. Those who do not simply sense beauty.
2. A deeper sense of spiritual formation
Sirach in particular reads like the spiritual director of ancient Israel. Its wisdom shaped the early Church fathers (see Athanasius, Augustine, Basil).
Its themes echo throughout the New Testament:
Jesus’ teaching on humility in Luke 14 echoes Sirach 3. The Lord’s Prayer resembles Tobit 13 and Sirach 28.
James’ emphasis on speech discipline mirrors Sirach 19 and 28, and
modern scholars note that James may be the most Deuterocanonical letter in the New Testament (see Richard Bauckham, Luke Timothy Johnson).
3. A vision of suffering that prepares the soul
Four Maccabees shaped the early Christian understanding of martyrdom (see Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus).
Its themes appear in:
Hebrews 11 where the Maccabean martyrs are referenced directly.
Hebrews 2 where the suffering of Christ mirrors the noble endurance central to Maccabean theology and
Revelation’s language of faithful witness through death. Wisdom 3 describes the righteous shining like sparks among stubble. Jesus uses the same imagery in Matthew 13. This is not a coincidence. It is continuity.
4. A sacramental view of creation
The Deuterocanon carries a world where God speaks through the ordinary. Tobit reveals divine guidance in family life. Judith portrays courage as sacrament.
Wisdom 7 paints a breathtaking vision of divine presence infused in creation, a passage that influenced early Christian theology of the Logos (see Justin Martyr, Irenaeus). When John opens his Gospel with the Logos who enlightens everyone, he is standing on the shoulders of Wisdom literature, especially Wisdom of Solomon.
5. A bridge between the Old and the New
The Deuterocanon does not stand apart from the biblical story. It is the bridge between the Testaments. Some examples where the New Testament expressly draws on these books:
Direct Echoes
Hebrews 1 draws heavily from Wisdom 7, describing Christ as the radiance of divine glory.
Romans 1 mirrors Wisdom 13 to 14 in its analysis of idolatry.
Ephesians 6 echoes Wisdom 5 in speaking of divine armour. Matthew 27’s mocking of Jesus recalls Wisdom 2 and its portrait of the righteous sufferer.
Thematic Echoes
Jesus’ parables of divine patience mirror Wisdom 12. Paul’s theology of immortality aligns closely with Wisdom 3.
James’ ethical teaching parallels Sirach everywhere. Revelation’s vision of the righteous shining comes from Wisdom 3. Scholars widely note that New Testament authors quote or allude to the Deuterocanon more often than to many books in the Protestant Old Testament (see Craig Evans, David deSilva).
Without these texts, the New Testament stands true, but strangely suspended. With them, it stands grounded and alive.
Why Protestants Need This Today
Reading the Deuterocanon does not mean abandoning Protestant convictions. It means recovering the breadth of the early Christian mind.
These books deepen:
our vision of divine mercy our understanding of justice as restoration
our sense of the spiritual life as a long obedience
our view of creation as a place where God moves
our ability to understand the New Testament’s theology. When Christians rediscover these books, their faith grows more ancient and more alive. Their picture of God widens. Their hope deepens. Their spirituality becomes more rooted in the world that formed Jesus and the apostles. Not because these books overwrite Scripture, but because they illuminate it. They give back to the Bible its original texture.
A Closing Thought
I am not arguing for a new canon. I am inviting us to remember the older one. The one that shaped the earliest believers. The one Jesus’ world knew. The one the apostles assumed. The one the Church prayed with for centuries.
The Deuterocanon reminds us that God’s story has always been wider than our traditions. That divine mercy is deeper than we imagine. That judgment aims at healing. And that the hope of God stretches further than we often dare to believe.
Sometimes recovering lost books is less about changing doctrine and more about expanding the heart.
Scribbling Theology 