The Christian acceptance of the deuterocanonical books was logical because the deuterocanonicals were also included in the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament which the apostles used to evangelize the world. Two thirds of the Old Testament quotations in the New are from the Septuagint. Yet the apostles nowhere told their converts to avoid seven books of it. Like the Jews all over the world who used the Septuagint, the early Christians accepted the books they found in it. They knew that the apostles would not mislead them and endanger their souls by putting false scriptures in their hands—especially without warning them against them.
But the apostles did not merely place the deuterocanonicals in the hands of their converts as part of the Septuagint. They regularly referred to the deuterocanonicals in their writings. For example, Hebrews 11 encourages us to emulate the heroes of the Old Testament and in the Old Testament "Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life" (Heb. 11:35).
There are a couple of examples of women receiving back their dead by resurrection in the Protestant Old Testament. You can find Elijah raising the son of the widow of Zarepheth in 1 Kings 17, and you can find his successor Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4, but one thing you can never find—anywhere in the Protestant Old Testament, from front to back, from Genesis to Malachi—is someone being tortured and refusing to accept release for the sake of a better resurrection. If you want to find that, you have to look in the Catholic Old Testament—in the deuterocanonical books Martin Luther cut out of his Bible.
The story is found in 2 Maccabees 7, where we read that during the Maccabean persecution, "It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh. . . . [B]ut the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, 'The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us . . . ' After the first brother had died . . . they brought forward the second for their sport. . . . he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, 'You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life'" (2 Macc. 7:1, 5-9).
One by one the sons die, proclaiming that they will be vindicated in the resurrection.
"The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them . . . [saying], 'I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,'" telling the last one, "Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again with your brothers" (2 Macc. 7:20-23, 29). This is but one example of the New Testaments' references to the deuterocanonicals.
The early Christians were thus fully justified in recognizing these books as Scripture, for the apostles not only set them in their hands as part of the Bible they used to evangelize the world, but also referred to them in the New Testament itself, citing the things they record as examples to be emulated.
Akin, J. (n.d.). Defending the Deuterocanonicals. Retrieved October 12, 2014, from http://www.ewtn.com/library/answers/deuteros.htm
There was no Christian acceptance of the Deuterocanonicals AS Divinely-inspired Sacred Scripture. Not to mention, we don't really know all the books that were translated into Greek in the Septuagint that first century Greek speaking Christians had access to. Let's also not forget that there were FIFTEEN Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books - NOT just the seven the Roman Catholic church decided in the sixteenth century to formally declare part of Divine-inspired Scripture. So what that the quotations of Old Testament Scripture in the Greek came from the Greek translation of the Hebrew? That doesn't prove anything about how either the Apostles or the early Christians saw the those extra-biblical books. Of course the Apostles wouldn't mislead them, which is why none of the Apostles ever quoted any of those books as "thus sayeth the Lord", "It is written" or in any way - if they even quoted them at all - as if these books came from the Holy Spirit. The Jews NEVER accepted those books either as part of their "canon". What makes you think Christians would have? I hope you understand that just by their appearance in the Septuagint is NO indication that they were thought of as God-breathed Scripture.
But the apostles did not merely place the deuterocanonicals in the hands of their converts as part of the Septuagint. They regularly referred to the deuterocanonicals in their writings. For example, Hebrews 11 encourages us to emulate the heroes of the Old Testament and in the Old Testament "Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life" (Heb. 11:35).
Did the reference from Hebrews include any words to the effect that the story in Maccabees was the word of God? No, it didn't. Paul quoted a few pagan sayings, does that make them Scripture? No doubt, the story told in the Maccabees was relating real events experienced by real people, but they never claimed to BE speaking as a prophet of God or revealing Divine truth.
If you want to find that, you have to look in the Catholic Old Testament—in the deuterocanonical books Martin Luther cut out of his Bible.
Luther didn't CUT any books out of his German translation of the Bible. When are y'all going to stop repeating that falsehood? If you want to attack someone, pick on Jerome - you know, the guy that redid the Latin translation called the Vulgate. He sure didn't agree they were part of the Hebrew canon and he said so in his prologues to each one. Nobody is arguing that people read these books or found them encouraging to read, just that they were NOT to be used to determine doctrine. Even Augustine said that.
The early Christians were thus fully justified in recognizing these books as Scripture, for the apostles not only set them in their hands as part of the Bible they used to evangelize the world, but also referred to them in the New Testament itself, citing the things they record as examples to be emulated.
Except they DIDN'T. That is a myth spread by those who cast doubt upon the inerrancy of God's word. Read this is you want to know the truth about that http://www.truthnet.org/Bible-Origins/6_The_Apocrypha_The_Septugint/index.htm.
Jesus had a parable about a ‘great gulf fixed’.
The Catholic Church has Purgatory.
Ecclesiastes 9:1-6
1 But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him.
2 It is the same for all, since the same event happens
to the righteous and the wicked,
to the good and the evil,
to the clean and the unclean,
to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice.
As the good one is, so is the sinner, and
he who swears is as he who shuns an oath.
3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 4 But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
The Catholic Church has Purgatory.