Lectionary in the context of "Prodigal Son"

A lection, also called the lesson, is a reading from scripture in liturgy. In many Christian denominations, the readings of the day are appointed in the lectionary.

The Biblical apocrypha (from Ancient Greek ἀπόκρυφος (apókruphos) 'hidden') denotes the collection of ancient books, some of which are believed by some to be of doubtful origin, thought to have been written some time between 200 BC and 100 AD.

The Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches include some or all of the same texts within the body of their version of the Old Testament, with Catholics terming them deuterocanonical books. Traditional 80-book Protestant Bibles include fourteen books in an intertestamental section between the Old Testament and New Testament called the Apocrypha, deeming these useful for instruction, but non-canonical. Reflecting this view, the lectionaries of the Lutheran Churches and Anglican Communion include readings from the Apocrypha.

A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons. They were commonly used for learning to read. Many psalters were richly illuminated, and they include some of the most spectacular surviving examples of medieval book art.

The English term (Old English psaltere, saltere) derives from Church Latin. The source term is Latin: psalterium, which is simply the name of the Book of Psalms (in secular Latin, it is the term for a stringed instrument, from Ancient Greek: ψαλτήριον psalterion).The Book of Psalms contains the bulk of the Divine Office of the Roman Catholic Church. The other books associated with it were the Lectionary, the Antiphonary, and Responsoriale, and the Hymnary.In Late Modern English, psalter has mostly ceased to refer to the Book of Psalms (as the text of a book of the Bible) and mostly refers to the dedicated physical volumes containing this text.

A Protestant Bible is a Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestant Christians. Typically translated into a vernacular language, such Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament (according to the Hebrew Bible canon, known especially to non-Protestant Christians as the protocanonical books) and 27 books of the New Testament, for a total of 66 books. Some Protestants use Bibles which also include 14 additional books in a section known as the Apocrypha (though these are not considered canonical) bringing the total to 80 books. This is in contrast with the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which includes seven deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament. The division between protocanonical and deuterocanonical books is not accepted by all Protestants who simply view books as being canonical or not and therefore classify books found in the Deuterocanon, along with other books, as part of the Apocrypha. Sometimes the term "Protestant Bible" is simply used as a shorthand for a bible which contains only the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.

It was in Luther's Bible of 1534 that the Apocrypha was first published as a separate intertestamental section. Early modern English Bibles also generally contained an Apocrypha section but in the years following the first publication of the King James Bible in 1611, printed English Bibles increasingly omitted the Apocrypha. However, Lutheran and Anglican churches have still included the Apocrypha in their lectionaries, holding them to be useful for devotional use.

The New American Bible (NAB) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1970. The 1986 Revised NAB is the basis of the revised Lectionary. In the Catholic Church it is the only translation approved for use during Mass in the United States. The 1970 NAB is also approved for use in the Episcopal Church in the United States.

Stemming originally from the Confraternity Bible, a translation of the Vulgate by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, the project transitioned to translating the original biblical languages in response to Pope Pius XII's 1943 encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu. The translation was sponsored by the U.S. bishops' committee on the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and carried out in stages by members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America (CBA) "from the Original Languages with Critical Use of All the Ancient Sources" (as the title pages state). These efforts eventually became The New American Bible under the liturgical principles and reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) is a lectionary of readings or pericopes from the Bible for use in Christian worship, making provision for the liturgical year with its pattern of observances of festivals and seasons. It was preceded by the Common Lectionary, assembled in 1983, itself preceded by the COCU Lectionary, published in 1974 by the Consultation on Church Union (COCU). This lectionary was derived from Protestant lectionaries in use, which in turn were based on the 1969 Ordo Lectionum Missae, a three-year lectionary produced by the Catholic Church following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.