The Red-Letter Trap: When Christians Use Jesus To Ignore The Bible

"I don't know what Bibles you read... It served me well when I picked up the 'Red Letter' version of the Bible, because I could ignore all of those little black words."

That remarkable statement, attributed to Dr. Neil G. Thomas of the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, captures a growing approach to Christianity that sounds deeply devoted to Jesus while potentially undermining the authority of the very Bible that reveals Him.

The problem isn't the red-letter Bible. Highlighting the recorded words of Jesus can be a wonderful study tool. Generations of Christians have used red-letter editions without ever imagining that the rest of Scripture mattered less.

The problem begins when the color of the ink becomes a hierarchy of authority.

Jesus said it, therefore it matters. Paul said it, therefore perhaps it doesn't. Moses wrote it, so maybe we've moved beyond it. If a difficult biblical teaching conflicts with our modern understanding of compassion, sexuality, morality or justice, simply retreat to the red letters.

But there is an enormous problem with that approach.

Jesus Himself didn't treat Scripture that way.

When Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness, Jesus repeatedly responded with three words: "It is written."

He wasn't quoting red letters. He was quoting Deuteronomy.

When discussing Scripture elsewhere, Jesus declared, "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). In His prayer to the Father, He said, "Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

Jesus did not present Himself as rescuing people from the authority of Scripture. He consistently affirmed it.

And that creates an uncomfortable question for modern Christians who want Jesus without all those inconvenient "black words":

How can we claim to follow Jesus while rejecting the Scriptures Jesus affirmed?

There is another irony that is often overlooked.

Jesus didn't personally write the Gospel of Matthew.

He didn't personally write Mark, Luke or John either.

The sayings printed in red in modern Bibles were preserved for us by inspired human authors. Matthew recorded Jesus saying, "Love your enemies." John recorded Jesus saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

We trust those statements because we trust the inspired testimony of Scripture.

So why does Matthew suddenly become less authoritative when the printer changes the ink from red back to black?

The color is typography.

The authority comes from God.

Red-letter editions of the Bible didn't even exist for most of Christian history. The distinction is a publishing convention designed to help readers quickly identify quotations attributed to Christ. It was never intended to establish different levels of inspiration.

Yet that is effectively what happens when Christians begin treating the words of Jesus as a Bible within the Bible.

This becomes especially obvious when the discussion turns to the Apostle Paul.

A popular approach in progressive Christianity portrays Jesus as the compassionate teacher of love and inclusion while Paul becomes the stern theologian responsible for inconvenient doctrines involving sexuality, church discipline, gender, judgment and Christian conduct.

When Paul becomes uncomfortable, Jesus becomes the escape hatch.

"Jesus never said anything about that."

But that argument ignores something important: Jesus deliberately appointed apostles to teach His Church.

Before His crucifixion, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would guide His disciples into truth. After His resurrection, He commissioned them to make disciples and teach believers to obey what He had commanded.

Paul likewise insisted that the Gospel he preached was not something he invented. He wrote that he received it "through the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:12).

Peter went even further, referring to Paul's writings alongside "the other Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:16).

The New Testament does not present Jesus and His apostles as theological competitors.

It presents the apostles as Christ's authorized witnesses.

There is another problem with trying to build Christianity exclusively from the red letters.

If you actually read all of them, the culturally comfortable Jesus quickly disappears.

Jesus certainly spoke about love, mercy, forgiveness and compassion. Those teachings are central to Christianity.

But He also said, "Repent."

He warned repeatedly about judgment.

He spoke about hell.

He described a broad road leading to destruction and a narrow road leading to life.

He told His followers to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him.

When questioned about marriage, Jesus pointed His listeners back to creation: "He who made them at the beginning made them male and female," before describing a man leaving father and mother and being joined to his wife (Matthew 19:4-5).

Jesus also warned that merely calling Him "Lord" would not guarantee entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Those are red letters too.

So even "red-letter Christianity" can become selective Christianity.

If we embrace Christ's commands to love our enemies but ignore His commands to repent, we aren't really submitting to the red letters.

We're choosing which red letters we prefer.

And this is where the issue becomes much bigger than red ink and black ink.

Once Christians decide that certain portions of Scripture carry less authority because they conflict with modern sensibilities, who determines which passages remain binding?

The culture?

The denomination?

The pastor?

The individual believer?

Eventually the question is no longer, "What does Scripture teach?"

It becomes, "Which parts of Scripture am I willing to accept?"

Paul wrote one of Christianity's clearest statements about biblical inspiration:

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Timothy 3:16).

Not merely Christ's quotations.

Not merely the passages we find comforting.

Not merely the teachings that survive the moral approval of the 21st century.

All Scripture.

Christians can and should recognize different contexts, covenants, genres and audiences throughout the Bible. Not every command given to ancient Israel applies directly to the Church, and responsible interpretation requires understanding those distinctions.

But that is very different from dismissing biblical teaching simply because the letters happen to be printed in black.

The red letters are precious because they preserve the recorded words of our Lord.

Read them. Study them. Memorize them.

But don't use them to erase the rest of the page.

Without the black letters, we would know almost nothing about the birth of Christ, the meaning of the Cross, the Resurrection appearances, justification by faith, the growth of the early Church, spiritual gifts, Christian conduct, the return of Christ or the final events described in Revelation.

The Bible does not give Christians permission to pit Jesus against Moses, Jesus against Paul or Jesus against the rest of Scripture.

In fact, the Jesus of the red letters continually points us back to the authority of God's Word.

That is why the greatest danger of the red-letter trap isn't that Christians might appreciate Jesus' words too much.

It is that we might use Jesus as justification for listening to God's Word too little.

Because once we give ourselves permission to decide which portions of Scripture deserve authority, something profound has changed.

Scripture is no longer sitting in judgment over us.

We are sitting in judgment over Scripture.