Angry Christians.

Anger’s a work of the flesh. If you didn’t know this, you need to check out Paul’s list again. It’s right there in verse 20.

Galatians 5.19-21 NRSVue

19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

A number of present-day translations have weaseled out of translating θυμοί/thymí (KJV “wrath”) as “anger” by translating it as a type of anger which sounds more brief. More temporary.

• AMP, ESV, “fits of anger.”
• CSB, ISV, LEB, NASB, NET, WEB “outbursts of anger.”
• CEB “losing your temper.”
• GW “angry outbursts.”
• NABRE “outbursts of fury.”
• NIV “fits of rage.”
• NKJV “outbursts of wrath.”

But I’m pretty sure the KJV’s “wrath,” and its synonyms “anger,” “rage,” and “fury,” are fully accurate descriptions of what Paul wrote and meant.

Why are the translations trying to weasel out of it? Because there are a lot of angry Christians out there. A LOT. Too many. It’s everywhere. And just like gluttony in the United States, Christians are pretending anger’s not the profoundly serious problem it is.

Christians are pretending anger’s not the thing which regularly makes us least like Jesus. We’re mighty quick to point out Jesus himself got angry, more than once. Evil, sin, hypocrisy, and inhumanity regularly enrage God throughout the scriptures; heck, in Revelation entire bowls of wrath get dumped out in judgment for humanity’s sins. If God himself can get so righteously pissed off, why can’t we?

But when we know God, and know ourselves, we know exactly why not. God is love. We aren’t. We’re meant to develop God’s love in our lives… and don’t. When God gets angry, his love mitigates this; it’s why it takes a lot to get him angry. Ex 34.6, Nu 14.18, Jl 2.13, Jh 4.2 And when he does get angry, he doesn’t go berserk and do reckless things. He only concentrates on stopping evil.

Christians who’ve developed the good fruit of love oughta be just as slow to anger, Jm 1.19 and when we do get angry, we still keep our cool enough to keep from sinning, nor listening to devilish temptation. Ep 4.26-47

Oughta be. Aren’t. Instead we’re full of excuses. Our anger is a “righteous anger” because we insist we’re enraged by the very same things God is. And we need to stamp these things out now. Right now. Right the f--- NOW. Get your guns; we’re gonna go lynch some evildoers. We gotta eliminate them before they finally piss off God and he starts dumping wrath on all of us.

Really what angry Christians do, is justify their anger, justify never being rid of it, and justify incorporating it into their Christianity. Their anger, they insist, is biblical. Not mitigated by God’s love; these folks dismiss God’s love as irrelevant by pointing out, “But God is also just,” and therefore their his outrage at “evil” cancels out any love he might display towards sinners. Instead they do “tough love”—a type of casual cruelty towards sinners, which is supposedly “love” because they don’t straight-up murder them, like they feel they have every right to do.

Angry Christians’ anger completely wipes out any love, compassion, grace, and christlikeness they oughta have in their lives. It doesn’t look like Jesus at all. Since pagans are generally aware of what Jesus oughta look like, it means these self-described “Christ-followers” aren’t Christian; they’re hypocrites. Since there are so many angry Christians out there, these pagans often wonder whether all Christians are actually Jesus-denying hypocrites.

Heck, some of us Christians wonder that too.

The “abomination of desolation.”

Mk 13.14, Mt 24.15-16, Lk 21.20-21.

Up to now in his Olivet Discourse, Jesus only spoke of the events leading up to the Roman-Jewish War in the year 70. The first Christians would get persecuted, but the gospel would spread all over the Roman Empire. And then these events would happen—the events his students first asked him about; the events where not one of the temple’s impressive stones would be on top of another. Mk 13.2, Mt 24.2, Lk 21.6 The events which’d happen during 37 years later, within lifetime of the very first Christians… though James, Simon Peter, and Andrew wouldn’t live to see them.

Jesus starts by mentioning the βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως/vdélygma erimóseos, “disgusting spoiler”—not in the sense of ruining the ending of a movie, but ruining whatever you place it upon. It’s a term from Daniel, which was actually fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphanes in 141BC, but Jesus brings it up again ’cause history is about to repeat itself.

Mark 13.14 KWL

“When you see ‘the disgusting spoiler’

placed where it mustn’t be” (understand, reader?)

“then those in Judea: Flee to the hills!”

 

Matthew 24.15-16 KWL

15 “So then when you see ‘the disgusting spoiler’

as said to the prophet Daniel,

put in the holy place” (understand, reader?)

16 then those in Judea: Flee to the hills!

 

Luke 21.20-21 KWL

20 “When you see Jerusalem encircled by army units,

then know this: Its spoil has come near.

21 Then those in Judea: Flee to the hills!

And those in the middle of it: Leave!

And those in the fields: Don’t enter the city!”

If you’re alive to see these things—and you might be—get out. Don’t even go back to get your stuff. Mk 13.15-16 It’s gonna be awful. The worst.

Jesus is speaking of the Roman-Jewish War, but a number of Darbyist “prophecy scholars” are absolutely sure he’s not. Or not entirely; some will confess he’s speaking of the Roman-Jewish War too. But they insist he’s primarily speaking of a future disgusting spoiler, an End Times “abomination of desolation” to be committed by the Beast in the temple.

What temple? Well I’ll get to that.

So you feel unclean. Pray anyway.

Probably the most common reason Christians don’t pray… is because we don’t feel clean enough.

I’m not talking about ritual cleanliness. (Most Christians don’t even know what that is anyway: It’s the idea of ritually washing yourself before worship. Since the Holy Spirit now dwells in us Christians, we don’t need to ritually wash before temple; we are his temple.) But it’s not that; it’s feeling clean, because we feel dirty, because we sinned. Maybe we sinned recently; maybe we didn’t, but we’re aware we sinned a lot over the past few weeks, so we figure we’re not worthy to approach God. He’s too holy, and we’re too gross.

Some Christians even claim God is repelled by our sins. If there’s any sin in our lives, there’s no point in approaching God ’cause he’ll just turn away from us and ignore our prayers. Or even leave, in offense and outrage, like a heavenly snowflake.

It’s because these Christians either don’t understand, or don’t truly believe, Jesus covers everything. They don’t recognize when God accepted us as his kids, he was entirely aware of every sin we were gonna commit in the future. Even sins we’re committing this very instant. (Cut that out, by the way.) But Jesus paid for everything. God doesn’t dole out grace on a sin-by-sin basis: You and he are good. You’re his kid. He’s happy to talk with you!

Now I can say this, and you might understand it and sorta believe it… but Christians still find this a really difficult hangup to get past. For three reasons.

1. Partly it’s because other people don’t act this way at all, so it’s a wholly foreign mindset, and we’re not familiar with it.
2. Mostly it’s because it’s our mindset. We’re so used to karma! We can’t fathom the idea of preemptive total forgiveness. We’d certainly never do it, so of course it’s hard to imagine God doing it.
3. And, y’know, the devil. It’d prefer we never pray, and the longer it can keep us acting upon our unhealthy beliefs, the better.

Taking God’s amazing grace for granted.

CHEAP GRACE tʃip greɪs noun. Treatment of God’s forgiveness, generosity, and loving attitude, as if it’s nothing special; as if it cost him little; taking it and God for granted.

Whenever I bring up the subject of cheap grace, some ignorant Christian invariably objects: “Grace is not cheap.” Even if I’ve fully explained in advance what I mean by “cheap grace”; even if I’ve written an entire essay like this one, defining the idea.

Every. Single. Time.

It’s a knee-jerk response. They were taught all their lives how grace isn’t cheap at all; how it cost Jesus his life. So whenever someone brings up the subject of cheap grace, they’re offended, therefore emotional, therefore irrational, about it: “Grace isn’t cheap!” Someone tweets a comment about cheap grace, and they tweet right back, “Grace isn’t cheap!” Someone uses “cheap grace” in a sentence, and they wait for the very first chance to interrupt: “Grace isn’t cheap!”

YES. I KNOW. I’M TRYING TO MAKE THAT POINT. I WOULD IF YOU’D LISTEN. So can you please practice some self-control just this once, and give me a minute? Okay? (Betcha I’m still gonna get these comments regardless. You just watch. Ugh.)

Adam Clayton Powell Sr. gets credited with coining this term, and if you think it came from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it’s only because Bonhoeffer went to Powell’s church and got it from him, then popularized the heck out of it in his The Cost of Discipleship. It’s used to describe “grace” whenever this grace is misdefined and malpracticed by irreligious Christians. As Bonhoeffer put it,

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. “All for sin could not atone.” The world goes on in the same old way, and we are still sinners “even in the best life” as Luther said. Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin. […] Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Bonhoeffer 44-45

That’s cheap grace: Taking expensive, valuable, amazing grace, and demeaning it by using it as a free pass to sin. Taking God’s safety net, and bouncing on it for fun like a trampoline.

Part of the reason people object to the term “cheap grace” is they don’t like to see God’s generosity taken so casually like that. Well, me neither.

Part of it’s ’cause they don’t believe God’s grace actually can be cheapened. No matter what we do with grace, it’s still awesome, still worthy, still priceless. It’s like when you accidentally drop your phone down a porta-potty: Doesn’t matter how foul that commode is; they’re making some really expensive payments on that phone, so they’re going in up to their armpits to fish it out. (Although yeah, some people would never. Because they’re rich, and buy $1000 phones as stocking stuffers, and would casually pay $1000 to avoid touching poo-poo. The rest of us have real jobs. But I digress.) Grace is far more valuable than any phone, and has inherent worth, so nothing could cheapen it.

If that’s the way you imagine grace, I get why you’d balk at the concept of “cheap grace.” But I’m not describing the grace itself, nor devaluing it. I’m describing the crappy attitude people have towards it. When they treat it like it has no value, that’s cheap grace. If you wanna call it something different, go right ahead. “Cheap grace” has already caught on, which is why I’m using that term.

The gospel preached to all before the end.

Mt 24.14.

Last week I discussed the verse about not completing all the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes, Mt 10.23 and how that’s neither part of Jesus’s Olivet Discourse, nor a prophecy of the End: It’s about Jesus sending out the Twelve to preach the gospel, Mt 10.5-7 and how he’d catch up with them at the end of this specific mission. Christians who project End Times stuff onto this passage are quoting it out of context—a common practice among End Times “prophecy scholars,” who aren’t actually scholars.

Some of the reason these “prophecy scholars” quote that verse is because of this verse, which is in the Olivet Discourse. They think it’s a parallel verse. It’s also found in Matthew, and to help you understand it better, I’ll also quote the verses right before it.

Matthew 24.9-14 KWL

9 “Then they’ll hand you over to tribulation and kill you.

You’ll be hated people to every ethnic group because of my name.

10 Then many will be tripped up,

will betray one another, will hate one another.

11 Many fake prophets will be raised up,

and will lead many astray.

12 Because of the exponential spread of lawlessness,

the love of many will grow cold.

13 One who perseveres to the end—

this person will be saved.

14 And this gospel of the kingdom

will be proclaimed to the whole civilization

as a witness to every ethnic group.

Then the end will come.”

The “prophecy scholars” claim the whole of the Olivet Discourse is about a great tribulation right before the second coming. It’s not. After Jesus told his students the temple would be destroyed, they wanted to know when, so he told ’em what’d happen before it was destroyed… in the year 70, during the actual great tribulation of the Roman-Jewish War. All this stuff was fulfilled by that war. If “prophecy scholars” know anything about the Roman-Jewish War (and too often, they don’t) they’ll claim Jesus’s prophecies are actually gonna happen again during the End Times; that the Roman-Jewish War is just a foreshadowing of what the Beast will do to the entire world. But Jesus’s prophecies about the Beast are in in Revelation, not the gospels. These “prophecy scholars” are trying to add details to what Jesus disclosed in Revelation—and hey, isn’t there a curse upon anyone who tries to add or take away from that book? Rv 22.18-19 Illegitimately adding the Olivet Discourse to End Times prophecy definitely sounds like something that’d activate that curse.

But back to the Discourse. Jesus says the gospel of God’s kingdom is getting preached to the whole civilization before the end comes. Does he mean the End-end?—the end of the End Times, the days before his second coming, the last few years before the millennium? Or does he simply mean the end of the temple, which is entirely what the Olivet Discourse is about? As you’ve likely guessed, I’m gonna say it’s that second thing.

“Hold up,” a hypothetical prophecy scholar is gonna object, “the gospel wasn’t preached to the entire world by the time the temple was destroyed. It hadn’t reached the Germans, nor the sub-Saharan Africans, nor the Chinese, nor the Russians, nor the indigenous Americans and Australians and Pacific islanders. Only the Roman Empire had heard the gospel. That’s it.”

Well yeah. That’s what Jesus said would happen.

Be kind. For once.

We Christians don’t have a reputation for being kind.

I wish it weren’t so, but I know a lot of pagans, and kindness is definitely not the first thing which comes to mind when they think of Christians. More like easily outraged, quick to judge, quick to condemn, holier than thou, just as bad as any pagan but such utter hypocrites about it, impatient, shunning, unforgiving buttholes. And if you were immediately offended by my using that word “buttholes,” you kinda proved my point.

Every so often I’ll read a discussion on Reddit which brings up Christianity, and the immediate response of the commenters—even when an atheist didn’t start the discussion!—is how thoroughly awful Christians are to everybody. Some of the critics will even be fellow Christians!—“Yeah, we suck.”

Then someone will point out Jesus. And the inevitable response of everyone, pagans and Christians alike—atheists included!—is he doesn’t suck. He’s a good guy; he taught peace and love, hung out with sinners and whores and lepers, railed against hypocrites… and unlike his followers, actually forgave sins. Jesus always gets a thumbs-up. Christians, of course, not.

It annoys me to no end. What’s with all the Christian jerks? Don’t we know better? Shouldn’t we?

I’m not gonna perpetuate the myth our fleshly attitudes are the leading cause of unbelief. They certainly don’t help, but people who don’t believe in Jesus are simply looking for any excuse not to. Otherwise they’d be Christian: “Well Christians suck, but despite them, Jesus is legit. So I’m gonna follow him on my own.” They’d be one of those Christians who shun all the other Christians and won’t go to church. But no matter how much they claim to respect Jesus, they still won’t follow him… because hypocrisy isn’t solely a Christian practice, y’know.

Anyway. The reason there are awful Christians is ’cause we’re deficient in love—and love is kind. 1Co 13.4 Christians who don’t love, who swap out the charitable, unconditional love of God for the vastly inferior substitute of reciprocity: A “love” which expects to receive “love” in return, and if it doesn’t, nevermind; it’s withdrawn. A “love” which demands payback, which is only offered to “worthy” and “good” people. A “love” that’s largely based on karma.

Which is a massive problem. Χρηστότης/hristótis, the word we translate “kindness,” Ga 5.22 more accurately means “graciousness.” It’s the grace of God, in action. It’s one of God’s character traits—which is precisely what the Spirit’s fruit is. When we’re fruity, we exhibit God’s grace: We’re kind, like he is.

Whereas when we’re not kind, not gracious, we’re still gonna be fuming about my dropping the B-word seven paragraphs ago. And plan to write an angry email, then never, ever read this blog again. And feel totally justified in such behavior. Grace and kindness is for people who don’t use rude words, even if they’re TV-safe words.

When we’re kind, we’re gonna be gracious, friendly, generous, humble, courteous—and nice. Yeah, I know plenty of Christians who are quick to point out kind and nice aren’t the same thing: Niceness is entirely about getting along with other people. And people will frequently lie, deceive, stifle their opinions, compromise their standards, or choose other evils, just to get along with others. They’ll be nice hypocrites.

But I would object we don’t have to lie and deceive in order to be nice to others. We can be gracious! We can forgive. We can agree to disagree. We can be patient. And hey, if all it takes to get a better reputation with others is to simply be pleasant to them, why are we objecting to this? Why is being a thorn in everyone’s side so fundamental to our integrity?

The weepy person in the prayer group.

Decades ago, in my previous church, I led the prayer group for a few months. At that time we got a new regular attendee, who’d come pray with us every Wednesday. And every time she prayed, sang, or otherwise interacted with God, she cried.

A lot.

We’re not talking misty eyes, or a few tears rolling down her face. Lots of Christians pray with our eyes closed, and you’ll naturally get tears when you squeeze ’em tight, but nope, this wasn’t that either. We’re talking full-on snotty blubbering. Like her child just died or something.

That first prayer meeting she attended, the women of our prayer meeting gathered round her, hugged her, prayed for God to comfort her, asked God to help whatever had her so sorrowful, asked whether there was anything they could do. Took ’em the rest of the prayer meeting—and then some. (I had to stick around afterward as they tried to minister to her, ’cause I had to lock the building. I didn’t get home till 10PM.)

The next week: Same deal. We came to pray, and so did she… and the next thing you know, she’s bawling and moaning, and the women tried to comfort her again, and we again went overtime doing so.

The third week: One woman went over to pray with and comfort her. The rest were telling me, “Oh, she has some serious emotional issues. She needs therapy, not prayer.”

Fourth week, all the women just let her go off in a corner of the chapel to wail.

Some of you are reading this, and think this sounds just awful of us. Hey, if I were a newbie Christian, I’d think the very same thing: She’s coming to us for help, and we’re pushing her aside?

Except we didn’t. The women who realized she needed therapy, tried to get her therapy. Found her a therapist who’d see her. Tried to line up an appointment. The weepy person was having none of that. So the women were done—like exhausted parents who give up on trying to get their infant to sleep in her own bed, and just leave the baby in the room to cry it out. Soothing her wasn’t working. So they quit.

A psychologist friend explained it best: You know how some people feel much better after having a good cry? That’s largely what this woman was doing.

Here’s what’s wrong with her behavior. What also made her feel much better, was having a crowd of Christians try to make her feel better. And they totally succeeded. But it’s not our job to make her feel better! It’s God’s. It’s just neither she nor we realized that. We thought she needed our comfort, and she was so pleased to get it, and wanted more. Even if it meant sucking the life out of all her comforters.

I’ve seen this phenomenon a number of times since. No, such people don’t necessarily need therapy and medication. But what they’re doing is wholly inappropriate. We’re supposed to take our lamentation to God, and the Holy Spirit is supposed to do the comforting. Instead they take their emotions to us, have us comfort them, and parasitically drain our ministers of their emotions. Humans aren’t equipped to do this! We either cry along, and get just as ruined, or we clamp up and step away in self-defense… and get accused of being cold, unsympathetic, and compassionless.

Covenant: How God makes our relationship official.

COVENANT 'kəv.ən.ənt noun. Agreement.

2. [Law] A contract drawn up by deed, or a clause in a contract.

3. [Theology] An agreement which creates a committed relationship between God and his people—such as the covenants between the LORD and Abraham, Moses, and David, or between Jesus and Christians.

4. [verb] Agree by lease, deed, or other legal contract.

[Covenantal kəv.ən'ənt.əl adjective.]

In our culture, “covenant” is a fancier, or more formal, way of saying “contract.”

Because that’s what our English word means. It comes from the Latin word convenire, “go together,” which evolved into the French word, then our English word. Early bible translators used it for the Hebrew word בְּרִית/berít, “treaty, alliance, constitution, ordinance, pledge,” and the word the Septuagint used to translate it, διαθήκην/diathíkin, “will, testament, agreement, arrangement.” Y’notice the Hebrew word has more of a sense of loyalty and diplomacy, and the Greek word has more of a sense of carrying out one’s wishes. Whereas the way we tend to use our English word “covenant” nowadays is either to talk about how sacred and binding marriage oughta be… or about the restrictions a neighborhood puts on the homeowners who live in it, and usually the penalties for violating those restrictions.

Not sure whether any of these concepts describe what God actually does with his covenants in the bible.

And when you ask your average Christian what a covenant is, most of the time we lean hard towards the idea it’s an agreement… and it’s binding. I’ve heard more than one preacher claim covenant means “a contract which cannot be broken.” Which certainly isn’t the way we use the word nowadays. Marriage covenants are dissolved all the time. Neighborhood covenants get changed whenever new leaders get elected; heck, most of those people run for office specifically to either make the covenants stricter or looser! In fact those people who claim a covenant is an unbreakable contract: Many of ’em claim God did away with the Law and replaced it with Jesus’s new covenant… so how’s it an unbreakable contract if God considers it null and void? (Isn’t the Law part of God’s word?—and isn’t it true God’s word never returns void?)

Frankly, the reason our English dictionaries say covenant means an agreement—that it’s nothing more than a verbal or written contract between interested parties—is because that’s how we use the word. A covenant is a contract; a contract is a covenant; they’re synonyms. “Covenant” sounds harder to get out of, but it’s really not. Ask any divorced Nevadan.

So if we wanna understand what covenants in the bible are all about, we need to put aside our English word and our culture’s ideas about covenant, and look at how God set up a berít or two with humanity.

Going city to city till the Son of Man comes.

Mt 10.23.

Today’s verse isn’t actually part of Jesus’s Olivet Discourse. But plenty of Christians think it is, and a number of Christians have shoehorned it into their End Times views.

In Matthew 10, Jesus sends out the Twelve in teams of two, to share the good news that God’s kingdom has come near, with Israeli towns. Mt 10.5-7 He instructs them on how they’re to do it, and to be wary because people can be awful. Mt 10.8-16 And then Jesus starts to say some stuff about the students getting persecuted.

Most scholars believe the synoptic gospels were written together thisaway: Mark was written in the late 50s, and Matthew and Luke quoted it for their gospels in the mid-60s. (Those who think Matthew was written by the Matthew in Jesus’s Twelve, and not by some different guy named Matthew, theorize Mark is a condensed version of Matthew… but if that’s true, Mark is garbage; he took out the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’s great commission! Nah; other way round.)

Now. When Jesus talks about persecution, Matthew takes the verses from Mark’s version of the Olivet Discourse. Some of it’s word for word. It’s why I’ve been quoting these verses in my previous Olivet Discourse articles; it’s because they’re parallel. But in Mark, Jesus says it to only four students in his Olivet Discourse, and in Matthew, it’s to all the students as they prepare for their mission. Different contexts altogether.

Matthew 10.17-22 KWL

17 “Be aware of the people.

For they’ll hand you over to senates,

and have you flogged in their synagogues.

18 You’ll be brought before leaders and kings

for my sake, for testimonies of me, to people groups.

19 Whenever they hand you over,

don’t fret over how or what you should say,

for what you should say will be given to you

at that hour.

20 For you aren’t to be the speakers.

But your Father’s Spirit should be speaking in you.

12 Sibling will betray sibling to death,

and parent to child,

and children will revolt against forebears,

and put them to death.

13 You’ll be hated by everyone because of my name—

and this person will be saved

when they endure to the end.”

So… when did Jesus actually say it? At the Olivet Discourse, or years earlier when he sent out his students to evangelize?

Personally I don’t see why Jesus can’t have said the same thing twice. I’m sure he did! We all do. Dig through TXAB’s articles and you’re sure to find me repeating myself from time to time. I have a book of assorted C.S. Lewis articles which he wrote for various publications: Not only does he repeat certain ideas in multiple articles; you’re gonna find those ideas in his other books too. He had pet issues and ideas which he loved to talk about—or always felt he had to talk about. We all do. So does Jesus.

So Jesus certainly could’ve said this stuff dozens of times, and at the Olivet Discourse he simply said it again. But now let me get to the verse we find in Matthew which we don’t find in Mark or Luke—one which is wholly unique to Matthew’s gospel, and isn’t included in Matthew’s version of the Olivet Discourse either. It’s in chapter 10, not chapter 24.

Matthew 10.23 KWL

“When they persecute you in this city,

flee to another.

For amen!—I promise you,

you ought not complete the cities of Israel

before the Son of Man might come.”

In context, Jesus is talking about the Twelve at that time; however long they were meant to travel from Israeli city to Israeli city, sharing the gospel. Long enough to hit many of the cities by the time he caught up with them. Not all, but he didn’t expect them to finish. Although, since Jesus was using subjunctive verbs (“ought not complete” and “might come,” which indicate it’s likely, not definite) he allowed for the possibility that—who knows?—maybe they might get to all of ’em.

But as I said, Christians frequently ignore the context.

The red letters.

Back in medieval times, western scribes used to rubricate certain texts. If you’re not familiar with that word, it means “render in red letters”—they’d highlight certain important parts of the books, like headers and commentaries and pull quotes, by putting the words in red ink. After the printing press was invented, full-color or spot-color printing was of course possible (’cause the Gutenberg Bible was full color) but time-consuming and not cost-effective. So printers went with bold letters, slanted letters, capital letters, capitalized letters, bigger letters, or whole different typefaces—whatever you could print in black.

Meaning bibles were likewise printed in black ink. Red-letter editions didn’t begin till 1899. It started with Louis Klopsch, editor of The Christian Herald, who was writing an editorial, and read this passage from the gospels. (Which, for once, I’m not gonna put in red letters, ’cause it’s not what Klopsch would’ve read.)

Luke 22.20 KJV

Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

I’m guessing Klopsch at first imagined the New Testament printed in Jesus’s blood, and then that grisly image was replaced with the idea of simply Jesus’s words printed in blood-red text. He thought it was a neat idea; his pastor thought it couldn’t hurt; he produced 60,000 copies of a red-letter New Testament later that year. They sold out quickly.

The reason I’ve lumped this article under the category of bible translations rather than simply bible, is because a certain amount of interpretation is involved in figuring out what parts of the bible oughta be printed in red letters.

Fr’instance Revelation. The book is Jesus’s revelation to his apostle John. A “Lamb as it had been slain” Rv 5.6 KJV sits upon the heavenly throne in Revelation 5 to open the seals of an important scroll, and it’s safe to assume every statement from the throne thereafter comes from the lamb. The lamb is obviously Jesus. Yet not every publisher of a red-letter bible remembers this, and puts the statements from the throne into red letters.

Sometimes it varies by publisher; sometimes translation. Fr’instance when Jesus is instructing Nicodemus in John 3. In the second edition of the New International Version, published 1984, John 3.16 is in red letters, ’cause most translators figure he said it. But in the third edition, the current 2011 edition, Jesus’s quote stops at 3.15. Verse 16 isn’t red-letter anymore. It’s not a Jesus quote; now it’s the apostle John’s commentary.

John 3.14-17 NIV

14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

The NIV isn’t the only translation which does this. There’s the Lexham English Bible and the New English Translation. The Good News Translation (a.k.a. Today’s English Version) cuts Jesus off even before, at verse 13.

Yeah, where Jesus speaks and where he doesn’t is pretty much interpreters and translators’ judgment call. Therefore it’s also a judgment call as to where the red letters go. True from the very beginning: When Klopsch put together the first red-letter New Testament, he used the King James Version, which has no quotation marks because they weren’t in standard use till his century. Kopsch had to use his best judgment as to where the Jesus-quotes begin and end. That’s not always clear. The hope was the red letters would help make it clear.