It makes it easier to find a passage if you’re (like me) not numerically oriented but generally know the context of what you’re looking for. If you know you’re looking for a couple of paragraphs long discourse by Jesus somewhere in the middle chapters of Matthew, it helps a lot to see the discourses broken up by color.

That’s merely a minor convenience, though, and doesn’t really overcome all the objections to the red-letter concept.

The Bible is hard. It is hard to understand how a book that often appears harsh, contradictory and confusing can be viewed as a source of wisdom or knowledge, let alone divine wisdom or knowledge. But, ultimately, you have to either take the whole deal or no deal at all, because there is no way to detach Jesus from his context without losing the integrity and coherence of the whole thing. What ends up happening instead is, you end up inventing your own Jesus – an imaginary version who implicitly grants you permission to do and think and be whatever is not explicitly banned (in red ink).

If sin isn’t really sinful, and it doesn’t really matter what choices you make, and/or there is no reason why we should view ourselves as “fallen” – then the idea of Jesus being special, different, sent by God, makes no sense. His sacrifice is rendered unnecessary, and the fact that He died on a cross makes no sense.

It is a question of struggling through the problems and the questions (how do you reconcile what you believe with that one passage that bothers you so much?) vs. taking the easy route.

It was quite unnerving, until I realized the page was illuminated by the sun shining through the red stained glass window on my left.

Here’s something funny: Way back in a Christian school (this would have been around 1980, at the height of the “charismatic chorus” movement in worship), I actually knew someone who turned 1 Chronicles 26:18 into a chorus. It was catchy, but never really made it big.

I might add a 3) an attempt by the “Red Letter” folks to claim Jesus himself (the one they like — not the one that talked about hell and judgment) for their “side” as over against that nasty Paul.

Craig,

I think all Christian struggle (at least in practice) with the problem of erecting a canon within the canon. But there is a way to get at the question you asked about all of it being of equal “importance”. One of my Old Testament profs (Douglas Stuart) used to say regularly “all of the Bible is FOR us, but not all of it is TO us”. So, for instance, when Paul writes to Timothy: (in 2Tim 4) “When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments..” we have something that can probably teach something for us, but it is clearly not to us. No need to start pilgrimages to Troas in search of Carpus and Paul’s cloak…

So, in my canon within the canon I favor John 3:16 over 1 Chronicles 26:18, but that doesn’t meant it’s not God’s Word…

Comment: “Red-letter Christian” is a cultural statement: “I am a compassionate and caring Christ-like person who votes Democrat, unlike the drooling, gun-toting Neanderthals who focus on abortion and gay marriage.”

Question: While recognizing that all Scripture is equally inspired, do we have to think of all Scripture as equally important? In other words, yes, I do think of Jesus’ words as elevated and privileged over, say, Obadiah. (Not that I don’t like Obadiah, but…) Is this theologically wrong? If so, why do Catholics stand for the Gospel reading, but not the other biblical readings?