I understand completely when you say that when Jesus is made Maestro it "leads to violence against Paul and Peter and James and Hebrews etc.." So maybe "maestro" is not the best term to use for how "Red Letter Christians" view the importance of Jesus in the Bible. I definitely do not read the rest of the Bible through the eyes of Jesus, but I honestly do believe that if I consider myself a follower of Christ, the words and actions of Jesus must be the most important parts of the Bible for me to attempt to mold my life after.He adds:
You wrote on the "Out of Ur" Blog:
Protestant liberals, Anabaptists, and Red Letter Christians have all made Jesus the maestro of their Bible reading. Everything is seen through the angle of the words "kingdom" and social justice as "discipleship." We are tempted, of course, to forgive anyone who makes Jesus their maestro, but the wisdom of God in giving us a canon--a list of 27 books that included Paul and Peter and John and Hebrews and Jude-- which renders making even Jesus the maestro suspect.
I wonder what you believe the actual danger is in being a "Red Letter Christian"? - I think the pros out weigh the cons... I do appreciate the rest of the Bible for what it is. But if Jesus is God - and I believe he is - there should be no problem with identifying ourselves as people who hold the teachings and actions of Jesus in the highest regard.
I don't want to "exegete" this letter and pick it apart. That might lead to a moment of victory but the big questions this thoughtful person is asking are ones I have myself asked, struggled with, and sought resolution. And I want to extend here what I wrote in The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible
. There are two major forms of Maestro Bible readers today: one group reads the rest of the Bible through the lens of Jesus' teachings of the kingdom of God and another group reads the rest of the Bible through the lens of Paul's theology of justification. Most folks do not admit this; in fact, most who read the Bible through a Maestro deny they are doing so. Most of us, however, know whereof we speak when we speak of Maestro Bible reading. So, give me the category that there is such a thing and I think we are led to its problem.
The logic of these words, "Jesus is God, therefore his words are the most important," appears to be a better argument than it really is. I start with the word "Logos." We say the Logos became flesh in Jesus Christ and we say that Scripture is also the Logos of God. That both Jesus and Scripture are called "Word" of God is vitally important.
This theological point trumps the logic of the (Maestro) Red Letter Christian. How? The Logos who is Jesus and the Logos that is Jesus' own teachings and the Logos that is Scripture are "instances" of the Logos of God. In other words, the words of Jesus are Logos not simply because Jesus said them but because Logos takes on verbal form in the "logoi" (words) of Jesus. That Logos of God is at work in all Scripture.
Which brings us to this point: Maestro Red Letter Christians run the danger of denying the Logos to the rest of Scripture by elevating the "logoi" (words) of Jesus into the sole Logos.
Another way of saying this: Maestro Red Letter Christians run the danger of diminishing the Christian concept of Scripture as God's Word -- all of Scripture and not just one part -- by converting one set of "logoi" (words) into the Whole Logos.
So, my conclusion is this: As Christians, we go to Jesus first but we dare not go only to Jesus. Not all "Red Letter Christians" make this mistake, but those who do may be justifiably called Maestro Red Letter Christians.
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John Stackhouse has a wonderful section on this topic in his book, "Making the Best of it: Following Christ in the Real World." Here are six paragraphs I posted at my blog back in May:
“What would Jesus do?’ therefore is the wrong question for Christian ethics. If we keep asking it, moreover, we will keep making the perennial mistakes many have made, such as prioritizing church work over daily trades (“because Jesus gave up carpentry for preaching the gospel”); valorizing singleness, at least for clergy (”because Jesus didn’t marry”); and denigrating all involvement in the arts, politics, or sports (“because we never read of Jesus painting a picture or participating in political discussions, much less kicking a ball”). Instead, “What would Jesus want me or us to do, here and now?” is the right question – or, if I may, Who are we, for Jesus Christ today?
Connected with this material issue, the issue of the imitation of Christ as the main motif of Christian discipleship, is a formal issue for ethical method. Many Christians, including some quite sophisticated theologians, seem to equate the priority of Christ himself versus other figures with the priority of the gospels versus other books of the Bible, such as the prophets or the epistles. But this is an important hermeneutical error (bemusingly reminiscent of 1 Cor. 1:12: “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Cephas” or “I belong to Christ.”), and in at least four respects.
First, even though the gospels come first in the canon of the New Testament, they are probably not the earliest testimonies to Jesus in the Bible. Paul’s early letters, most scholars agree, predate most or all of the four gospels. So if we are seeking access to the most primitive layer of “Jesus tradition,” in terms of whole books (rather than this pericope or that saying or this hymn or that parable in the gospels), Paul’s work would deserve priority.
Second, we should not be privileging whatever we guess is the earlier material in the New Testament versus the later, because all of it is inspired by God and therefore has the same status: Holy Scripture. Any historian knows that sometimes later accounts are better than earlier ones precisely because the later accounts can have benefited from access to several earlier accounts plus perspective that only time can bring. So there is neither theological nor historical ground for preferring “earlier” to “later” – and that goes for preferring Mark’s gospel to John’s too.
Third, privileging the gospels in the name of privileging Jesus would make sense in terms of the relative status of the Lord Jesus versus his disciples, the epistle writers Paul, Peter, John, and others. But the gospels are authored not by Jesus but by other Christians: traditionally, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So to privilege them is simply to prefer Matthew to Paul, or Mark to Peter, or John to, well, John (I-III John) – which reduces to a preference of genre, of gospels versus epistles. Such a preference hardly has literary or theological merit. (Indeed, the championing of the gospels over the rest of the New Testament is particularly odd coming from educated Christians, who sound as if they have discovered a red-letter edition of the Bible, except that their new version prints all of the gospels in red ink, while the rest of the Bible remains in black.)
Finally, the story of Jesus is, of course, the key to history. But to emphasize the gospels over the rest of the New Testament is to forget that Jesus is Lord over all of history, Head of the church that succeeds him in earthly ministry, and in fact Author of the whole New Testament via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – as he is the God who inspired the whole Bible. The better hermeneutical path, therefore, is to keep clearly in view what each of the books of the Bible has to offer us and to draw upon them according to their distinctive natures, regarding not only their genre strengths and limitations but also the place of their subject matter in the Christian Story. We Christians are not to be forever repristinating the experience of the disciples trooping about with Christ in ancient Judea – nor, for that matter, the experience of the disciples in the early chapters of Acts. For there are more chapters in Acts, and the unfinished nature of the book has itself prompted many readers to the conclusion that God intends the rest of the church to keep writing it, generation by generation, until the Lord of the church returns, to fulfill the promise made at the book’s beginning (Acts 1:11) (190-192)
As I read this, I'm reminded of something that the late Dr. David Scholer used to say often when teaching his class on Women & the Bible: "Starting points" are very important. What passage do you consider "clear" enough to help you to understand the "less clear" parts?
While he was talking about the issue of women in ministry, I think the same might be said in regard to this discussion of whether Jesus, Paul, or any other part of Scripture is given too much authority. There's really no way around developing a framework that emphasizes one part or the other as you try to understand what the whole of Scripture teaches. We're not here concerned so much with the question of whether people choose to interpret Paul through the light of Jesus, or whether the interpret Jesus through the light of Paul (or again, they might interpret both through some other Scriptural "lens"). To make such a choice, one way or another, is simply inevitable.
The problem we seem to be having here is if one "speaker" is elevated so highly as to be used against other "speakers." For example, "Paul says X, but Jesus says Y. I'm going to go with Jesus!" If this is the attitude, then we have a problem....
Seems like the primary drive on the thread is to demonstrate the underlying unity of the Bible.
Some go red letter and others go conversational. But everybody wants to make things lay down and work out.
I don't sense that a lot of evangelical and emergent types right now really believe the Bible comes together.
Scot, or others, why is that kind of biblical unity important?
How can someone call themselves "Christian" and not have the spiritual orientation,at least, of a "Red Letter Christian? The life, lifestyle, accomplishments,and words and deeds of Jesus are our benchmarks and the foundation of our Faith. Paul thought so,as the rest of the authors of the NT.
As always,the doctrine of Scripture,usually Protestant,where the Bible is made to carry the epistemic load it's not meant to do alone,becomes an issue.
This is one of the things that has always baffled me about Christians: Christ is Lord, Christ is God...but, when it comes to teachings, he is just one among many, and may be not even the most important if we consider how much some Christians quote the OT and Paul, and how little they repeat (or act) Jeusus' words -except of course, for that famous sentence "I am the way..." used to pretty much condemm every non-Christian to hell. Jesus says that people can be "perfect " as God is "perdfect" Paul says that nothing we can do can be worthy to God. Who do most Christians seem to believe? Pauls, of course!
I guess that after Jesus/God came in the flesh, tought, pay the debt to himself and then left, he realized that there were many things that he had forgotten to tell the world, so he sent a e-mail to Paul, and Jude, and Oeter and James and whomever wrote Hebrews. But hey, Christ is Lord...
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