Trust & Obey, Week 1: John 3 & John 14, Preview
Does your Bible print the words of Jesus in red?
Some Bibles print Jesus’ words in red, some don’t. Why? When the Gospels were originally written, even though original copies no longer exists, scholars are fairly confident that the Gospel writers did not use red ink when writing Jesus’ words. Why are they confident?
Because the first person to publish a New Testament with the words of Jesus printed in red was a man named Louis Klopsch in 1899. He came up with the idea when reading Luke 22:20, where, seated around the tables of the last supper, Jesus tells his disciples, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” Klopsch thought red ink would not only make the words of Jesus jump off the page, it would also symbolize the blood of Jesus. (Did Klopsch want us to think that Jesus’ words are written in blood?)
This is more than just a hopefully interesting piece of bible printing trivia. Let me explain by asking a question, What do you think is the most famous verse in the New Testament, maybe the most famous verse in the whole Bible?
Arguably, John 3:16. Perhaps you can quote it.
“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.”
Grab a Bible, or open it on your device, and check if that version of the Bible prints John 3:16 in red.
If you are reading the New International Version 2011 edition, and your Bible includes the words of Jesus in red, you’ll notice that John 3:16 is not printed in red. Shouldn’t John 3:16 be in red? Isn’t that the most famous thing Jesus said? Some of the most popular English Bibles print John 3:16, and in fact all of John 3, verses 10 through 21, in red. The King James does, the New King James does, the English Standard Version does, as does the New American Standard Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, and the New Living Translation.
Why, then, does the NIV 2011 not print John 3:16–21 in red?
Here’s where it gets weird: The NIV 1984 edition does print John 3:10-21 in red. Why the change? The team involved in translating and printing the NIV 2011 edition disagreed with the team involved in translating and printing the earlier edition.
Here’s why. There is a scholarly debate about how much of these verses Jesus said, and how much John said. My opinion is that verses 16-21 sound an awful lot like John sounds in his epistles, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. It seems like verses 16-21 are John commenting, editorializing on what Jesus just taught in verses 10-15. It’s not just the style of writing. Notice the pronoun change. In verses 10-15, the pronouns are “I” and “you.” These pronouns indicate that the speaker is in a personal conversation. But in 16-21, the pronouns change to “he” and “him,” which is not the kind of speech you’d use in a personal conversation. Conclusion: it is possible that Jesus didn’t say John 3:16, but John did.
All this is not trivial, because it helps us focus on what Jesus said. I’m not suggesting that John 3:16 is somehow degraded if Jesus didn’t say it. What I’m getting at is that we would do well to pay attention to what Jesus said, as of utmost importance. Yet, in the past couple centuries, some evangelical Christians have over-emphasized some of Jesus’ teachings, while de-emphasizing others. Even if all of John 3:10–21 should be printed in red, meaning that Jesus actually said it all, we would do well to hear and follow all of his other “red letter teachings.”
Between now and Advent, we’re going to look at some of those red letters, seeking to hold in tension the more well-known ones with the lesser known (read: difficult) ones.
Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 