I remember a seminary professor speaking against the red letter versions of the Bible. The red letter bibles put the words of Jesus in red while the rest is in the standard black. It emphasizes the importance of what Jesus said. The professor argued that God inspires the whole Bible, and each word and phrase is as important as all the others. Red letters making parts of the Bible more important than the rest is heresy. I’m not entirely convinced of that anymore. It seems to me that there are reasons to see Jesus’ words as being more important than others in the Bible for a couple of reasons. Maybe “more important” isn’t correct, but I began to think about this when I started studying the book of Hebrews. I believe that even the author, whoever that might be, agrees that we should pay more attention to Jesus and give priority to him and his teachings. Isn’t that how the book begins?
It says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.” The book of Hebrews begins by telling us that Jesus is greater than all the prophets that have come before him. I’m sure the writer is referring to the prophets of the Old Testament. This 1st section about Jesus and the Prophets ends with verse 4, where it transitions to the second section of the book, which explains how Jesus is greater than all the angels. It explains the difference between being the “son” and being a messenger of God to minister to believers. That’s what the angels are. The third section of Hebrews, beginning with chapter 3, explains how Jesus is much greater than Moses.
The two ways mankind heard from God after the fall was through angels and prophets. He would occasionally put these communications in dreams and visions. The prophets would have the angelic visitation and then communicate the message to the people. That’s not the way we hear from God anymore! That may sound like heresy to those who insist that there are modern prophets that hear directly from God, but this is what I’m reading from the first verse in the first chapter of a Book that’s all about the superiority of Jesus over everything else. I’m not saying the rest of the Bible isn’t essential. It is because, as Jesus said, it’s all about Him. On the road to Emmaus, he explained how all the passages from all parts of the Bible, the Law, Prophets, and the writings were all about him. We should seek to find Jesus in the whole Bible. God, Himself even exhorts us, “And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!’” (Luke 9:35)