Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Living the Red Letters of Jesus

Red letter Bibles show Jesus's words in red

I'm frequently asked what I mean when I say we must live a seven-day practical faith. While I share several aspects, I assume too often that people know they must read the Bible for themselves. But they too often don't.

The more I engage with Christians across denominations, the more I realize many do not know the Bible well. They may know particular verses or books of the Bible. But a lot of people let others tell them what is in the Bible instead of reading it for themselves. Such practice leads to confusion and being misled by others with their own agendas.

If you need to read the Bible more, for whatever reason, I suggest reading the red letters first.

Red letter Bibles highlight Jesus's comments by showing them in red, as in the attached photo. I recommend acquiring such a Bible or tuning your Bible app (such as YouVersion) to display the red letters.

We are Christians. We follow Jesus. The entire Bible is important, but we must pay particular attention and place special priority on what Jesus tells us. In my view, if Jesus says something that may seem to differ with the rest of the Bible, abide by Jesus's words first and try to reason out the differences as you learn.

Make sure to read all the words of Jesus, which you'll find throughout the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, with a few assorted comments in Acts of the Apostles and more in Revelation. You may be surprised at what Jesus said, and just as importantly, what he didn't say. Ponder and review what's missing.

Read the surrounding verses to understand context. Once when I was teaching a class, a participant said, "You know, Jesus said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'" I said, "That's true. Those words came out of his mouth. But he was actually speaking against that phrase at the time." (See Matthew 5:38-42).

If we are to be Christians, if we are to be Christ followers, then we must thoroughly understand and obey Jesus's commands and principles. We read the red letters to know exactly what he said. Then we can put his words into practice in our seven-day practical faith walks.

A useful tool is my older podcast series from 2023 and 2024 that covered the Top 11 Themes of Jesus. I count how many times Jesus talked about various topics and bring an expert alongside me to discuss each theme. Search for the Practical Faith Academy podcast on your favorite podcast platform and scroll back to find the Top 11 Themes of Jesus.