For some years I have used a Bible app on my iPad for most of my reading and studying. I particularly like the way that you can easily highlight particular verses or chapters with different colours. A little while ago whilst reading the Psalms I decided to highlight in yellow all the verses that were an encouragement to me. A little while later whilst reflecting on this activity I realised that I was reading this book in a very limited, lopsided way. I decided to read through all 150 Psalms again but to highlight all the difficult passages in blue.
The outcome of these two different ways of reading the Scriptures gave rise to my yellow and blue verses. Psalms in my Bible app is now highlighted with verses in yellow that bless, stir and stimulate a love for God and a desire to follow him. But the app is also full of blue verses that provoke, challenge, confuse and to be honest sometimes leave me bewildered
A good example of this Psalm 139. David's heartfelt prayer displays his deep devotion to God and reveals his inner life. Many of the phrases in the Psalm are beautifully poignant and have encouraged countless follows of God down the centuries:
- You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. v1
- Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? v7
- For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. v13
- I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made v14
- How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! v17
- Search me, God, and know my heart v23
However, a few verses from the end the yellow Psalm suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, turns blue.
If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
v19-22
But it is in Psalm 145 that I find the yellow / blue issue most challenging. Verse 9 says, 'The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.' A yellow verse. Then later in the Psalm there is a blue verse, verse 20 'The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.' This raises many questions
- If God is good to all, how can he destroy the wicked?
- Does it mean that God is not good to all?
- Does it mean that God destroying the wicked is an act of goodness and love?
- Does it simply show how David felt about the wicked rather than showing how God felt?
- Is this verse another example of what Christian leader Steve Chalk says is a record of a conversation between the human and divine rather than the authorative word of God?
To slightly mis-quote 2 Timothy 3:16; All Scripture, both yellow and blue, is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work
I don't have easy answers for all the challenges in the Bible, but I believe that all of Scripture is breathed out or by the Almighty, inspired by God for the equipping of his servants
Whether a passage is yellow, or blue does not change this truth
