More Than Red Letters: Jesus’s Teaching Across The New Testament

It’s easy to separate the four Gospels from the rest of the New Testament. The Gospels tell us stories about Jesus; they record his words and works. But what about the other 23 books? Of course, these books have much to say about Jesus. We get far greater depth on the significance of his death and resurrection in the Epistles than in the Gospels. We find the apostles’ reflections on Jesus’s humanity and divinity as the New Testament unfolds.

But do these other books have anything to do with what Jesus actually taught? While some people drive a wedge between Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, a far better approach is to train ourselves to recognize Jesus’s voice in the whole New Testament.

We should expect the apostles to frequently look back to Jesus’s teaching. And when we read their letters, we find his teaching popping up in all sorts of ways.

Thus Saith the Lord

First, and most obviously, we discover direct quotations of Jesus’s words. This is what we see in places like Paul’s speech in Acts 20:35: “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” You won’t find these words in the Gospels (see John 20:30–31; 21:25), as they were part of the early church’s transmission of Jesus’s sayings. Paul, in his years of ministry alongside other Christians, picked up a wealth of knowledge about Jesus’s life and ministry, to which he occasionally refers (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:3).

While some people drive a wedge between Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, a far better approach is to train ourselves to recognize Jesus’s voice in the whole New Testament.

Similarly, in Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he refers to the words of Jesus as Scripture, saying, “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages’” (1 Tim. 5:18). The first quotation is derived from Deuteronomy 25:4, but the second quotation of “Scripture” likely originates from Jesus’s saying in Luke 10:7.

Between these two passages, then, we have Luke (the author of Acts) quoting Paul citing Jesus and then Paul quoting Luke citing Jesus.

I’ve Heard Something like That Before

Another way for one book to reference another is through allusion, or indirect reference. In an allusion, we have a clear and recognizable similarity of wording that connects to a passage in another book but without word-for-word exactness.

For example, consider 1 John 3:15, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” If we think about the wording of this passage for a moment, it calls to mind Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment’ . . . But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matt. 5:21–22).

Notice the similarities: Hating or being angry with your “brother” is likened to “murder,” and this has eternal spiritual consequences. John is reusing Jesus’s argument from the Sermon on the Mount but in his own words. See also that John isn’t recalling his own Gospel (as he often does in 1 John) but referring to Jesus’s teaching contained elsewhere, in Matthew.

Family Resemblances

We also find the themes of Jesus’s teaching filling the rest of the New Testament.

The apostles wrote often of the kingdom of God (e.g., Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 4:20; Gal. 5:21; Heb. 12:28; James 2:5; 2 Pet. 1:11; Rev. 1:16), the need for repentance (e.g., Rom. 2:4; 2 Cor. 7:10; Heb. 6:1; 2 Pet. 3:9), faith in Christ (e.g., Rom. 1:17; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8–9), care for the poor (e.g., Gal. 2:10; James 2:14–16), and so on. The New Testament organically builds on and develops the themes first taught to Christians by Jesus himself.

Remember the Words of the Lord Jesus

The apostles clearly believed it was important not only to say true things about Jesus, but also to cling to and use his words often. Beyond discerning another connection to the earthly ministry of Jesus, what benefits do we find when we recognize the teaching of Jesus in the rest of the New Testament?

First, seeing Jesus’s teaching can guard us against certain errors. At times, it has been popular to distance Jesus from the apostles, or Jesus from Paul, or Jesus from the development of the early church. Some, on a popular level, even prioritize the “red letters” of the New Testament over the rest of the text that God inspired.

The New Testament organically builds on and develops the themes first taught to Christians by Jesus himself.

When we see no such separation exists, we’ll avoid errors that pit one part of Scripture against another. Paul looks to Luke’s account of Jesus, while Luke looks to Paul’s preaching of Jesus, and John consults Matthew’s Gospel.

Second, the New Testament’s unity teaches us how to read. We should expect Acts to continue the story of Jesus. We should look to the Epistles to apply Jesus’s teaching to broader circumstances than Jesus addressed during his earthly ministry. Once we look for Jesus’s words and ideas everywhere in the New Testament, we’ll find more and more of them.

Finally, seeing Jesus’s teaching in the rest of the New Testament reminds us that whatever book we’re reading, the whole New Testament leads us in the way of Jesus. We receive his teaching and walk in his paths.