(75-second read)

My long-suffering wife has advised me not to use the phrases “bullshit” and “pain in the ass” when writing theologically.

BLUF

The unified editorial direction of the Bible is to trust Our Father.

Digging In

• I don’t doubt the New Testament authors got some of Jesus’ actual quotes, but certainly not all (not enough paper), and some of the words attributed to Jesus are likely to be as best as they remembered them. 
• It doesn’t matter; we have what we have. 
• Our faith is not based on the trust we place in the words in the Bible, but on the trust, we put in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
• The Bible points us to that trust.
• All NT authors had ideas and backgrounds that shaped their writings. Still, we can be sure they all moved in a single editorial direction which St. John captured when he wrote, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
• But as to the coarseness of language, euphemisms are all over the Bible, and when writing things down, “polite company” tends to use these euphemisms rather than straight talk jargon.
• I am considering changing “bullshit” to “post-processed bovine feedstock” and “pain in the ass” to “I become uncomfortable when seated.”