My wife shared an article with me from Premier Christianity Magazine. It is an interview with current Children’s Laureate and Liverpudlian (or, Bootle-born, which is technically Sefton if you’re being picky), Frank Cottrell-Boyce.

Unbeknowst to me – and I’ve followed Cottrell-Boyce in some form over recent years – he describes himself as a Christian. My wife told me he was a Christian before quickly following up with “of sorts”. By that, she meant he’s a Catholic (we’re prods, who both met in Liverpool, and one of us comes from a scouse proddy family, so the clarification was culturally warranted). But almost everyone in Liverpool with any association to the city is a Christian “of sorts” in that they’re almost all aware of being Protestant or Catholic, sort of. But Cottrell-Boyce is not a Catholic “of sorts”. He’s not one of those Catholics who is baptised as a baby and mad on funerals but has nothing else to do with the church. He’s an actual Catholic who actually reads the Bible and believes Catholic doctrine. A proper Catholic, if you like.

One part of his interview struck us both. Here is what he said:

I go to church on a Sunday. I always try to go on a Friday. I do morning and evening prayers. Morning prayers are the Psalms. I have a lot of problems with the Psalms, especially recently. They are incredibly aggressive, chaining kings and crushing enemies, and I find that difficult. But this was Jesus’ playlist. This is what he read. So, trying to find ways to walk in his footsteps, trying to find common ground, trying to find him, that’s really important to me.

And I like to read a bit of the New Testament every day. I love the Acts of the apostles, and I love Paul’s letters – cranky and mad as they are. I particularly love the letter of St James, because it’s so narky, it’s so ill-tempered. I read it and I think: He was really close to Jesus. When I read it, I can hear a voice. I think this is how they spoke to each other, they’re actually quite snippy. And Jesus loses it quite often!

I think this struck me for two reasons. First, I empathise. I have written on this blog before about preferring certain parts of the Bible to others and being able to get behind certain books more than others. In particular, I had this to say:

I have never been wild about the Psalms, for example. I know there are people who absolutely love them, but I really struggle with them. I don’t like poetry that much at the best of times, so translated poetry is an even harder sell. I mean, it’s hard to get behind an acrostic that has been translated from another language so the very medium it is utilising doesn’t work anymore! It’s hard to get behind rhyme schemes and patterns that, because of translation, no longer rhyme or have the same syllable structure. For me, Psalms is just hard work that doesn’t appeal so much to me. David is either happy, sad or a bit depressed. I don’t get that excited by that. I don’t think it should be ignored or struck from our Bibles, and I know loads of people absolutely love them above and beyond other books of the Bible. I appreciate there is divinely inspired biblical truth that we ignore at our peril. But as a book, it just doesn’t appeal massively to me.

I might not like the Psalms for the same reasons as Cottrell-Boyce (though I am not unsympathetic to the reasons he gives too), but I agree with him that I find them hard work. I similarly agree with him about the New Testament letters. Not only agree with him, but had this to say about them myself:

Of course I would find Matthew’s gospel less appealing than Luke’s. Luke was associated with Paul who was particularly concerned with writing to Gentiles from Gentile contexts. Of course that is easier for us. Matthew is most concerned at speaking to Hebraic Jews and pointing to the fulfilment of their scriptures. He handles cultural and legal disputes that just aren’t on the radar of the average pig-eating, pagan-culture Gentile (which is what most of us in the Western world are!) It’s not unreasonable for us to get behind the gospels that speak more directly to our particular culture and situation; that is what they were supposed to do!

But the same is true for the other genres. Paul’s letters are written to churches in particular cultural contexts. There is a reason why he goes on about the power of Christ to the Ephesians whose city was awash with pagan magic and rituals. There is a reason he bangs on about eating meat offered to idols and visiting prostitutes to the Corinthians whose culture would have encouraged both of these things. If the letters were written to particular cultural contexts, it is only natural we would chime with those that more closely resemble our own cultural context and the particular pressures and concerns of Christians seeking to live faithfully within it.

My point in that earlier article was to say that I don’t think it is unspiritual, or even wrong per se, to find certain bits of the Bible more attractive or easier to get behind than others. The fact that I don’t really like the Psalms isn’t necessarily because I am just unspiritual, there may be other factors going on. I was struck by Cottrell-Boyce’s willingness to openly admit that he didn’t really like the Psalms all that much.

But the second thing that struck me about his comments was that, despite not liking the Psalms, he purposefully read them every day. I think the really important point he makes about the Psalms he dislikes so much – which I thought was quite profound – was this one: ‘this was Jesus’ playlist. This is what he read. So, trying to find ways to walk in his footsteps, trying to find common ground, trying to find him, that’s really important to me.’

Here, we have a basic case for why the whole of scripture is important. Fundamentally, if we want to follow Jesus – and we see him as the high point of God’s revelation to humankind – we want to take seriously what he took seriously. And Jesus took the Old Testament scriptures seriously. He took the Psalms seriously. He quoted them authoritatively and he pointed people – particularly the religious leaders with whom he was often in dispute – back to them as authoritative. Jesus accepted the whole Old Testament – including the Psalms – as God’s revelation of himself to humanity. If Jesus took these things seriously, and considered them authoritative, instructive and helpful, then it follows that we should view them similarly if we want to understand the mind of Christ.

In a sense, it doesn’t matter whether I like the Psalms or not. It doesn’t really matter whether we like any part of scripture or not. The issue isn’t whether we like it, the issue is whether it is part of God’s revelation of himself to us. The question is not whether I like it, but whether I actually want to know God as he reveals himself. The issue isn’t which bits of the Bible I like best – we can all have opinions about that which, whilst inevitable, are immaterial – but whether Jesus thinks this bit of the Bible is important and, therefore, useful and profitable for training in righteousness and equipping us for godliness (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17). If we want to know Jesus as he really is, we need to know the scriptures that not only point to him but that he considered important and formed the background to his own mission and ministry.

I was particularly struck by Cottrell-Boyce’s recognition of that. Despite having his issues with the Psalms, despite not particularly liking them, he sees the importance of reading them. In the end, the bits of the Bible we like more or less doesn’t really matter. What matters is whether Jesus affirms them and considers them to be important. If he does, then we have no business skipping over them, no matter how objectionable we might find them. If we want to understand Jesus, we need to understand the scriptures. Not just the bits we like most, but even those bits we don’t care for. Our view of them doesn’t really matter in the end; it is Jesus’ view of them that counts. And that is why we should read all the scriptures, regardless of what we may think of them.