The Word of God (part 5)

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The Message

I'll be blunt. I think The Message is irreverent, erroneous, and even blasphemous. Let me explain why I take such a strong opinion.

The first time I read a verse from The Message, I wondered how anyone could take it seriously. I don't remember what the verse was; what I do remember is my thinking that it was totally useless for understanding the Bible. And therein lies the irony. Paraphrases (we are told) are meant to aid in our understanding of the Bible. Yet I find that they create more confusion than anything else. Take this passage for example:

(John 1:1-5; 9-13, The Message)

1 -2 The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.

3 -5 Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn't put it out.

9 -13 The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn't even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn't want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.

Now compare that to the New International Version (which I don't use anymore for various reasons; I am comparing it to The Message because many people use it.):

(John 1:1-5; 9-13, NIV)

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning.
³Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴In him was life, and that life was the light of men. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

⁹The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

¹⁰He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹²Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

I am also of the opinion that much of the language in The Message is irreverent, such as John 1:14 -- "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish." Compare with the NIV: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." "Grace and truth" is much different than "true from start to finish." And that brings me to another problem which the primary reason I cannot accept The Message: Eugene Peterson's willingness to change the meaning of the biblical text. Take the familiar John 3:16-17 for example:

The Message: This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

NIV: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

"A whole and lasting life" is completely different than "eternal life." It is the difference between the temporal and the eternal, the flesh and the spirit. And "to put the world right again" sounds like some kind of political social change. It more closely resembles the rhetoric of some 2008 presidential candidates than God's plan of redemption. Many other examples could be given, and I plan to post others in the future.

The simple fact is that The Message is not a translation of the Bible. It is not even a good paraphrase, because to paraphrase something is to say something with different wording without changing the meaning. Since The Message changes the meaning in so many places, it cannot be considered a paraphrase.

For a very good comparison regarding The Message, visit Kjos Ministries.

Go to Part 1