The other day I had a friend of mine ask me my opinion of The Message (Eugene Peterson's translation of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament into contemporary vernacular)...
After having that conversation I looked online for some of the specific critiques of The Message just to see what people are saying. It prompted a response!
To begin with, I really like The Message, and use it in both teaching, and personal devotions, but I do not use it exclusively. The simple truth is that points of doctrine should be established through appeals to the original language! If we are reading an English language Bible we aren't reading the original Bible. Comments about changing the word of God, or playing loose with the truth miss the point entirely! The word of God was written in Hebrew and Greek! If we wanted to affirm the word of God in a literal way, we would do what the Muslims do with the Qu'ran, and force anyone who wants to follow Jesus learn to read the Bible in its original language.
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