The Message | 2003 | Remix Preface

INTRODUCTION THE MESSAGE

A USER’S GUIDE TO THE REMIX

There are a couple of things you may want to know as you take in these words—reading them, thinking over them, praying them, living them.

Accurate, But Readable.

The Message was paraphrased over a period of ten years, straight from the Bible’s original languages (Greek and Hebrew). The idea of The Message isn’t to water down the Bible, making it easier to digest. The idea is to make it readable — to put those ancient words that their users spoke and wrote every day into words that you speak and write every day.

Introductions.

You will find introductions from Eugene Peterson at the beginning of each book and section of the Bible (the Books of Moses, History, Wisdom, Prophets, New Testament). These aren’t watered down either. They’re geared to help you understand a little about the books’ authors, the context of the books, and some of what God has used them to convey. Some of the words and concepts may be difficult to wrap your mind around, but don’t be afraid to talk with someone you respect who’s walking this path with you. The intros may peel back more of the layers of the Bible — help you to experience these all-powerful words on a different level or in a different dimension.

Verse Numbers.

One of the key distinctives of The Message is the lack of a verse number next to each verse. In Eugene’s words, “I leave out verse numbers to encourage unimpeded reading (no Bibles had verse numbers for the first 1,500 years):” In order to help you read these words — think them, pray them, live them — we have included verse numbers in the margins for each paragraph. Use this feature to allow God to use his words as he’d like to, rather than reading only the specific verse that you’ve chosen. Let God take the reins — teaching you, knowing you, and changing you.

LISTENING TO THE REMIX

Why Does A Two Thousand-year-old Book Still Matter?

We could give you the typical answers, answers that might ring true for some of the books that you read in English class, like Romeo and Juliet, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or The Catcher in the Rye. These books stand as testimonies to their time. Some of them were catalysts of change in their day, or even years later. They offer a window into cultures long past, allowing us to understand, to learn. They’re entertaining. They reveal perspectives a lot different from our own. And these are good reasons — for the Bible, too — making a case for why we should spend our increasingly scarce time reading old, old stuff. But people have survived without reading Shakespeare, Harriet Beecher Stowe, or Salinger. What if you’re not really into classical literature?

With the Bible, the reasons get a lot better. This book isn’t like any book that’s ever been written. The Bible actually describes itself this way: “Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another – showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way” (2 Timothy 3). The bottom line is that the Bible has been radically changing people’s lives-not just their habits, or the way they dress, or what they say, or the way they treat people, but their hearts, their hopes, their entire beings — for thousands of years. And that continues to happen, no matter how much the world changes: “True, the grass withers and the wildflowers fade, but our God’s Word stands firm and forever” (Isaiah 40).

People have been changed by other books. So how is the Bible different? There’s a lot of historical evidence that we could look at regarding the Bible’s validity and accuracy. Things like prophecies that actually came true put the Bible in serious contention for being the word of God. But maybe the most compelling piece of evidence isn’t in books or test tubes or decaying scrolls or even events predicted centuries earlier. Maybe the greatest evidence for the relevance of the word of God lies within those who have experienced its power.

A lot of other old religious texts have changed lives too, but the Bible differs even from every other religious document in one particular way: *the gospel*. God says that we’ve all done things wrong (sin) and that the consequence of those things is death: physical death, spiritual death, emotional death. But the gospel — a word that actually means “good news” — is all about God not leaving us where we are, or even expecting us to earn our way to him. God loved us so much that he provided the way for life — by sending his own Son. Eugene explains it this way: “Jesus is the descent of God to our lives, just as they are, not the ascent of our lives to God, hoping he might approve when he sees how hard we try.”

And that’s where the beauty and relevance of the Bible lies — not in our “good”-ness, our personal holiness. The mystery of the gospel finds its greatness in God him, self coming to us. It’s God taking on our flesh and our world — and eventually our sin, our death — out of so much love that it goes beyond our limited minds. Jesus met for us God’s otherwise unreachable standards of perfection and then died to pay the price for what we did wrong. And for those of us who accept that gift, the power of sin over us — the power that makes us slaves — died with him. But it gets better: Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, he also freed us from an eternity of the death that we deserved to an eternity of real life. And it’s a life starring now — far greater than any that we could ever create for ourselves. It’s that love, that coming down, that inner-dwelling by God himself that changes us. And it is that gospel that makes the Bible more than relevant. It makes the Bible vital.

WHO IS EUGENE PETERSON?

Most Bibles don’t have anyone’s name on them. So who is Eugene Peterson and why does he get his name on the front of this particular Bible?

Eugene is a longtime pastor and teacher, and the guy who paraphrased this Bible from Greek and Hebrew (the languages in which the Bible was originally written) into contemporary language that sounds a lot like the language that we use on a daily basis. You won’t find “thee” or “thou” or any other heightened language in this Bible. It uses the same language that you might use to talk to a friend on the phone or write an email. It sounds less like Shakespeare and more like television.

A lot of people think that the Bible originally came out sounding like something from the Middle Ages, but in reality it was originally written in the language of the streets. It was the language of fishermen, shopkeepers, and other regular people. Eugene wanted to get the Bible back to that kind of everyday, common language that all of us use when we’ re not trying to be religious.

So why would someone dedicate so much of his life to paraphrasing the Bible into contemporary language when there are already so many other translations of the Bible available? That’s what we asked Eugene.

“I began my work life as a teacher and for several years taught the biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek in a theological seminary. I expected to live the rest of my life as a professor and scholar, teaching and writing and studying. But then my life took a sudden turn to pastoring in a congregation.

“I was now plunged into quite a different world. The first noticeable difference was that nobody seemed to care much about the Bible, which so recently people had been paying me to teach them. Many of the people I worked with now knew virtually nothing about it, had never read it, and weren’t interested in learning. Many others had spent years reading it but for them it had gone flat through familiarity, reduced to clichés. Bored, they dropped it. And there weren’t many people in between. Very few were interested in what I considered my primary work, getting the words of the Bible into their heads and hearts, getting the message lived. They found newspapers and magazines, videos and novels more to their taste.

“Meanwhile I had taken on as my life work the responsibility of getting these very people to listen, really listen, to the message in this book. I knew I had my work cut out for me.

“I lived in two language worlds, the world of the Bible and the world of Today. I had always assumed they were the same world. But these people didn’t see it that way. So out of necessity I became a ‘translator’ (although I wouldn’t have called it that then), daily standing on the border between two worlds, getting the language of the Bible that God uses to create and save us, heal and bless us, judge and rule over us, into the language of Today that we use to gossip and tell stories, give directions and do business, sing songs and talk to each other. And all the time those old biblical languages, those powerful and vivid Hebrew and Greek originals, kept working their way underground in my speech, giving energy and sharpness to words and phrases, expanding the imagination of the people with whom I was working to hear the language of the Bible in the language of Today and the language of Today in the language of the Bible.

“I did that for thirty years in one congregation. And then one day (it was April 30, 1990) I got a letter from an editor asking me to work on a new version of the Bible along the lines of what I had been doing as a pastor. I agreed. The next ten years was harvest time. *The Message* is the result:”

Keep in mind that The Message is a reading Bible. It is not intended to replace study Bibles. Eugene’s goal was to get people reading it who otherwise wouldn’t and to get people who lost interest in the Bible to read it again. It hasn’t been paraphrased to make it easy — there is much in the Bible that is hard to understand. When you come across ideas or words that you don’t understand, don’t hesitate to get some help from someone who may have spent more years reading the Bible than you have. And at some point along the way, you may find it helpful to get a standard study Bible to facilitate further study. Until then, just pray as you read through the Bible, asking God to have his way with your life.

WHAT’S UP WITH THE MESSAGE?

Most of us have received an e-mail, a letter, or a note from a friend. A lot of times when we receive one, we can’t wait to see what the writer has to say. We open it up and see the emotion and thought that the author of the letter has poured into it. It’s the same thing with the Bible — it’s just that the person behind each note is God. And the notes aren’t only about God, they’re also about who we are.

Check out what Eugene has to say: “Reading is the first thing, just reading the Bible. As we read we enter a new world of words· and find ourselves in on a conversation in which God has the first and last words. We soon realize that we are included in the conversation. We didn’t expect this. But this is precisely what generation after generation of Bible readers do find: The Bible is not only written about us but to us. In these pages we become insiders to a conversation in which God uses words to form and bless us, to teach and guide us, to forgive and save us:’

We don’t usually look at what we read in this way. When we read a favorite magazine, webzine, or book, we’re reading things that provide us with information about certain topics or take us away into another world. This book goes beyond that-this book reveals a God who can change life in every way.

Eugene explains, “This [book] is different. This is a world of revelation: God revealing to people just like us — men and women created in God’s image — how he works and what is going on in this world in which we find ourselves. At the same time that God reveals all this, God draws us in by invitation and command to participate in his working life. We gradually (or suddenly) realize that we are insiders in the most significant action of our time as God establishes his grand rule of love and justice on this earth (as it is in heaven). ‘Revelation’ means that we are reading something we couldn’t have guessed or figured out on our own. Revelation is what makes the Bible unique.”

READ. THINK. PRAY. LIVE.

So, how can you grab hold of that revelation? If this book can have that kind of transformative power, how can you let it impact your life? There’s an ancient practice called lectio divina (or “spiritual reading”) that has been used for centuries to do that very thing. The space here is way too short to cover everything, but here’s a quick intro. If you want to learn more about it, you can find books or go on-line and look into it. Basically there are four components that make up lectio: reading, thinking, praying, and living. Sounds easy, but it takes some practice to get into the groove.

Read.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But this probably takes the most practice. We live in a culture that places significant value on time and convenience, and this first practice is anything but speedy. To truly read the Bible, you’ve got to soak yourself in it.

Have you ever been to the ocean? Have you ever been in the ocean? Not just pulling up in a car, taking your shoes off and sticking your big toe in the water. Have you ever immersed yourself in the ocean? When you do that, it’s almost as if a whole new world opens up to you. You see and feel and taste and hear things that you never could have just walking along the beach — you experience things hidden from the spectators on the beach. It’s the same thing when you come to the Bible. When you immerse yourself in it, a whole new world opens up.

As usual, the Bible really says it best:

Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder … Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night. Inscribe them on the doorposts and gates of your cities so that you’ll live a long time. (Deuteronomy 11)

How can a young person live a clean life?
 By carefully reading the map of your Word.
I’m single-minded in pursuit of you;
 don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted. (Psalm 119)

Eugene describes it this way: “First, it is important simply to read, leisurely and thoughtfully. We need to get a feel for the way these stories and songs, these prayers and conversations, these sermons and visions, invite us into this large, large world in which the invisible God is behind and involved in everything visible, and illuminates what it means to live here — really live, not just get across the street.

“As we read, and the longer we read, we begin to ‘get it’ — we are in conversation with God. We find ourselves listening and answering in matters that most concern us: who we are, where we came from, where we are going, what makes us tick, the texture of the world and the communities we live in, and- most of all — the incredible love of God among us, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

“Through reading the Bible, we see that there is far more to the world, more to us, more to what we see and more to what we don’t see — more to everything! —  than we had ever dreamed, and that this ‘more’ has to do with God.

“This is new for many of us, a different sort of book — a book that reads us even as. we read it. We are used to picking up and reading books for what we can get out of them: information we can use, inspiration to energize us, instructions on how to do something or other, entertainment to while away a rainy day, wisdom that will guide us into better living. These things can and do cake place when reading the Bible, but the Bible is given to us in the first place simply to invite us to make ourselves at home in the world of God, God’s word and world, and become familiar with the way God speaks and the ways in which we answer him with our lives.”

What’s up with that? “A book that reads us even as we read it?” That’s a pretty strange statement at first glance. What other book can you say that about? What magazine has ever read you as you read it? What you hold in your hands, however, contains our collective stories. Each of us can find little glimpses of ourselves in these pages. The people in the Bible are a whole lot like you, and a lot of them were far from perfect. We need to open our eyes and see what God would have each of us understand about ourselves.

So you can see that it’s not the same thing as reading the latest issue of your favorite magazine or a Shakespearian sonnet. There’s something different here — something that the creator of the universe wants to tell you and wants you to understand about him and yourself By jumping into the Bible, you open your eyes to God’s world and see how he includes you in his story.

Think.

After reading, the next step is to really think about what the Bible is saying. This may seem obvious, but there is a difference between letting your mind wander over a few verses or chapters and trying to figure out what it means.

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? There are some people who drive up to the edge, jump out of their cars, poke around for a few minutes, maybe take a few pictures, and then head off to the gift shop to buy T-shirts or snow globes to take to their friends back home.

There are others who spend an entire day seated quietly away from the noisy tourists, simply watching from their own private spot. That may sound boring, but to some, the Grand Canyon is a place of incredible beauty and power — one quick look isn’t enough. They want to soak it in. And those people will often come back year after year, to sit in that same spot – and every time, they see a different show.

You can think about the Bible in the same way. You can read a sentence or two, quickly decide what they mean and make a mental check next to them, and then head off to the gift shop.

Or, you can spend days and weeks (or even months) meditating on what a particular passage is really talking about — turning it over in your mind, reflecting on it, soaking it in. You can consider what those words mean against the changing backdrop of real life — of your life. You can begin to perceive the importance and subtle meanings of each word that’s found its way from God to you. You can learn to identify the sound of God’s voice as you get to know him better. You can think about them from all sorts of different viewpoints, even putting yourself in the shoes of the characters you’re reading about. You can certainly ask the Author to help you soak it all in: “With your very own hands you formed me; now breathe your wisdom over me so I can understand you” (Psalm 119). God and his thoughts are so complex, with so many aspects and perspectives, that you can come back to his words again and again. This way of thinking about the Bible is talked about in a number of places in the Bible. Perhaps the best example can be found in Psalm l: “You thrill to God’s Word. You chew on it day and night:” It’s not like a meal that you gulp down before you head out the door to do what you really want to do.

This is the five-star meal that you savor — with your mind, your heart, and your soul. It’s the main event, and you have the opportunity to spend hours at the table relishing each bite.

I ponder every morsel of wisdom from you,
 I attentively watch how you’ve done it.
I relish everything you’ve told me of life,
 I won’t forget a word of it….
My soul is starved and hungry, ravenous! —
 insatiable for your nourishing commands….
Your words are so choice, so tasty;
 I prefer them to the best home cooking. (Psalm 119)

Pray.

You’ve read the text. You’ve spent time thinking. Now comes prayer. The kind of prayer we’re talking about goes beyond merely asking for things —although there’s a time for that, and God even tells us to do that often. But in this process of lectio divina, there’s a time when you need to acknowledge what God is saying to you. Did God reveal something new about who he is? Did he reveal something about who you are in his eyes? Is he asking you to think about someone in a different light? Talk to God about it. Ask God to show you more about what you’ve just read: “Help me understand these things inside and out so I can ponder your miracle-wonders” (Psalm 119). Don’t just read through the Bible and breeze through the prayer part. Go beyond the usual “thanks for this or that, help me to be a better person” routine. Have a conversation with God. He wants to do that with you.

These conversational prayers that flow out of what you read may be less about you and more about God. Your focus may shift away from yourself and toward your creator.

Don’t be afraid to pray about a passage more than once-in fact, that’s a good thing. You may want to pray with a different focus at different times — talking to God about what you’re learning, thanking him for the truth in the passage, asking God questions, asking him to show you how to make the words real in your life, asking forgiveness for what you see in yourself after reading, just listening … There are a lot of ways to go about prayer.

As you continue on in this process, trying it several times, you may be thinking, Praying over the same part of Scripture seems pretty redundant. I’m doing the same thing over and over and over again — and you’d be right. The point of all of this is not to be doing something new at each step. The point is to focus more intentionally on God and what he’s communicating to you through this process.

Think about it this way: If you have a friend who constantly asks you for -things but never really wants to listen to you, how deep will your relationship go? Sometimes we forget that God has a personality and wants to engage us at a deeper level. Let prayer be a time that you come to savor and look forward to. Allow this to be a time in which God speaks to you and you actively seek him. An audible voice may not come booming out of the clouds, but many things will be revealed to you through chis process — about God, about reality, and about you.

Live.

This is where these words begin to shape life. Jesus was the first one to become God’s words in the flesh.

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. (John 1)

God’s word by its very nature changes us to make us like Christ: “God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey” (Hebrews 4). If you read what God has written, think about it, pray through it, but don’t allow it to change you, you’re missing a big point. James puts it this way:

Don’t fool yourself into chinking char you are a listener when you are anything bur, leering the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t ace are like chose who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God — the free life! — even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain bur a man or woman of action. Thar person will find delight and affirmation in the action. (James 1)

Imagine going on a dream date-the right person, the right cloches, the right food, the right conversation … perfect! You excuse yourself from the table, cake a look at the mirror in the restroom, and … uh-oh, not so perfect. Aaah! How long has that been in my teeth? Did my date notice? How could someone not notice? Then, having seen yourself clearly, you walk back out and sit down at the table, with a piece of your dinner adorning your teeth in all its glory.

The same kind of thing happens when you read the Bible and do nothing. Not only is the sin that you leave in place ugly and damaging, but it stands in the way of your relationship with God-in a much bigger way than something hanging off your face. For God to share his mind and his heart with you, only to have you do nothing about it, implies more than a self־destructive choice. Instead of doing what God says, you have chosen yourself as master, as god.

The great part is that God doesn’t leave you alone. He doesn’t show you how lost you are and then leave you high and dry. God helps you live the way he wants. Like Paul told the Philippians, “Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God him, self willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure” (Philippians 2).

The amazing thing about reading the Bible is that as you spend time with God, this reading becomes part of you. Like the way relationships with other humans change us and shape our lives, our relationship with God changes us on a much larger scale. In lectio divina, reading, thinking, and praying come together within us, become part of us, and are lived out even beyond our awareness – like the way a baseball player swings a bat or catches a ball or the way a violinist performs a concerto. Over time, soaking in God’s word leads to our living out those words without even thinking about them.’

This offers us a tremendous sense of freedom — from our futile and determined attempts to save ourselves by being ‘good enough;’ from the captivity of sin that makes us slaves. In Matthew 11, Jesus says, “Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly:’

The Bible and its message help you leave behind things that seem to offer pleasure (like living for yourself) but fail and leave you empty. God’s Word does more than that. You find true life. Jesus says in John, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of” (John 10). Jesus himself is life John 14). So don’t miss this: When you live the Word, you truly live.

— The Message Team

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A note on translating the name of God. In the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the generic name for divinity used by both Israel and its neighbors is translated God (or god). But the unique and distinctively personal name for God that was revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:13-14) I have translated as GOD. The Jewish community early on substituted “LORD” for the unique name out of reverence (our lips are not worthy to speak The Name) and caution (lest we inadvertently blaspheme by saying God’s name “in vain”). Most Christian translators continue that practice.