Perverting the Bible, and Selling it to the Church

Four years ago this month, I experienced God in a way that was so foreign to me, and so intense, that it left my body in shock, and my husband in awe. Just sitting in our family room late one night, I began to rant in what can only be described as a "download" with the words and emotion of God. We had been discussing the rise in popularity of a certain Bible version, after noticing an entire endcap of it in various colors and sizes at our local Christian bookstore earlier in the day, when all of a sudden, this fury welled up from the pit of my stomach and words began to flow from my mouth that I was not assembling. My hands gripped the chair arms and my gaze fixed on the window while my husband sat on the floor and listened in amazement.

For over twenty minutes, a steady, fluent stream of God's burning anger flowed from my lips, aimed directly at the many perversions of His Word that are being marketed to His Church. The main target was indeed the paraphrase that my husband and I had been discussing, because it has been widely accepted by leaders who should have known better, and heavily promoted by retailers who should be using better discernment as well.



God was angry that this perversion was created, that it was so easily accepted, and that so many were even preaching from it. He was deeply hurt that His shepherds and His sheep had allowed their discernment to become so worldly and broken that they couldn't see the damage this book was causing.

When the rant was over, my body literally went into shock. I was freezing, shaking, sweating, and hardly able to utter a sound through the chattering of my teeth. I rocked myself while wrapped in a few blankets while my husband tried to recount to me what had just happened, much of which I couldn't remember. I wish we had known to write it all down. It was a new experience for both of us, and we didn't know how important it is to write down or otherwise record when God speaks. You'd think we would have known that instinctively...but we just didn't.

In my inexperience, I thought God was trying to give me an assignment - to read through and categorize all the problems with this paraphrase for myself. Soon after I began that project, I realized it was far above my paygrade, and too overwhelming for me. I also realized that the work had already been done.

From time to time I've had the opportunity to tell my story, and to share the heart of God on this matter, but almost every time, I've been met with such unexpected defensiveness, you'd think I was confronting the author himself. It seems that once a person begins using this book, they become unusually attached to it, even in the face of the facts that I'm about to lay out that prove it is not only a perversion of God's Word, but is fraught with new age ideas and terminology that reduces God to one of many, strips Jesus of His deity, and removes all necessity for a personal decision to be born again.

I pray that you won't feign defensiveness over a book that you didn't write, and that you'll take heed to this warning and hear the heart of God.

Let's dig into this together, shall we? ...


The Message - a paraphrase, the words of one man, Eugene Peterson - has become wildly popular and has been more heavily promoted by Christian retailers than any other single Bible *version* to date. It's been over 10 years since it was first released, and is still given full page advertisements in direct mailers and entire three to four foot sections of shelf space. It has been quoted by nearly all the big names both from pulpits and in print. It has become so common, that it is regularly used in thousands upon thousands of churches and youth groups around the world. And yet, Eugene himself admits that he is uneasy about how it is used, and had this to say in an article in Christianity Today,

“	When I'm in a congregation where somebody uses [The Message] in the Scripture reading, it makes me a little uneasy. I would never recommend it be used as saying, "Hear the Word of God from The Message." But it surprises me how many do.

Why has it become so popular?

Another book came out in 2002, one that hit Christian churches with a whirlwind promotional campaign unlike anything they'd ever seen before. Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life launched with fervor, and 1,500 churches signed up to take on the 40 day challenge before the book was even officially released. Well over 30 million copies have been sold in over twenty languages worldwide. What's the connection? Rick Warren put The Message on the map in this book. He hand picked each verse from fifteen different Bible versions based on which one made his point the best. The Message paraphrase was included in that list, and just as it was finally available to purchase in its entirety, The Message got a profound sales pitch in the form of this endorsement by inclusion.

Immediately, people clamored to find The Message that they found so intriguing in The Purpose Driven Life. Peterson's publisher NavPress was ready to go, and from that moment on, has thrown ridiculous financial backing behind this book, ensuring that anyone can get one, anywhere, with any cover, in any size. The companion and spin-off products, including parallel Bibles sell like wildfire too. It's a regular cash cow.

Author Eugene Peterson has long been a recognized scholar and theologian, and he may very well have published this work without fully realizing what he had done. It's such a massive undertaking for one man, and took him over ten years to complete, so it's possible that he didn't grasp the full picture of what was happening as he published The Message in pieces from 1993 to 2002. Or, I may be giving him too much credit - only God knows. What I can say, is that one February night in 2009, God shared with me how not happy He is with this book, and how disappointed He is with those who don't see it for what it is.

With or without malice of forethought on Mr. Peterson's part, the book he penned is a fantastic tool for the enemy.

*Let me preface this next portion by saying that I am not a KJV-only purist, and the rant from the Lord was not a "KJV and no other" rant. It was specifically about perversions that manipulate the Word to suit the purpose of a group or individual, not against valid translations. I'm not interested in debating translations that have been tested and tried. This is about The Message paraphrase primarily, but also about books like the Queen James Bible, the Rainbow Bible, the Green Bible, etc. Books that have been altered to fit an agenda or tickle the ears of a group that refuses to accept the Bible's truth on topics that they have differing opinions about. That said, my own comparisons were done against the KJV and the NIV (not because I endorse or prefer the NIV, but because it is the #2 selling English translation) and the comparisons of others that I will be citing are against the KJV because some of the best Bible defenders are the KJV-only folks who really know their Word.*

The biggest word change that quickly strikes the reader is that Peterson simply doesn't use the word "Lord." To put it in perspective, the word "Lord" is used 6,781 times in the KJV and 6,712 times in the NIV, and only *71* times in The Message. Where this becomes a huge problem is in the New Testament, where Jesus is never once referred to with the title "Lord Jesus" or "Lord Jesus Christ," as afforded Him roughly one hundred times in other versions. Never before has any translation or paraphrase stripped Jesus of His title. One evaluator of The Message notes that Judas Iscariot is never recorded as calling Jesus "Lord" either. Instead, Matthew 26:25 says, "Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I?"

So what does The Message use instead? If Jesus is not Lord, then who is He? The Message also calls Jesus "Master" and never "Lord."

Why does this matter?

The connotation of Jesus as our Master, instead of our Lord seems subtle, but the New Age Movement (NAM), which has long been working to infiltrate the Christian Church, is built upon the concept of "masters." The NAM believes in the existence of "masters" who were either spirit beings or fortunate men more highly "evolved" than the rest of us. The NAM recognizes Jesus as one of these "masters" and refers to Him as such. The Message calls Jesus "Master" over 400 times and the New Age phrase "Master Jesus" appears 76 times. Remember, the words that save, "Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" never appear once. The *only* other Bible where Jesus is referred to as "Master Jesus" is the New Age Bible titled The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The "master" for "Lord" switch in The Message also effects the phrase "Lord God," which in other versions occurs over 500 times, but in The Message, only nine. Hundreds of times, The Message replaces Lord with Master, applying this same New Age terminology to God Himself. "Master God."

The NAM refers to their "masters" as "divine guardians" and "custodians of the Divine Plan." The Message uses this language in Deuteronomy 32:8, saying, "He put each of the peoples within boundaries under the care of divine guardians."

The New Age Movement revolves around the concept of the "One." This theology stems from pantheism that teaches that God is all, and All is God, or "One." It rejects a personal, loving God, and instead defines God as an impersonal "Presence" or "One."

Pantheism is also related to the worship of Pan, which in mythology appears as a cloven-foot, half-man, half-goat satyr who plays hypnotic "pan pipes." When a New Ager talks about the One, he is talking about Pan - leaders have been quoted praying to invite "Pan" in, to accept him as the leader and guide for their lives, interchanging the word Pan for the One at random. Pan is the "One" of the New Age. The Satanic Bible includes Pan in its list of Infernal Names of Satan, hence, a pan-theist follows Satan.

The Message changes the personal pronouns such as he and him that reference Jesus and God, and nouns such as the Father, with the NAM pantheistic "One" over 100 times in the New Testament. Here are two verses that illustrate how this change effects the meaning of the Scripture:

"No one has seen the Father except the One who has his Being alongside the Father..." John 6:46

"Since the One who saves and those who are saved have a common origin, Jesus doesn't hesitate to treat them as family..." Hebrews 2:11

Taking the concept of the "One" a step further, The Message also uses the New Age term "oneness." The goal of the NAM is "oneness," to achieve or recognize unity with all beings, and with the One. The word "oneness" is not found in most dictionaries, and is not commonly found outside of New Age teachings. Yet, it shows up three times in The Message.

Another New Age word that appears in The Message and subtly, yet profoundly changes the meaning of a passage is in Song of Solomon 2:1 & 2 where the word lily is replaced with the word lotus. The NAM sees the Lotus as the god of the New Age. In the Book of the Dead, the god exclaims, "I am the pure lotus, emerging from the Luminous one (Lucifer)...I carry the messages of Horus. I am the pure lotus which comes from the Solar Fields."

By changing what traditionally reads "I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys" to "I'm just a wildflower picked from the plains of Sharon, a lotus blossom from the valley pools," The Message completely changes the object of affection into a demonic perversion.

The New Age Journal published a book titled As Above, So Below. It says that the words "as above, so below" means that the two worlds are instantaneously seen to be one when we realize our essential unity with God...the One and the many, time and eternity are all One." The Message includes this overtly New Age phrase in nothing other than the Lord's Prayer. In Matthew 6:10, what should read "They will be done in earth, as it is in heaven," The Message reads "Do what's best - as above, so below."

One of the strangest word choices in The Message occurs in Romans 15:13 - "Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy..." but where did this idea of "green hope" come from? This comes from the ancient druids, and has been brought into modern times by the Freemasons. The publication Talks on Freemasonry states, "Green was, with the Druids, a symbol of hope and the virtue of hope with a Freemason illustrates the hope of immortality." The words "green hope" are a popular unifying cry of the New Age radical environmental movement, or Gaia worship of Mother Earth. Just a strange throw-in to find in The Message.

The New Age mess in The Message is just the beginning, and although it may be the largest problem, there is another issue that carries throughout that is easier to spot, and greatly upsetting. Psalm 119:140 says "They word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it." The Message however, is anything but pure. The word "sex" appears in The Message 199 times. In the KJV, the word is not used. In the NIV, it appears twice. Other crude references cheapen the integrity of God's Word and turn it in to something easily mocked, especially when read out loud to youth groups that already struggle with the over-sexualization of our kids.

Other verses that cause a snicker and lead to the mocking of the Bible are 2 Kings 18:27 which you can look up for yourself, kegs of beer mentioned in Isaiah 22:13, and seven uses of the word "barbecue."

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If you've read this far, you see now how word choices have perverted The Message, but I need to share with you the most profound problem.

If you've ever witnessed using the "Romans Road" verses, I challenge you to read these verses in The Message and honestly discern if a sinner would see their need for salvation and feel convicted of their sin?

The Message - Romans 3:10
"There’s nobody living right, not even one,
    nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God."

KJV - Romans 3:10

"As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one."

The Message - Romans 3:23-24
"For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ."

KJV - Romans 3:23 

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:"

 

The Message - Romans 5:8 "But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him."
KJV - Romans 5:8 

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

The Message - Romans 5:12

"You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we’re in—first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death."

KJV - Romans 5:12

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

The Message - Romans 6:23
"Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master."
KJV - Romans 6:23

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

The Message - Romans 10:9-10
"Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”

KJV - Romans 10:9-11

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed."

The Message - Romans 10:13
"Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”

KJV - Romans 10:13

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

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Another word not used much in The Message - "repent." Found only 11 times, as opposed to 43 times in the KJV, the word "repent" was the central theme of Jesus's ministry on earth.

I hope that this *too long to be a real blog* post has shed light on the Mess that is The Message, and that you will reconsider using or endorsing it. 

I'd like to thank Dial-the Truth Ministries for their work to expose The Message, and other heresies that are invading the Church today.