The Message Remix
Authors: Eugene H. Peterson
Table of Contents
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THE MESSAGE REMIX: The Bible in Contemporary Language
Copyright © 2003, 2006 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.
THE MESSAGE text may be quoted in any form (written, visual, electronic, or audio), up to and inclusive of five hundred (500) verses, without express written permission of the publisher, NavPress Publishing Group, providing the verses quoted do not amount to a complete book of the Bible and do not account for 25 percent or more of the total text of the work in which they are quoted. Notice of copyright must appear as follows on either the title page or the copyright page of the work in which THE MESSAGE is quoted: “Scripture taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.”
When quotations from THE MESSAGE text are used in nonsaleable media, such as church bulletins, orders of service, posters, transparencies, or similar media, a complete copyright notice is not required, but “The Message” must appear at the end of each quotation.
Permission requests for commercial and noncommercial use that exceed the above guidelines must be directed to and approved in writing by NavPress Publishing Group, Permissions, P.O. Box 35001, Colorado Springs, CO 80935.
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NAVPRESS and the NAVPRESS logo are registered trademarks of NavPress. Absence of ® in connection with marks of NavPress or other parties does not indicate an absence of registration of those marks. ISBN 9781600064432 (HB); 1600060218 (hypercolor rain); 1600060226 (Ithr look blue/black); 1600060234 (purple); 1600060242 (brown); 1600060250 (hypercolor pink); 1600060269 (blue bubble); 1600060382 (Ithr look)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bible. English. Message. 2003.
The Message : remix / Eugene H. Peterson. p. cm.
ISBN 9781600064432
I. Peterson, Eugene H., 1932 - II. Title.
BS195.M47 2003 220.5’208-dc21 2002152910
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard St., Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.
Printed in Japan 7 8 9 10 11 12 / 12 11 10 09 08
PREFACE
To the Reader
If there is anything distinctive about
The Message
, perhaps it is because the text is shaped by the hand of a working pastor. For most of my adult life I have been given a primary responsibility for getting the message of the Bible into the lives of the men and women with whom I worked. I did it from pulpit and lectern, in home Bible studies and at mountain retreats, through conversations in hospitals and nursing homes, over coffee in kitchens and while strolling on an ocean beach.
The Message
grew from the soil of forty years of pastoral work.
The Message
, perhaps it is because the text is shaped by the hand of a working pastor. For most of my adult life I have been given a primary responsibility for getting the message of the Bible into the lives of the men and women with whom I worked. I did it from pulpit and lectern, in home Bible studies and at mountain retreats, through conversations in hospitals and nursing homes, over coffee in kitchens and while strolling on an ocean beach.
The Message
grew from the soil of forty years of pastoral work.
As I worked at this task, this Word of God, which forms and transforms human lives, did form and transform human lives. Planted in the soil of my congregation and community the seed words of the Bible germinated and grew and matured. When it came time to do the work that is now
The Message
, I often felt that I was walking through an orchard at harvest time, plucking fully formed apples and peaches and plums from laden branches. There’s hardly a page in the Bible I did not see lived in some way or other by the men and women, saints and sinners, to whom I was pastor—and then verified in my nation and culture.
The Message
, I often felt that I was walking through an orchard at harvest time, plucking fully formed apples and peaches and plums from laden branches. There’s hardly a page in the Bible I did not see lived in some way or other by the men and women, saints and sinners, to whom I was pastor—and then verified in my nation and culture.
I didn’t start out as a pastor. I began my vocational 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 vocational 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 pulp fiction 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 our children.
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