Proverbs 24:21
KJV: My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change: For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?
MSG: Fear God, dear child—respect your leaders; don’t be defiant or mutinous. Without warning your life can turn upside down, and who knows how or when it might happen?
One of the predominant ways the New Age has entered the church is through new translations that change the meaning of otherwise properly translated Scripture. Somehow, we are to just trust that these translations have only our best interest in mind. Proverbs 24:21 warns of the ruinous consequences for getting involved with change-agent leaders who are “given to change.” Yet, Eugene Peterson removes the reference to change and, instead, warns of the ruinous consequences for not following these change-agent leaders! Those not respecting their leaders are described as “defiant” and “mutinous” and as a result may find their lives being turned “upside down.” But the only way Peterson can come up with this translation is to turn the original Hebrew upside down. It is not “mutinous” or “defiant” to search the Scriptures to see if what these leaders are saying is “so” (Acts 17:11). Isaiah specifically warned about leaders who were leading people astray—“O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths” (Isaiah 3:12). He warned that ruinous destruction would not come to those who defied these errant leaders but to those who unquestioningly followed them—“For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed” (Isaiah 9:16).
LTRP Note: This is an extract from Warren B. Smith’s booklet: Eugene Peterson’s Mixed Message: Subversive Bible for a New Age
There needs to be an article on how church leaders disrespect the living priesthood when they quote from “The Message” and withhold from their listeners the many issues to do with the book.
1 Peter 2:5 says: Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
Therefore we all have some responsibility to uphold the sanctity and integrity of God’s word.
When church leaders quote from “The Message” and don’t inform their listeners of the huge problems surrounding the book, they are basically saying: “These people don’t need to be told the issues – I’ll just go ahead and assume the book is okay to use on their behalf!”
It is so sad to think that people know the bible so little that we don’t even recognize when a particular translation is errant/
Might such evident changes, additions, omissions in the example from Romans 1 appear to comport or not with how “the Message” reportedly portrays itself?
https://messagebible.com
Is it a “reading Bible translated from the original Greek and Hebrew by” Peterson which “combines the authority of God’s Word with the cadence and energy of conversational English” if it evidently appears to leave out so many keywords and terms from the purported Bible translation, particularly in passages like the above which may often be cited when discerning proper Christian doctrine? Might such additions and omissions possibly appear to point to agenda-driven priorities?
“Pastor” Peterson continued in the aforementioned article: “I wouldn’t have said this 20 years ago, but now I know a lot of people who are gay and lesbian and they seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do. I think that kind of debate about lesbians and gays might be over. People who disapprove of it, they’ll probably just go to another church. So we’re in a transition and I think it’s a transition for the best, for the good.” He also reportedly said yes when asked if he would officiate a same-sex ceremony for “Christians of good faith” — note the evidently loaded premise from the article writer by using that description.
https://religionnews.com/2017/07/12/eugene-peterson-on-changing-his-mind-about-same-sex-issues-and-marriage/
Peterson: “I have been in (Presbyterian) churches when I was an associate pastor where there were several women who were lesbians. They didn’t make a big deal about it. I’d go and visit them and it never came up for them. They just assumed that they were as Christian as everybody else in the church.”
Perhaps they had an expurgated version of a certain book; one that maybe left Romans 1 on the cutting room floor? Or perhaps they used the Message version (sic)? Let’s look at one part of this arguable mistranslation/butchery by addition and omission masquerading as a Bible translation, noting the number of sites that reportedly now list it under headings and categories that may appear to represent it both as the Bible and a translation under the ‘MSG’ abbreviation, like YouVersion, Bible Gateway, and Bible Study Tools:
“26 Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either – women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. 27 Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men – all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it – emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.”
Compare that with Young’s Literal Translation:
“Because of this did God give them up to dishonourable affections, for even their females did change the natural use into that against nature; and in like manner also the males having left the natural use of the female, did burn in their longing toward one another; males with males working shame, and the recompense of their error that was fit, in themselves receiving.”
Why would the ‘Message’ appear to utterly switch out / remove specific terms like dishonor (Gr. antimias), natural use (Gr. physikēn chrēsin), and that which is contrary to nature (Gr. para physin) from verse 26 and the shame (Gr. aschemosynen) and error (Gr. planēs) from verse 27, all which apparently describing the changing of the natural male/female physical relationship for the ones listed?
Why would the Message’s verse 26 appear instead to make nebulous allusions to mental confusion (no mention of dishonor) rather than physical action described as dishonorable passions? Verse 27 seems to continue the confusion theme, evidently speaking to the absence of love (three times) as the central issue, rather than the acts which were not considered natural because they were not of the “natural use” (cf. Romans 1:26-27) associated with male/female relations as specified according to authentic Scripture.
Yes, true exposure! Eugene Peterson was a false teacher who rewrote God’s holy, inerrant Word to make it secular-friendly to please all evil men with The Message/MSG so-called bible. You can read a simple portion and note that it is all about the doctrines of demons, all written to please the wicked flesh of unregenerate men with trendy talk. No one is allowed to add one mark to the Bible to change its meaning. (Matthew 5:18)
The Message bible/MSG is not true to the original languages—Hebrew and Greek. This bible leaves out verses and rewrites the true Bible to please every one of every belief system. It is also gay pleasing, sensual, and mystical friendly.
Please research words in their original languages (Hebrew & Greek) by using Strong’s Online Concordance.
Message Quotations to add to the above letter:
Peterson uses satanic ritualism in his phrase “as above so below” for the LORD’S prayer. It is a known phrase by many who know it is satanic—Matthew 6:7-13: “Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what’s best—as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.”
The MSG version of Romans 10:13: “Everyone who calls ‘help God!’ gets help.”
The MSG—John 3:16:“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. (You see, this passage leaves out “everlasting” as well as “begotten.”
This vile version implies no one will be cast into the lake of fire. Every true believer knows those who are not born again will suffer eternal damnation in the lake of fire and brimstone. The MSG chapter three passage also states everyone must be born by the wind of God, not through our sacrificial Savior.
The MSG—John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood…” (John 1:31) “I knew nothing about who he was – only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God.” (John 1:31 in The Message) “Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!” (Romans 15:13) “God of green hope” in not present in the original texts. It was deceitfully added as a lie to tickle the ears of climate protestors.
Romans 12:1 THE MSG: ‘Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.’
Ephesians 5:8-10 MSG: ‘Figure out what will please Christ, and then…
Does mishandling… leading to ultimately rejecting… the Word of God cause famine and total destruction? https://hopeishereblog.wordpress.com/2025/01/30/famine/
Thank you, Warren. Several years ago, a man who I, at one time, really admired in the Lord told me how much he liked “The Message”. He read me Peterson’s paraphrase of the Lord’s prayer. I could barely believe how Peterson had change the verbiage of that prayer. Too bad that there isn’t a “paraphrased bibles” section in the bookstores.