The Message Remix: The Bible In contemporary Language

If I could give this 0 stars, I would.

The Message is a paraphrase, and a bad one at that.

If you want to study the Scripture for all it contains, get a real Bible. This supposed ‘Bible’ changes many verses into watered down platitudes instead of the inspired Word of God that it is.

All this is is a book to accompany the Purpose Driven Drivel. Be a Berean! Flee from this type of dumbed down pop-culture 4th grade read and find a Bible you can study verse by verse and word by word. You cannot use genuine study materials with this. Don’t settle! Be discerning. Doctrine is not a dirty word!
Rating: 1 / 5
The Message Remix: The Bible In contemporary Language

Not that putting the Scriptures into words that can be understood is a bad thing, but that as a singular goal in and of itself is shameful. This method detaches the Scriptures from what they have always existed as: divinely beautiful, heroic verse, majestic Prose, a treasure from heaven, something that surpasses everything that conforms to the zeitgeist. In other words, the Scriptures are meant to transcend the fads of our day and lift us outside time into the presence of God. All that this and many other modern translations do is constantly remind us that we are in the 21st century and surrounded by multitudes of T.V.-softened brains and Britney-Spears-listening pop fanatics. The Scriptures are meant not only to be understood, but to communicate the life and grace of Christ to us: something that exists outside of time and is therefore unchanged by it. I am sorry to see such putrescent translations (and music and television) pouring out of the Evangelical Community. I am sick and tired of it and this translation just goes too far. “Contemporary Language”? That sounds like an excuse to be irreverent, shallow, and philosophically deprived. It is translations like this that secretly make me wish the Scriptures simply remained in Latin.

I pray that the youth of our day, instead of trying to conform Christianity to their own idioms, will transform themselves (or rather let God transform them) to fit with what Christianity is and always has been: the glorious and ancient faith. Those two paths are incompatible and so one must be chosen over the other. I choose the latter; people who insist on such rubbish as this choose the former.

A piece of advice: do you want the Scriptures to have more meaning for you? Turn off the television and start reading books: not the modern rubbish, but good, classical literature from around the world. Not the Newspaper, not the internet, but Books. Read Virgil, C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, Homer, Dickens…that should be a good list to start you off. Also, turn off your Britney Spears and either keep five minutes of silence or listen to Bach, Tallis, Byrd, and even Beethoven if you must. Once you do that for a time, the Scriptures will take on entirely new meaning, and you won’t have to ruin their Sacredness in the process.
Rating: 1 / 5
The Message Remix: The Bible In contemporary Language

Believe it or not – he didn’t directly translate “The Message” in itself from the Greek and Hebrew texts. In fact, it is all notes that this pastor had from all of these years. I found this out from an article the pastor wrote himself. Even so, this (including the original “The Message”) is sadly a horribly inaccurate translation. The Message is basically his interpretation from an already translated bible as opposed to Greek and Hebrew Scriptures – the original languages all those books were originally written in. I’ve seen MUCH better. I’ve seen WAY better than this. One of my friends has described this as “a very weird translation”.

If you do not believe me about the article, then surf the internet for the information. Hey, maybe you’ll find more information I didn’t see. I’m not joking either – I didn’t make any of this up.

Don’t be afraid to test all things to even what I’m saying. Don’t believe what every pastor is telling you before you test it yourself – test even your own pastor.
Rating: 1 / 5
The Message Remix: The Bible In contemporary Language