By Eugene Peterson
"Thanks" is too tame a word to express the gratitude to both God and Eugene Peterson for his paraphrase of the Old and New Testaments.
I have read verses, chapters, and even books of the Bible in The Message, but I had never read it cover-to-cover until this year. Hebrew and Greek scholars will rightly frown on many passages that stray too far from the original, but as a readable paraphrase (and we all paraphrase the Word in conversations, do we not?), The Message is readable, fresh, and hits home in the heart.
The Message is precisely what the subtitle proclaims: The Bible in Contemporary Language, "translated" from the pen of a trusted pastor-scholar whose godly insights and flowing prose the Lord continually uses to poke, probe, encourage, and stir us to holiness.
If you don't read The Message, you must at the very least read Peterson's introductions to each of the books. Outstanding! They capture the essence of the book and frame it in ways that make us understand it's place in both the canon and in our lives.