The Message Paraphrase
by Warren Smith

"[A]s I read down this same dedication page [of The Purpose Driven Life], I was surprised to see that there was another apparent problem. For some reason or another, Rick Warren was quoting Eugene Peterson's The Message, as if it were reliable and authoritative Scripture....

"Anyone reading The Message should be able to quickly see how verses from Scripture often had their otherwise clear meanings obscured, or even altered. Important details were sometimes omitted, while misleading words and phrases were often added. For example, when the disciples asked Jesus about his second coming and the end of the world, His reply in the Bible was very straightforward and clear:

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (Matthew 24: 4-5)

"Because of that important Scripture, I had been made to realize that Jesus' warning applied to the whole New Age movement that included my wife and me. This particular Scripture helped to save my life. It gave me godly insight into the dynamics of the deception I had been a part of. But not so with Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of this same Scripture.

"It [The Message] fails to communicate what Jesus was really saying. When the disciples asked about Jesus' second coming and the end of the world, Peterson's paraphrase reads as follows:

Jesus said, "Watch out for doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities, claiming, `I am Christ, the Messiah.' They will deceive a lot of people."

"By omitting the warning to let 'no man' deceive you and paraphrasing it with only a general caution about 'doomsday deceivers' and 'leaders with forged identities,' Peterson's paraphrase completely missed exposing all of us who were in the New Age believing we were Christ. It also allowed false Christs, who portray themselves as 'peace loving,' and not as 'doomsday deceivers,' to slip under the scriptural radar. Jesus was not limiting his comments about false Christs to 'doomsday deceivers.' In fact, he wasn't specifying 'doomsday deceivers' at all. His warning was all-encompassing. He said, 'Take heed that no man deceive you.' He was warning about anyone who says 'I am Christ.'

My wife and I were not 'doomsday deceivers.' We were not 'leaders with forged identities.' If we had been looking only at Eugene Peterson's paraphrase when we were unbelievers, we would have never seen ourselves and the whole New Age movement in that prophetic passage of Scripture. But thanks to a real Bible, we were clearly shown that we were the subjects of Jesus' warning. Coming into the faith we had learned first-hand how the precision of a properly translated Bible can be the difference between truth and deception." (From Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose Driven Church, pp.17-21)