Please Retract Your Recommendation of "The Message"

"The Message", an effort by Eugene Peterson, is NOT a literal translation. Sad to say, IT IS NOT EVEN A VALID PARAPHRASE. It is the word of God extorted and badly RE-WRITTEN. [I actually bought it, looked through it, and threw it in the trash. It was that bad.) [It is also DEVOID of God's personal holy name, Jehovah/ Yahweh. (It belongs where God put it, in his own-authored book, some 7000 times. Many translations keep it in there 2-4 times, anyways; but "The Message" has eliminated it entirely.] It is more convenient, that way, to humans looking for an EASY-GOING form of [FALSE] worship - one with
with LESS OBLIGATION to God than what HIS actual Scriptures REQUIRE.

Yet, "the easygoingness of the stupid is what will destroy them." (Proverbs 1:32)

There is a surprisingly large and apparently growing throng of Bono-and-U2 fans that have been musically romanced into a "faith" of "whatever" - so long as you give to the poor: Fornication, drunkenness? Whatever. Idolatry, spiritism? Whatever. Homosexuality? Whatever. This "translation" supports that same casual mode of spiritually negligent "whatever."

Consider, for example, the following. Here, on a major U2 message board (which, yes, I have been banned from), a fan hails what is a HORRIFIC MISREPRESENTATION OF GOD'S WORDS, as found in "The Message." The fan expresses their understanding that spiritual "RULES" are undesirable because they cause people to become "bogged down." In defense of this philosophy, the fan quotes the following from your recommended Peterson's "translation":

"For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love." Galatians 5:6

How incredibly FOUL and FALSE.

CONTRAST THAT "rendition" to the sense of the whole rest of God's Bible; as well as FAR more accurate translations of this same verse:

1.) [NWT] "For as regards Jesus Christ, neither CIRCUMCISION is of any value NOR IS UNCIRCUMCISION, but faith operating through love [is]."

2.) [JB] "Since in Christ Jesus WHETHER YOU ARE CIRCUMCIZED OR NOT makes no difference - what matters is faith that makes its power felt through love."

3.) [RV] "For in Christ NEITHER CIRCUMCISION NOR UNCIRCUMCISION is of any avail, but faith working through love."

The people first being taught this were transitioning between one set of RULES from God, the Law Covenant (which required male circumcision) to another, more principally-based set of RULES from God, namely, "THE LAW OF THE CHRIST" - which would have included regard for and obedience towards "EVERY UTTERANCE COMING FORTH FROM JEHOVAH'S MOUTH" (Matthew 4:4), either by command or wider-based scripturally taught PRINCIPLE.

Here, in particular, there was confusion among these early Christians as to whether circumcision was still necessary, or made one a "better" worshiper of God/ disciple of Christ. The answer, as shown by the Scriptures, is "no"; and that what would identify a person as a true worshiper of God would be unhypocritical faith (which would definitely involve following/ obeying God's rules) and love - rather than physical circumcision itself. There should be a "circumcision of the heart by spirit", rather than what could merely be a physical sign "outside upon the flesh." (See Romans 2:25-29)

Certainly no true Christian of either that time nor since would take such a saying so out of context as to use it TO DE-VALUE ALL OF JEHOVAH GOD'S OTHER, SCRIPTURAL REQUIREMENTS - PRINCIPLES, COMMANDS, OR STATED PURPOSES - INCLUDING ALL THOSE PERTAINING TO HIS ONE TRUE CONGREGATION / RELIGION ON EARTH HEADED BY HIS SON! Are these God's words or not?! -

"ONE BODY there is, and ONE SPIRIT, even as you were called in the ONE HOPE to which you were called; ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM; ONE GOD and Father of all [persons], who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:4-6)

So there is ONE TRUE RELIGION - which is global; OBEDIENT to God and Christ; exalts God's name and truth to the world; has no divisions, but rather, has true love amongst itself; stays spiritually SEPARATE from "Babylon the Great" (Satan's God-condemned world empire of spiritually adulterous FALSE religions); and also maintains political neutrality and loyalty to God's incoming-to-earth, heaven-based Kingdom amid Satan's global system.

Further, instead of viewing "rules" from God as that which would make them feel "bogged down", oppressed, or otherwise undesirably hampered, TRUE Christians know this:

"FOR THIS IS WHAT THE LOVE OF GOD MEANS, THAT WE OBSERVE HIS COMMANDMENTS; AND YET HIS COMMANDMENTS >>> ARE >>> NOT BURDENSOME." (1John 5:3)

Rather than trying to rationalize excuses for not having to obey God's moral laws, etc. (or even re-writing the book containing those laws to suit personal/ more popular wishes) , those HONESTLY seeking to worship their Maker "with spirit and truth", on his own-willed terms, ask for his guidance, and then willingly OBEY his Scriptures pertaining to such things as they them. (John 4:24; All of Psalm 119 !!!) They love God's life-saving, good, and beneficial words AS THEY RIGHTLY ARE, NOT added-to, subtracted from, or WATERED DOWN!!! (John 17:17; Revelation 22:18,19)