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Spiritual Theology #2
Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
Eugene Peterson is convinced that the way we read the Bible is as important as that we read it. Do we read the Bible for information about God and salvation, for principles and “truths” that we can use to live better? Or do we read it in order to listen to God and respond in prayer and obedience? // The second part of Peterson’s momentous five-volume work on spiritual theology, Eat This Book challenges us to read the Scriptures on their own terms, as God’s revelation, and to live them as we read them. With warmth and wisdom Peterson offers greatly needed, down-to-earth counsel on spiritual reading. In these pages he draws readers into a fascinating conversation on the nature of language, the ancient practice of lectio divina, and the role of Scripture translations; included here is the “inside story” behind Peterson’s own popular Bible translation, The Message. // Countering the widespread practice of using the Bible for self-serving purposes, Peterson here serves readers with a nourishing entrée into the formative, life-changing art of spiritual reading.
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First published January 1, 2006
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February 28, 2016
I admire Eugene Peterson. I visited with him once backstage at a U2 concert, not realizing at first who I was talking to. Later, when I found out who it was, I was more excited to have met him than the possibility of meeting Bono. Peterson was there because Bono had been reading The Message and wanted to spend time with this man who put the Bible in a language any American (or in Bono's case, Irishman), could understand.
The final portion of Eat This Book describes why Eugene Peterson decided to join the ranks of "God's secretaries" and get the Bible into the current day's vernacular. I was tempted to skip this part of the book, thinking I'd find it uninteresting, and found it as good as the first half of the book.
The first half encourages the reader to do more than just read the words on the pages of the Bible but instead to assimilate them into the actions of our lives. I loved the chapter on the Bible as story. "When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God's." (pg. 44).
Finally, I love the description of lectio divina, which involves four parts: lectio (reading), meditatio (meditate), oratio (pray), and contemplatio (live).
This book makes it hard to keep reading it because it inspires you to take a fresh look at Scripture, so I was always putting this book down to pick up the Bible (a good thing). I'm glad I made myself finish the book though. The end was as good as the beginning.
The final portion of Eat This Book describes why Eugene Peterson decided to join the ranks of "God's secretaries" and get the Bible into the current day's vernacular. I was tempted to skip this part of the book, thinking I'd find it uninteresting, and found it as good as the first half of the book.
The first half encourages the reader to do more than just read the words on the pages of the Bible but instead to assimilate them into the actions of our lives. I loved the chapter on the Bible as story. "When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God's." (pg. 44).
Finally, I love the description of lectio divina, which involves four parts: lectio (reading), meditatio (meditate), oratio (pray), and contemplatio (live).
This book makes it hard to keep reading it because it inspires you to take a fresh look at Scripture, so I was always putting this book down to pick up the Bible (a good thing). I'm glad I made myself finish the book though. The end was as good as the beginning.
July 13, 2023
I’ve said before that I’m an emotional reader. My five stars for this book represent my rapture at great prose and, more importantly, my fervent amens in the final portion of the book.
I realize now—how could I have missed this?—that I never actually did get around to reading a Eugene Peterson book (aside from select portions of The Message, which kind of does and kind of doesn’t count) until a friend recently urged me to read this one. Said I’d love it. I sent him a message telling him I’d gotten to the portion that, I’m sure, made him think of me. And it was indeed that last portion, a portion focused on Bible translation.
If you’ve always assumed, like I half-consciously did when The Message came out, that it was a watered down Bible pandering to the same market that buys the kitsch on Christian bookstore shelves, you need to read Peterson’s eloquent and intellectual defense for his work. You will see that he taught the original languages in a seminary before entering the pastorate, that he spent 30 years in the pastorate before sitting down to 10 years of producing The Message, and that he had learned, academic reasons for choosing the tack he chose. He appealed in particular to the “Light from the Ancient East” that Deissmann and others helped bring us so long ago. It really is true, and so important, that we see clearly the language God chose for the New Testament. It’s not as simple as saying, “It was the language of the common man.” As Peterson carefully acknowledges, the language of the NT moves up and down the social registers of the time. But the key words there are “of the time.” The NT was revealed using the language of a particular time, language actual people actually used. When Grenfell and Hunt discovered a trove of Koine Greek papyri at Oxyrhynchus, this was what came out. As Peterson shows with some patient detail, there were many words that were hitherto thought to have appeared only in the New Testament but which proved to be part of common coin.
If you know my work, you know that I cannot help but hear everything I say about the Bible through the ears of our KJV-Only brothers. And in the case of this topic, I hear it also through the ears of my own conservative evangelical tribe. Both groups—rightly!—wish to show honor and reverence to the words of God. Both groups instinctively rely on tradition to help them do so. The KJV-Only appeal to the KJV tradition; my tribe tends to appeal to the tradition of formal/literal translation philosophy. I see great good in both traditions. But I think both groups have worked so hard to protect the Bible from desacralization that we have thereby, at times, hyper-sacralized it. What if, instead, we did what we all say we’re doing? What if we let the Bible itself dictate the social register of our translations?
At the very least, we’d all have to entertain the possibility that Peterson saw something we didn’t, something that was really there, when he made The Message. He himself says in this book that The Message was only meant to be a “supplement” to the study translations. But I see Peterson’s paraphrase with a new seriousness, as a supplement that showed us an element that was missing in many of our main translations—an element that was present in Tyndale, an attempt to really and truly make the biblical writers speak English and not Biblish.
Don’t hear me saying here more than I am. I don’t think the ESV, for example, which my church uses, is so deep into hyper-sacralization that we ought to stop using it. I simply think that’s the ditch it is nearest, and that people who use the ESV in church, as I do, would do well to go to the other side of the Bible translation road on a regular basis and read the NLT—and even The Message. English speakers have an embarrassment of riches to read.
Peterson has many other valuable things to say about Bible reading. If, as some reviewers have pointed out, he is a little fuzzy on some important particulars of doctrine (and I tend to think they’re probably right), this is a book in which that doesn’t matter so much. If people heed the call he’s given to good Bible reading, I’m Protestant enough to believe that much good will come. Peterson did what my friend said he would do: he helped rekindle my desire to Eat this Book.
I realize now—how could I have missed this?—that I never actually did get around to reading a Eugene Peterson book (aside from select portions of The Message, which kind of does and kind of doesn’t count) until a friend recently urged me to read this one. Said I’d love it. I sent him a message telling him I’d gotten to the portion that, I’m sure, made him think of me. And it was indeed that last portion, a portion focused on Bible translation.
If you’ve always assumed, like I half-consciously did when The Message came out, that it was a watered down Bible pandering to the same market that buys the kitsch on Christian bookstore shelves, you need to read Peterson’s eloquent and intellectual defense for his work. You will see that he taught the original languages in a seminary before entering the pastorate, that he spent 30 years in the pastorate before sitting down to 10 years of producing The Message, and that he had learned, academic reasons for choosing the tack he chose. He appealed in particular to the “Light from the Ancient East” that Deissmann and others helped bring us so long ago. It really is true, and so important, that we see clearly the language God chose for the New Testament. It’s not as simple as saying, “It was the language of the common man.” As Peterson carefully acknowledges, the language of the NT moves up and down the social registers of the time. But the key words there are “of the time.” The NT was revealed using the language of a particular time, language actual people actually used. When Grenfell and Hunt discovered a trove of Koine Greek papyri at Oxyrhynchus, this was what came out. As Peterson shows with some patient detail, there were many words that were hitherto thought to have appeared only in the New Testament but which proved to be part of common coin.
If you know my work, you know that I cannot help but hear everything I say about the Bible through the ears of our KJV-Only brothers. And in the case of this topic, I hear it also through the ears of my own conservative evangelical tribe. Both groups—rightly!—wish to show honor and reverence to the words of God. Both groups instinctively rely on tradition to help them do so. The KJV-Only appeal to the KJV tradition; my tribe tends to appeal to the tradition of formal/literal translation philosophy. I see great good in both traditions. But I think both groups have worked so hard to protect the Bible from desacralization that we have thereby, at times, hyper-sacralized it. What if, instead, we did what we all say we’re doing? What if we let the Bible itself dictate the social register of our translations?
At the very least, we’d all have to entertain the possibility that Peterson saw something we didn’t, something that was really there, when he made The Message. He himself says in this book that The Message was only meant to be a “supplement” to the study translations. But I see Peterson’s paraphrase with a new seriousness, as a supplement that showed us an element that was missing in many of our main translations—an element that was present in Tyndale, an attempt to really and truly make the biblical writers speak English and not Biblish.
Don’t hear me saying here more than I am. I don’t think the ESV, for example, which my church uses, is so deep into hyper-sacralization that we ought to stop using it. I simply think that’s the ditch it is nearest, and that people who use the ESV in church, as I do, would do well to go to the other side of the Bible translation road on a regular basis and read the NLT—and even The Message. English speakers have an embarrassment of riches to read.
Peterson has many other valuable things to say about Bible reading. If, as some reviewers have pointed out, he is a little fuzzy on some important particulars of doctrine (and I tend to think they’re probably right), this is a book in which that doesn’t matter so much. If people heed the call he’s given to good Bible reading, I’m Protestant enough to believe that much good will come. Peterson did what my friend said he would do: he helped rekindle my desire to Eat this Book.
May 4, 2016
I deeply love language. There's no denying Eugene Peterson is a fantastic writer - gorgeous and clear prose. This was truly a book I wanted to take in as a fine meal. So much practical wisdom and contemplative inspiration.
But what really made the book shine for me, was his third section on The Company of Translators. While I appreciate his translation/paraphrase The Message as a devotional tool, I have always been firmly in the a word-for-word camp when it comes to translating the Scriptures. I believe I still do agree more with the merits of a word-for-word translation for in-depth study, but Peterson makes a strong case for why a paraphrase translation also serves an important purpose in the study of God's word in our lives.
A takeaway from this book for me is to do my next book study (the gospel of John) with more than one translation before me, to see all the nuanced refractions of the language.
This would be an excellent book to give to anyone who is of the outdated "King James Only" camp, as it rationally explains the strengths and weaknesses of each method of Bible translation/interpretation, while still expressing great affection for the KJV. Along with giving some fascinating archaeological history of how we got many of our English translations. This section alone was worth the price of admission, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the pastoring process that lead him to begin translating Galatians, and then the entire Bible in what we know have as The Message.
But what really made the book shine for me, was his third section on The Company of Translators. While I appreciate his translation/paraphrase The Message as a devotional tool, I have always been firmly in the a word-for-word camp when it comes to translating the Scriptures. I believe I still do agree more with the merits of a word-for-word translation for in-depth study, but Peterson makes a strong case for why a paraphrase translation also serves an important purpose in the study of God's word in our lives.
A takeaway from this book for me is to do my next book study (the gospel of John) with more than one translation before me, to see all the nuanced refractions of the language.
This would be an excellent book to give to anyone who is of the outdated "King James Only" camp, as it rationally explains the strengths and weaknesses of each method of Bible translation/interpretation, while still expressing great affection for the KJV. Along with giving some fascinating archaeological history of how we got many of our English translations. This section alone was worth the price of admission, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the pastoring process that lead him to begin translating Galatians, and then the entire Bible in what we know have as The Message.
April 17, 2025
A really good one. Let's talk about it. "We obscure the form [of Scripture] when we atomize Scripture by dissecting it, analyzing it like a specimen in the laboratory. Every detail of Scripture is worth pursuing endlessly; no scholarly attention expended over this text is ever wasted. But when the impersonal objectivity of the laboratory technician replaces the adoring dalliance of a lover, we end up with file drawers full of information, organized for our convenience as occasions present themselves...If the Christian Scriptures are treated as just another tool for enlightenment or access to the knowledge that is power, sacrilege has been committed." page 46
December 2, 2021
Here is something very evangelical for you-- making fun of the Message translation. All those nay-sayers should read this book. Peterson's care for the Bible, translation, and the written word, as well as for people, is so evident throughout this whole book. I was so genuinely impressed by his attitude and goals, his commitment to getting the Bible into our bones. I will say that the point is hard to find in the first half of this book-- it took me a second to get used to Peterson's cadence and rhythm. But I think I love the Bible a little better now, and I understand it's ability to impact the ordinary a little deeper.
September 15, 2023
4.5⭐️ Eugene Peterson loved the Bible. Whatever else you may conclude about his ministry and work, that much is clear over and over again as you read him. This book is immensely helpful in explaining how we should approach this ancient, living book. Peterson notes over and over again how the Bible was not primarily written for the highly educated scholar to be analyzed and dissected, but instead was written to be received and lived by everyday, common people, the very people that Jesus came for and spent his time with.
“Christian reading is participatory reading, receiving the words in such a way that they become interior to our lives, the rhythms and images becoming practices of prayer, acts of obedience, ways of love.”
Participatory reading requires more than just reading for information. It takes reading with a spiritual imagination. It takes reading prayerfully and personally, with the knowledge that the Bible is not simply a collection of a bunch of different sayings and truths, but is at its core a story. Stories are meant to be lived.
I love Peterson’s explanation of why he wrote his Message paraphrase of the Bible. “I wanted to gather a company of people together who read personally, not impersonally, who learned to read the Bible in order to live their true selves, not just get information that they could use to raise their standard of living. I wanted to counter the consumer attitude that uses the Bible as a way to gather religious data by which we can be our own gods, and then replace it with an attitude primed to listen to and obey God, to take us out of our preoccupations with ourselves into the spacious freedom in which God is working the world’s salvation. I wanted to somehow recover that original tone, that prophetic and gospel ‘voice’ that stabs us awake to a beauty and hope that connects us with our real lives.”
“Christian reading is participatory reading, receiving the words in such a way that they become interior to our lives, the rhythms and images becoming practices of prayer, acts of obedience, ways of love.”
Participatory reading requires more than just reading for information. It takes reading with a spiritual imagination. It takes reading prayerfully and personally, with the knowledge that the Bible is not simply a collection of a bunch of different sayings and truths, but is at its core a story. Stories are meant to be lived.
I love Peterson’s explanation of why he wrote his Message paraphrase of the Bible. “I wanted to gather a company of people together who read personally, not impersonally, who learned to read the Bible in order to live their true selves, not just get information that they could use to raise their standard of living. I wanted to counter the consumer attitude that uses the Bible as a way to gather religious data by which we can be our own gods, and then replace it with an attitude primed to listen to and obey God, to take us out of our preoccupations with ourselves into the spacious freedom in which God is working the world’s salvation. I wanted to somehow recover that original tone, that prophetic and gospel ‘voice’ that stabs us awake to a beauty and hope that connects us with our real lives.”
July 4, 2025
A powerful vision of what it means to be people of the Word. I am unconvinced by his philosophy of bringing that Word into the daily language of the people - as it stands, his position seems to require continual intensive translation, translation that would undercut unity of language across time. Preaching seems to be the appropriate avenue for such proclamation of God's Word for and to you. Also I really want to read The Message now.
May 3, 2021
The Bible is not a book to be read and applauded from afar. It is a book to be heard and applied to each person's life. Eugene Peterson doesn't want to simply inform your mind about the Scriptures, he wants the Scriptures to get inside of your bones and lived out.
After reading this book, you will understand the convictions that forced Eugene to write The Message. And you might even purchase a copy for yourself, even you Message haters. ;)
After reading this book, you will understand the convictions that forced Eugene to write The Message. And you might even purchase a copy for yourself, even you Message haters. ;)
October 17, 2020
I've been using this post-seminary time in my life to explore the spiritual disciplines and traditions I first encountered in the classroom: Ignatian spirituality and the examen, Celtic spirituality, and so forth. Lectio divina has long been on my list, and my dad refers to his practice of it nearly every time we talk. So, I started with Eat This Book, having enjoyed Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.
Peterson, author of The Message, loves and inhabits the Christian Scriptures more than any other author I can think of. Not that they are deficient, but that he is at home in the Bible in a virtuosic way. This volume read like a conversation with someone about their heart's treasure, delighting in their joy, co-passioning with them.
However, this book doesn't exactly flow together as a united whole. Its three sections are rather distinct: "Eat This Book," "Lectio Divina," and "The Company of Translators." While united in subject (Scripture), they are distinct from each other, making this good piecemeal reading.
"Eat This Book" introduces spiritual reading through the image of eating the scroll in John's Revelation. Peterson is the poet-est prose author I know, and reading this section was, in many places, like reading poetry. Very image-oriented, very earthy.
"Lectio Divina" introduces the practice of spiritual reading, and its four stages of lectio (reading the text), meditatio (meditating on the text), oratio (praying the text), and contemplatio (living the text). He has some wonderful things to say about contemplatio in particular: we are all "failed contemplatives," trying to live the contemplative life but always failing at it.
"The Company of Translators" is the most enjoyable work I've ever read on textual criticism. Or, the only enjoyable work I've ever read on textual criticism. Peterson, in his trademark style, tells it all as a story, with humor and vivacity. He comes down fairly hard on the KJV and its "company of translators," so heads up for that, but then he wrote The Message, intentionally about as far from the KJV as possible.
If you've ever wondered about Peterson's process and influences in writing The Message, this is a great resource. I've not spent much time in his paraphrase before, but this made me want to add it to my regular diet of spiritual reading, as an aid to meditatio. He is very familiar with Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English, and how the KJV team plagiarized it (his words). "Luckie felowe" became "prosperous man" and all that--street language dignified in clerical robes. I do want to look more closely into the method of translating the KJV now, and Tyndale's work, which has been on my radar for years. I'm not tied to a particular translation. Well, actually, I am. My parents named me Melody after Isaiah 51:3 NASB, and no other Bible I've found translates that Hebrew word as "melody." But I skip around in translations with a free fancy, feeling most at home in the NIV (in which I memorized hundreds of verses as an Awana kid), the ESV (my high school church's translation of choice), and the NRSV (which I used in biblical studies classes in college, occasionally alternating with the NASB). Since I'm not going to learn Hebrew or awaken my Koine Greek from its Rip van Winklean slumber, I look forward to adding The Message to my biblical diet.
Eugene Peterson and Charlotte Mason would get along great. According to Peterson, the Scriptures are the living-est book of them all, inhabited as they are by the Holy Spirit, which would please Ms. Mason greatly; she wrote a whole fleet of meditations on the Gospels. W. H. Draper says of it, "When familiarity with the letter of Scripture has thrown a kind of veil over the eyes, when critical and theological controversies have raised a dry dust round the figures and scenes portrayed, in such a time comes the opportunity for poetry to describe what it sees in freshness of spiritual perception and in gazing back on the Past without controversy and from a heart at peace." Sounds an awful lot like The Message to me!
Peterson, author of The Message, loves and inhabits the Christian Scriptures more than any other author I can think of. Not that they are deficient, but that he is at home in the Bible in a virtuosic way. This volume read like a conversation with someone about their heart's treasure, delighting in their joy, co-passioning with them.
However, this book doesn't exactly flow together as a united whole. Its three sections are rather distinct: "Eat This Book," "Lectio Divina," and "The Company of Translators." While united in subject (Scripture), they are distinct from each other, making this good piecemeal reading.
"Eat This Book" introduces spiritual reading through the image of eating the scroll in John's Revelation. Peterson is the poet-est prose author I know, and reading this section was, in many places, like reading poetry. Very image-oriented, very earthy.
"Lectio Divina" introduces the practice of spiritual reading, and its four stages of lectio (reading the text), meditatio (meditating on the text), oratio (praying the text), and contemplatio (living the text). He has some wonderful things to say about contemplatio in particular: we are all "failed contemplatives," trying to live the contemplative life but always failing at it.
"The Company of Translators" is the most enjoyable work I've ever read on textual criticism. Or, the only enjoyable work I've ever read on textual criticism. Peterson, in his trademark style, tells it all as a story, with humor and vivacity. He comes down fairly hard on the KJV and its "company of translators," so heads up for that, but then he wrote The Message, intentionally about as far from the KJV as possible.
If you've ever wondered about Peterson's process and influences in writing The Message, this is a great resource. I've not spent much time in his paraphrase before, but this made me want to add it to my regular diet of spiritual reading, as an aid to meditatio. He is very familiar with Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English, and how the KJV team plagiarized it (his words). "Luckie felowe" became "prosperous man" and all that--street language dignified in clerical robes. I do want to look more closely into the method of translating the KJV now, and Tyndale's work, which has been on my radar for years. I'm not tied to a particular translation. Well, actually, I am. My parents named me Melody after Isaiah 51:3 NASB, and no other Bible I've found translates that Hebrew word as "melody." But I skip around in translations with a free fancy, feeling most at home in the NIV (in which I memorized hundreds of verses as an Awana kid), the ESV (my high school church's translation of choice), and the NRSV (which I used in biblical studies classes in college, occasionally alternating with the NASB). Since I'm not going to learn Hebrew or awaken my Koine Greek from its Rip van Winklean slumber, I look forward to adding The Message to my biblical diet.
Eugene Peterson and Charlotte Mason would get along great. According to Peterson, the Scriptures are the living-est book of them all, inhabited as they are by the Holy Spirit, which would please Ms. Mason greatly; she wrote a whole fleet of meditations on the Gospels. W. H. Draper says of it, "When familiarity with the letter of Scripture has thrown a kind of veil over the eyes, when critical and theological controversies have raised a dry dust round the figures and scenes portrayed, in such a time comes the opportunity for poetry to describe what it sees in freshness of spiritual perception and in gazing back on the Past without controversy and from a heart at peace." Sounds an awful lot like The Message to me!
January 30, 2025
This book blew my mind with such a beautiful, powerful and biblical metaphor to show how we should approach the bible. There is so much to take note of so here are a few essential things to summarize.
Revelation 10:9
So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.”
Knowing the bible is the living Word of the Living God, we should approach it as so. It is a word to be consumed, devoured, savored and digested with eagerness and "unhurried delight".
● Jeremiah 22:16
● Chew the Word as a cow chews the cud. Chew it over and over and over and let it marinate into your heart and transform it.
The Bible is not for mere intellectual but it is the very revelation from God "and revelation is always formative". The formative effect requires full submission to the text as authority. Exegesis is important, but exegesis is rarely spiritual, therefore meditation and application are required for it to be fruitful. We do not read to know more, but to become more.
●"Words -- spoken and listened to, written and read -- are intended to do something in us, give health and wholeness, vitality and holiness, wisdom and hope. Yes, eat this book."
The Bible is a narratival book so we should listen for resonance, echoes and patterns as it is one cohesive story and not a compilation of 66 different but related books. It is also narratival in the sense that we should insert ourselves into the story.
Lectio divina (divine/spiritual reading) consists of four steps: reading the text, meditating on the text, praying the text and living the text.
●"meditation is not intrusion, it is rumination -- letting the images and stories of the entire revelation penetrative our understanding"
●"prayer is the process of getting used to it, going from the small to the large, from control to mystery, from self to soul, to God."
●"contempltaive... signals... an organic union between the word "read" and the word "lived"" "Word and life are at root the same thing. Life originated in Word. Word makes life. There is no word of God that does not intend to be lived by us." Jesus is the Word lived... the Word made flesh. We are to become the Word as the Spirit writes the word on the flesh of our hearts.
Exodus 16:19-20 the Manna from Heaven that was not consumed and left over, rotted. Gods word is meant to be CONSUMED and is put to waste when we don't take it, submit to it and live by it.
Revelation 10:9
So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.”
Knowing the bible is the living Word of the Living God, we should approach it as so. It is a word to be consumed, devoured, savored and digested with eagerness and "unhurried delight".
● Jeremiah 22:16
● Chew the Word as a cow chews the cud. Chew it over and over and over and let it marinate into your heart and transform it.
The Bible is not for mere intellectual but it is the very revelation from God "and revelation is always formative". The formative effect requires full submission to the text as authority. Exegesis is important, but exegesis is rarely spiritual, therefore meditation and application are required for it to be fruitful. We do not read to know more, but to become more.
●"Words -- spoken and listened to, written and read -- are intended to do something in us, give health and wholeness, vitality and holiness, wisdom and hope. Yes, eat this book."
The Bible is a narratival book so we should listen for resonance, echoes and patterns as it is one cohesive story and not a compilation of 66 different but related books. It is also narratival in the sense that we should insert ourselves into the story.
Lectio divina (divine/spiritual reading) consists of four steps: reading the text, meditating on the text, praying the text and living the text.
●"meditation is not intrusion, it is rumination -- letting the images and stories of the entire revelation penetrative our understanding"
●"prayer is the process of getting used to it, going from the small to the large, from control to mystery, from self to soul, to God."
●"contempltaive... signals... an organic union between the word "read" and the word "lived"" "Word and life are at root the same thing. Life originated in Word. Word makes life. There is no word of God that does not intend to be lived by us." Jesus is the Word lived... the Word made flesh. We are to become the Word as the Spirit writes the word on the flesh of our hearts.
Exodus 16:19-20 the Manna from Heaven that was not consumed and left over, rotted. Gods word is meant to be CONSUMED and is put to waste when we don't take it, submit to it and live by it.
April 20, 2025
I didn't really like the book. I think the most enjoyable part that I read was some of the points he made in the last chapter. Overall I just don't think I learned much that I didn't already think.
I appreciate the spirit of The Message, but am glad he calls it a supplement to a Biblical text versus it's own standalone translation. I think he misses that any translator is making doctrinal choices (I don't buy "just read the text." Everyone says that's what they're doing essentially). I would prefer something like The Message from a confessional Lutheran translator. Everyone brings their biases into their translations and readings of Scripture, we might as well not pretend. I think for that reason I wouldn't use the Message often if at all because Peterson and I read scripture differently.
As a special note, whoever made the decision for the audiobook to include in-line notations for the references to other texts deserves to be fired into the sun. Terrible choice. No points. Please never do that again. Makes it so hard to lock into the reading. I may have considered 3 stars, but that continued to piss me off all through the book.
I appreciate the spirit of The Message, but am glad he calls it a supplement to a Biblical text versus it's own standalone translation. I think he misses that any translator is making doctrinal choices (I don't buy "just read the text." Everyone says that's what they're doing essentially). I would prefer something like The Message from a confessional Lutheran translator. Everyone brings their biases into their translations and readings of Scripture, we might as well not pretend. I think for that reason I wouldn't use the Message often if at all because Peterson and I read scripture differently.
As a special note, whoever made the decision for the audiobook to include in-line notations for the references to other texts deserves to be fired into the sun. Terrible choice. No points. Please never do that again. Makes it so hard to lock into the reading. I may have considered 3 stars, but that continued to piss me off all through the book.
October 14, 2018
Reflection on Part I (Eat this Book) and Part II (Lectio Divina) of "Eat This Book" by Eugene Peterson (written for Professor Dean Flemming for my Biblical Interpretation course):
I have been an avid reader most of my life. It was around fifth grade when my teacher, Ms. Weis, a wonderful woman who remained curiously unmarried—in my opinion—scraped her zest against the flint of literature, kindling something inside of me. Looking back on this, I realize that what she had ignited was a love for the written word. The way it lived and breathed, the way in which I could use it to give voice to the previously mute feelings that swelled in my chest, brought me satisfaction. She taught me how to write poems, and I realized that a poem was the vessel by which my emotions became incarnate, clothed in the flesh of paper and ink. Words, I found, were “never mere words—they convey[ed] spirit, meaning, energy, and truth” (50). Shortly thereafter, I began to realize that words were not just my personal discovery. There were authors of all types who found them equally as compelling, and soon enough, I was consuming their novels; their stories raptured my imagination.
I would daily, innumerable times a day, gorge myself on fantasy books and adventure stories, hiding from bandits in the trees, gasping for air in the ocean waves, feeling the long–awaited kiss of a beautiful girl—why does it always take until the last chapter?—but life began to get in the way of my reading. When I did have time, I read non-fiction for, increasingly, knowledge gave me more capital in my education than did fiction. Imagination had little value alongside intellect. That is the narrative (lo and behold, I was still being moved by a story!) which shaped my thinking throughout high school. I give that background to say this: Peterson brushed aside the cobwebs and, with a heave, thrust his weight against rusty doors of my imagination, and—sputtering, I’m sure, in the musty air that wafted out—tossed his torch onto the neglected pile of tinder which lay inside. For so long, I have been reading scripture as dead words which necessitate my dissection and comprehension. I have been a scientist. I have “know[n] much and taste[d] nothing” from its pages (14). Instead of the scriptures being a garden “constantly changing with [the] growth of both flowers and weeds” (65), they had become a series of problems to solve, to diagram, to control, a jardin à la française as opposed to the garden of my elderly neighbor in Nebraska of which the question always was, “Are you sure you planted cucumbers in here?” I am terrified of losing control.
In compelling me to “eat this book,” (18) Peterson reawakened in me, or awakened for the first time, the belief that scripture can—and more importantly should—be “gnawed, enjoyed, and savored” as a dog with a bone (2). Just as the novels read in my younger days brought me delight so should “low throaty rumbles of pleasure” (2) escape my throat as I let the scriptures “into [my] nerve endings, [my] reflexes, [my] imagination” (9). I realized, as I followed Peterson’s reflections, that I wanted what he was speaking of. I want to “become what [I] read” (20), to internalize the Holy Scriptures and by that process be shaped “into [my] true being” (24).
Being raised in church culture, particularly in a church which valued the “authority of God’s Word,” the concept of reading scripture was not foreign to me. It has been stamped into my beliefs that scripture can transform lives. “If we could just get people reading the Bible every day,” I thought, “then they would begin to live like Christ.” My experience, however, leads me to agree with Peterson that placing a Bible in a person’s hands and saying, “Read it” is as foolish as putting a set of car keys in an adolescent’s hands and saying, “Drive it” (81). If we do that, those who are wielding the scriptures may soon end up “dead or maimed” for “an enormous amount of damage is done in the name of Christian living by bad Bible reading”—caveat lector indeed (82). After capturing my imagination by his description of how I should eat the Bible—thank you John, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah—and after receiving his several cautions, I was ready to receive Peterson’s words about lectio divina, divine reading, a process of consuming the Word by lectio (reading), meditatio (meditating), oratio (praying), and contemplatio (living). I am grateful for the opportunity to have engaged with Peterson’s book and thrilled by the newfound attitude with which to approach and read scripture. I hope, and believe, that "Eat This Book" will aid me immensely as I eat the Book itself.
*The final paragraph below, over Part III of the book (The Company of Translators), was not in my reflection for class*
Peterson concludes the book with a discussion of the translation process. He gives an overview of how the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek and how the New Testament was written, largely, in Koine Greek, the common language of the time, rather than Classical Greek, the language of literature. He explains the implications of this reality for the translation of the Bible into the common language today and makes a compelling case for the necessity of paraphrased translations which are in the tongue of common people as opposed to literal translations. He argues that, while more literal English translations may be useful for some study, careful study of the original Biblical languages should be used to create good paraphrase translations of the text into the common tongue so that the majority of people (who aren't clergy or Biblical scholars) can "eat" and live out the Bible in their daily, contextualized lives.
I have been an avid reader most of my life. It was around fifth grade when my teacher, Ms. Weis, a wonderful woman who remained curiously unmarried—in my opinion—scraped her zest against the flint of literature, kindling something inside of me. Looking back on this, I realize that what she had ignited was a love for the written word. The way it lived and breathed, the way in which I could use it to give voice to the previously mute feelings that swelled in my chest, brought me satisfaction. She taught me how to write poems, and I realized that a poem was the vessel by which my emotions became incarnate, clothed in the flesh of paper and ink. Words, I found, were “never mere words—they convey[ed] spirit, meaning, energy, and truth” (50). Shortly thereafter, I began to realize that words were not just my personal discovery. There were authors of all types who found them equally as compelling, and soon enough, I was consuming their novels; their stories raptured my imagination.
I would daily, innumerable times a day, gorge myself on fantasy books and adventure stories, hiding from bandits in the trees, gasping for air in the ocean waves, feeling the long–awaited kiss of a beautiful girl—why does it always take until the last chapter?—but life began to get in the way of my reading. When I did have time, I read non-fiction for, increasingly, knowledge gave me more capital in my education than did fiction. Imagination had little value alongside intellect. That is the narrative (lo and behold, I was still being moved by a story!) which shaped my thinking throughout high school. I give that background to say this: Peterson brushed aside the cobwebs and, with a heave, thrust his weight against rusty doors of my imagination, and—sputtering, I’m sure, in the musty air that wafted out—tossed his torch onto the neglected pile of tinder which lay inside. For so long, I have been reading scripture as dead words which necessitate my dissection and comprehension. I have been a scientist. I have “know[n] much and taste[d] nothing” from its pages (14). Instead of the scriptures being a garden “constantly changing with [the] growth of both flowers and weeds” (65), they had become a series of problems to solve, to diagram, to control, a jardin à la française as opposed to the garden of my elderly neighbor in Nebraska of which the question always was, “Are you sure you planted cucumbers in here?” I am terrified of losing control.
In compelling me to “eat this book,” (18) Peterson reawakened in me, or awakened for the first time, the belief that scripture can—and more importantly should—be “gnawed, enjoyed, and savored” as a dog with a bone (2). Just as the novels read in my younger days brought me delight so should “low throaty rumbles of pleasure” (2) escape my throat as I let the scriptures “into [my] nerve endings, [my] reflexes, [my] imagination” (9). I realized, as I followed Peterson’s reflections, that I wanted what he was speaking of. I want to “become what [I] read” (20), to internalize the Holy Scriptures and by that process be shaped “into [my] true being” (24).
Being raised in church culture, particularly in a church which valued the “authority of God’s Word,” the concept of reading scripture was not foreign to me. It has been stamped into my beliefs that scripture can transform lives. “If we could just get people reading the Bible every day,” I thought, “then they would begin to live like Christ.” My experience, however, leads me to agree with Peterson that placing a Bible in a person’s hands and saying, “Read it” is as foolish as putting a set of car keys in an adolescent’s hands and saying, “Drive it” (81). If we do that, those who are wielding the scriptures may soon end up “dead or maimed” for “an enormous amount of damage is done in the name of Christian living by bad Bible reading”—caveat lector indeed (82). After capturing my imagination by his description of how I should eat the Bible—thank you John, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah—and after receiving his several cautions, I was ready to receive Peterson’s words about lectio divina, divine reading, a process of consuming the Word by lectio (reading), meditatio (meditating), oratio (praying), and contemplatio (living). I am grateful for the opportunity to have engaged with Peterson’s book and thrilled by the newfound attitude with which to approach and read scripture. I hope, and believe, that "Eat This Book" will aid me immensely as I eat the Book itself.
*The final paragraph below, over Part III of the book (The Company of Translators), was not in my reflection for class*
Peterson concludes the book with a discussion of the translation process. He gives an overview of how the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek and how the New Testament was written, largely, in Koine Greek, the common language of the time, rather than Classical Greek, the language of literature. He explains the implications of this reality for the translation of the Bible into the common language today and makes a compelling case for the necessity of paraphrased translations which are in the tongue of common people as opposed to literal translations. He argues that, while more literal English translations may be useful for some study, careful study of the original Biblical languages should be used to create good paraphrase translations of the text into the common tongue so that the majority of people (who aren't clergy or Biblical scholars) can "eat" and live out the Bible in their daily, contextualized lives.
October 11, 2023
This gave me so much to think about. I enjoyed A Long Obedience in the Same direction more, but this was very thoughtful and thought-provoking too. Peterson is just an excellent writer.
“Contemplation means living what we read not, wasting any of it or hoarding any of it, but using it up in living. It is life formed by God’s, revealing word, God‘s word, read and heard, meditated and prayed. The contemplative life is not a special kind of life; It is the Christian life, nothing more, but also nothing less. But lived.”
“Contemplation means living what we read not, wasting any of it or hoarding any of it, but using it up in living. It is life formed by God’s, revealing word, God‘s word, read and heard, meditated and prayed. The contemplative life is not a special kind of life; It is the Christian life, nothing more, but also nothing less. But lived.”
April 7, 2025
I started out pretty excited for this one. It sounded good, the first few chapters were... okay... I thought I'd leave this book with some insights into devotional life.
Alas. I did not.
Peterson says a lot. But he never actually says anything. That's how I'd summarize the book.
Essentially, he brings it all to a point by saying you can't work hard to read the Bible well. Diligent study and research into the book will get you nowhere. You just have to let it happen to you as you read the Bible. Don't try too hard. Relax and let it happen. Dumb.
And the last quarter of the book is simply a long, drawn-out commercial for his translation of the Bible (The Message) which I will always pass on for many many reasons.
Alas. I did not.
Peterson says a lot. But he never actually says anything. That's how I'd summarize the book.
Essentially, he brings it all to a point by saying you can't work hard to read the Bible well. Diligent study and research into the book will get you nowhere. You just have to let it happen to you as you read the Bible. Don't try too hard. Relax and let it happen. Dumb.
And the last quarter of the book is simply a long, drawn-out commercial for his translation of the Bible (The Message) which I will always pass on for many many reasons.
November 8, 2023
Reading Scripture for formation, not information has transformed how I approach the Bible.
Peterson knew this and lived this. This book shows a refreshing way to read the Bible-to “eat this book.”
Peterson knew this and lived this. This book shows a refreshing way to read the Bible-to “eat this book.”
February 8, 2025
I began this book to understand more about the concept of lectio divina, but I was surprised at how compelling I found his section on Bible translations and why he published The Message.
March 21, 2025
Love the way he writes—engaging and smooth—and made me appreciate his personal translation of the Bible (into the Message) more. Convicting book to me who regularly falls into the temptation to read the Bible like a textbook.
January 11, 2023
In Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, Eugene Peterson invites people to enter God's story when encountering scripture, not merely as readers and hearers, but as those who live and obey the words. Peterson recommends the traditional practice of "Lectio Divina" or "Divine Reading" to slow the reader down and linger inside the scriptures to experience God and get them deep within themselves. He urges readers to balance exegesis and synthesis, to practice biblical meditation, and to view exegesis as an act of love rather than obsessive concern over small details and rules. He explains translation processes and history in an overview summary narrative form. I enjoyed this book and will refer to it again in the future.
October 22, 2024
Phenomenal read.
Peterson talks about reading the Bible in a way that actually transforms you, not just for the sake of knowledge. An invitation to slow down and really chew on Scripture, to let it change how you live—it made me rethink how I approach scripture.
Peterson talks about reading the Bible in a way that actually transforms you, not just for the sake of knowledge. An invitation to slow down and really chew on Scripture, to let it change how you live—it made me rethink how I approach scripture.
August 12, 2021
This was a mentally and spiritually stimulating read. As a pastor who has been reading and studying my Bible for 40 years for the purpose of preaching and teaching, Peterson reminded me that there is a way of reading the Bible that is primarily intellectual, and a way that is spiritual. While both are important, it is easy to neglect the practice of spiritual reading - reading to encounter God and experience transformation.
In the first part of the book, Peterson makes a case for spiritual reading. It is, in my opinion, the most valuable portion of the book. Part two is written to equip the reader to read for biblical change, and to avoid being spiritually deceived - to reading the Bible accurately, for the purpose of living them, not merely “understanding” them.
The final part addresses the issue of translation. Overall, the presentation is positive, and helpful.
This is my second Peterson book, and as with the first, I wish I had read it years ago. I think most Christians will find it a helpful, encouraging read.
In the first part of the book, Peterson makes a case for spiritual reading. It is, in my opinion, the most valuable portion of the book. Part two is written to equip the reader to read for biblical change, and to avoid being spiritually deceived - to reading the Bible accurately, for the purpose of living them, not merely “understanding” them.
The final part addresses the issue of translation. Overall, the presentation is positive, and helpful.
This is my second Peterson book, and as with the first, I wish I had read it years ago. I think most Christians will find it a helpful, encouraging read.
April 15, 2025
2.5 ⭐
I thought the first half was good. There were many helpful insights regarding the narrative nature of scripture. I had some minor quibbles with his writing style as well as the odd choice to heavily emphasize his metaphor "eat this book" in the beginning and then to abandon it later.
However, the back half of the book seemed to turn into an ad for the Message translation (Peterson's translation). Here, Peterson argues that his paraphrase translation helps to put it into the language of everyday people.
I think there is a lot of value in such a paraphrase, but I think Peterson overplayed his hand a bit. for someone new to the faith or someone who may struggle with literacy, a paraphrase can be immensely helpful. But at some point I think the paraphrase must be abandoned for the sake of the Christian maturing into the Scriptures. It is clearly better to memorize actual Scripture passages than the paraphrase version.
I think many, even myself at times, look down on the paraphrase translation. Peterson helped me to soften my view and better appreciate the value. My exception was at the degree to which he puts it. The Bible isn't like Dante's Inferno, where a paraphrase translation is sufficient in itself, but the Bible would want someone to eventually move beyond it to a faithful translation. Not everyone needs to learn Greek or Hebrew, but they should read the English translation. If a paraphrase translation helps them move towards it, great. But the paraphrase is not the end.
I thought the first half was good. There were many helpful insights regarding the narrative nature of scripture. I had some minor quibbles with his writing style as well as the odd choice to heavily emphasize his metaphor "eat this book" in the beginning and then to abandon it later.
However, the back half of the book seemed to turn into an ad for the Message translation (Peterson's translation). Here, Peterson argues that his paraphrase translation helps to put it into the language of everyday people.
I think there is a lot of value in such a paraphrase, but I think Peterson overplayed his hand a bit. for someone new to the faith or someone who may struggle with literacy, a paraphrase can be immensely helpful. But at some point I think the paraphrase must be abandoned for the sake of the Christian maturing into the Scriptures. It is clearly better to memorize actual Scripture passages than the paraphrase version.
I think many, even myself at times, look down on the paraphrase translation. Peterson helped me to soften my view and better appreciate the value. My exception was at the degree to which he puts it. The Bible isn't like Dante's Inferno, where a paraphrase translation is sufficient in itself, but the Bible would want someone to eventually move beyond it to a faithful translation. Not everyone needs to learn Greek or Hebrew, but they should read the English translation. If a paraphrase translation helps them move towards it, great. But the paraphrase is not the end.
February 11, 2019
Probably a 3.5. This is a great vision for the formative nature of Scripture, effectively communicated via the biblical metaphor of eating a book (or scroll). Scripture is not a selective information transfer but meant to be ingested and metabolized and then lived out by Christians in every nook and cranny of life. There is also a section at the end which deals with Scripture translation (should be into common vernacular, Peterson argues), as well as a justification/description of his reasons for The Message translation. This is a good book, good content. I am so used to reading dense works (frequently assigned or required for research for grad degree in theology) that sometimes popular-level books seem repetitive, padded and unnecessarily long. I sometimes felt that way with this book, but when I reminded myself that Peterson writes as a pastor and often to introduce folks to a new way of looking at something, I realized the repetition and restatement is a rhetorical and preaching tool all designed to get one single overarching point home: Scripture is not data transfer but necessary sustenance - "man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Thus, "Eat this book" is exactly right.
September 2, 2021
I could have really used this book about 3 or 4 years ago. Peterson's approach to what Scripture is and how it is to be read would have been incredibly life-giving to me as I entered my undergrad in theology. I appreciated his firm stand on biblical authority-yet separation from those who rigidly read Scripture as primarily informational rather than revelatory. Specifically, the revelation of Jesus Christ and the weighty yet freeing call he has for our lives. The whole book was pastoral, reasonable, and passionately locked in on the deep and beautiful relationship that Jesus Christ desires to have with His people. I will be returning to this book often.
I also found the last part of the book insightful as he gave the story behind why he wrote The Message translation. Growing up I had always been told he performed an injustice on the Scriptures and merely did a wishy-wash paraphrase of Scripture. After reading this, Peterson convinced me of both his deep pastoral heart for translating as he did, and also the need for faithful paraphrased translations of Scripture. Everything Peterson did was out of love for the people in his church. He wanted the Scriptures to speak as a living word to people because the God we worship is the Word who took on flesh.
I also found the last part of the book insightful as he gave the story behind why he wrote The Message translation. Growing up I had always been told he performed an injustice on the Scriptures and merely did a wishy-wash paraphrase of Scripture. After reading this, Peterson convinced me of both his deep pastoral heart for translating as he did, and also the need for faithful paraphrased translations of Scripture. Everything Peterson did was out of love for the people in his church. He wanted the Scriptures to speak as a living word to people because the God we worship is the Word who took on flesh.
October 16, 2023
In the words of theologian Larry David, "pretty pretty pretty good." I spent many formative years in Reformed circles that were strong on the "sola scriptura" and prioritized the analytical or literalist view of scripture.
Eat This Book would have been a helpful read in those days to allow me to see the relational heart of the scriptures and how they help us to know God and ourselves. Reading the scriptures is about our participation in God's story, and being shaped and formed into the kinds of people we are called to be by the Spirit. The scriptures come to us personally, and also in common, rough language, filled with the stuff of everyday life. It is for us, even if it is not primarily about us. I also loved the emphasis on how scripture critiques us and confronts all—left, right, and center—and shows us the world and ourselves as we truly are.
Eat This Book would have been a helpful read in those days to allow me to see the relational heart of the scriptures and how they help us to know God and ourselves. Reading the scriptures is about our participation in God's story, and being shaped and formed into the kinds of people we are called to be by the Spirit. The scriptures come to us personally, and also in common, rough language, filled with the stuff of everyday life. It is for us, even if it is not primarily about us. I also loved the emphasis on how scripture critiques us and confronts all—left, right, and center—and shows us the world and ourselves as we truly are.
January 31, 2026
This book has transformed the way I will read the Bible from now on.
Peterson asserts that the Bible is meant to be consumed, savored, and digested in ways we aren’t normally taught to do. Think of a dog with its favorite bone that it spends hours savoring. But it’s not even about the time you spend. It’s about how you absorb it.
So many of us just plow through the Bible and gloss over things, and the words remain flat and lose the life that was originally poured into them. It becomes 3D when we let it jump off the page, and fully immerse ourselves into the story. We aren’t just observers.
He also talks about how people tend to miss the importance of story in our everyday lives, and how we prefer to just take in and regurgitate information quickly. So we miss the many ways God uses story in the Bible and how he wants us to be part of it. We aren’t on the sidelines.
He also asserts that the translations should be accessible, readable, and relatable to even the most uneducated people. He’s not afraid to speak against translations that use formal language no one would ever use on the street.
This book is, as you would imagine, very accessible to laypeople. There were some passages I needed to re-read but only because I didn’t want to miss anything. (You kind of need to “eat this book”too.)
My friend who recommended this book to me said she reads it regularly. I think I will likely want to do that as well. I recommend it to any Christian who wants to engage with the Bible fully, the way it was intended.
Peterson asserts that the Bible is meant to be consumed, savored, and digested in ways we aren’t normally taught to do. Think of a dog with its favorite bone that it spends hours savoring. But it’s not even about the time you spend. It’s about how you absorb it.
So many of us just plow through the Bible and gloss over things, and the words remain flat and lose the life that was originally poured into them. It becomes 3D when we let it jump off the page, and fully immerse ourselves into the story. We aren’t just observers.
He also talks about how people tend to miss the importance of story in our everyday lives, and how we prefer to just take in and regurgitate information quickly. So we miss the many ways God uses story in the Bible and how he wants us to be part of it. We aren’t on the sidelines.
He also asserts that the translations should be accessible, readable, and relatable to even the most uneducated people. He’s not afraid to speak against translations that use formal language no one would ever use on the street.
This book is, as you would imagine, very accessible to laypeople. There were some passages I needed to re-read but only because I didn’t want to miss anything. (You kind of need to “eat this book”too.)
My friend who recommended this book to me said she reads it regularly. I think I will likely want to do that as well. I recommend it to any Christian who wants to engage with the Bible fully, the way it was intended.
July 2, 2019
Eat This Book is a wonderful read!
Peterson passionately persuades us to read Scripture the way we were meant to: “chew them, taste them, walk and run in them.”I love the reminder that eating the good book will give us a stomachache because it is “difficult to digest.” I was convicted by the truth that as a believer, I submit my life to the book. I don’t merely read; I eat.
The last few chapters make me love Peterson more as he writes about the origin of his labor of love as God’s secretary in paraphrasing the Bible through The Message. I recommend these chapters to anyone who questions why a paraphrase Bible is needed. I recommend the entire book to anyone who loves the Word of God.
Peterson passionately persuades us to read Scripture the way we were meant to: “chew them, taste them, walk and run in them.”I love the reminder that eating the good book will give us a stomachache because it is “difficult to digest.” I was convicted by the truth that as a believer, I submit my life to the book. I don’t merely read; I eat.
The last few chapters make me love Peterson more as he writes about the origin of his labor of love as God’s secretary in paraphrasing the Bible through The Message. I recommend these chapters to anyone who questions why a paraphrase Bible is needed. I recommend the entire book to anyone who loves the Word of God.
September 8, 2025
A great book. Though it feels like labeling it as a “conversation” allowed Peterson to chase rabbits and structure this book in a very strange way. The fact that he didn’t front-load his chapter on translation and The Message baffles me. But this was great and shows how big Peterson’s heart was for Bible, for people to read it and understand it, and how committed he was to the Protestant doctrines of Scripture.
September 1, 2020
Catching up on this series, a couple of decades late.
An excellent work on the devotional reading of Scripture that also shares some of Peterson's rationale and process of producing the Message Bible paraphrase. Spoiler: you can't love the Bible and not practice careful reading. Good exegesis is how you love it.
An excellent work on the devotional reading of Scripture that also shares some of Peterson's rationale and process of producing the Message Bible paraphrase. Spoiler: you can't love the Bible and not practice careful reading. Good exegesis is how you love it.
December 20, 2024
While I do think it becomes a little bit of an advertisement for the Message version at the end, any book that reignites a love for the word and simultaneously proposes thoughts (on topics like listening to scripture and translation) that have me thinking about them often and discussing about them with friends is worth 5 stars for sure!
March 24, 2020
As I read, I would put this book down and pick up my Bible because I was excited to meditate and pray on it. Which means Peterson did exactly what he set out to do.
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