The Message “bible” omits homosexual sin

[billiefan2000]

The Message “bible” omits homosexual sin
Published March 24th, 2011 by Marsha West in The Message Bible
Over at My Word Like Fire John Lanagan reveals some of the changes Eugene Peterson, author of The Message Bible, made to the text that many Christians may be unaware of. John begins:

We now have a generation raised under the “scripture” of The Message, with its omission of homosexuality as a specific sin in 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11, and also the intentionally altered presentation of 1 Timothy 1:9-10. (READ)

But what about 1 Kings 22:46? Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, strikes again. The Message states: “Also, he got rid of the sacred prostitutes left over from the days of his father, Asa.”

Sacred prostitutes? That’s the description?

The NASB states, “The remnant of the sodomites, who remained in the days of his father Asa, he expelled from the land.” (1 Kings 22:46)

According to the KJV, “And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.” (1 Kings 22:46)

This is no small thing that the enemy has accomplished through The Message.


The Message

[paul&katie]

More quotes from Eugene Peterson from Eat this Book « The Blog Prophet

– “We are not interested in knowing more but in becoming more.” (p. 59)

–“There are hard things in this book (the Bible), hard things to hear, hard things to obey. There are words in this book that are difficult to digest. John got a severe case of indigestion.” (p. 64)

–“Every careful reader of the Bible is struck by how “recurringly odd and unaccommodating it is to what we are used to and expect. The Bible is “no easy read.” (p. 65)

–“The most frequent way we have of getting rid of the puzzling or unpleasant difficulties in the Bible is to systematize it, organizing it according to some scheme or other that summarizes “what the Bible teaches.” If we know what the Bible teaches, we don’t have to read it anymore, don’t have to enter the story and immerse ourselves in the odd and unflattering and uncongenial way in which this story develops, including so many people and circumstances that have nothing to do, we think, with us.” (p. 66)


CONTEMPLATIVE EUGENE PETERSON DISCOURAGES READING THE BIBLE : Apprising Ministries

his ode to Lectio Divina from his Eat This Book Eugene Peterson starts leading people right back toward that same spiritual dead end of religious bondage:

Lectio Divina is a way of reading the Scriptures that is congruent with the way the Scriptures serve the Christian community as a witness to God’s revelation of himself to us. It is the wise guidance developed through the centuries of devout Bible reading to discipline us, the readers of Scripture, into appropriate ways of understanding and receiving this text so that it is formative for the way we live our lives, not merely making an impression on our minds or feelings.

It intends the reading of Scripture to be a permeation of our lives by the revelation of God. Reading the Bible, if we do not do it rightly, can get us into a lot of trouble. The Christian community is as concerned with how we read the Bible as that we read it. It is not sufficient to place a Bible in a person’s hands with the command, “Read it.” (81)

New Age And The Message

The Message is in fact New Age! see above link.

What Kind of Message is The Message?
Berit Kjos [www.crossroad.to]

The Message DELETES the reference to God's holy name, ADDS requests not voiced by Jesus, and changes the meaning of other verses. Follow the link and learn more about the phrase, "As above, so below." [Below]

Matthew 6:9-13

"Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our ādaily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

The Message:

"Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what's best -
As above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you
and forgiving others.
Keep us safe
from ourselves and the Devil.
You're in charge!

The Message distorts the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son:

John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."

The Message: "I and the Father are one heart and mind."


John 14:28 "...The Father is greater than I."

The Message: "The Father is the goal and purpose of my life."

[paul&katie]

as above, so below

New Age And The Message

THE LORD’S PRAYER

The Message

Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what’s best— as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes. 3 [Emphasis added]

King James Bible

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. [Emphasis added]

Peterson had deliberately substituted "as above, so below" in place of "in earth, as it is in heaven." In Colossians 1:16, Peterson again chose to use the terms "above" and "below" instead of the commonly accepted "heaven" and "earth" found in most Bible translations. The "above" and "below" in Colossians 1:16 is an obvious derivative form of the "as above, so below" he had used previously in his paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer. This derivative form of the more complete phrase "as above, so below" is also common to the New Age. The fact that this whole "above" and "below" issue was presenting itself on the first page of the first chapter of Rick Warren’s book was unsettling. Was I reading too much into this? Was there some other reasonable explanation for Eugene Peterson’s use of the term "as above, so below" in the Lord’s Prayer and its derivative form in Colossians 1:16?

Ancient Egypt and Oneness

Right about the time I was looking into Eugene Peterson’s use of the term "as above, so below," I was at a book sale at our local library. Almost lost amongst some cookbooks and business manuals was a book written and published by the editors of the New Age Journal. It was entitled As Above, So Below. I picked it up and began reading it. In the introduction the chief editor of the book, Ronald S. Miller, had written:

Thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, the great master alchemist Hermes Trismegistus, believed to be a contemporary of the Hebrew prophet Abraham, proclaimed this fundamental truth about the universe: "As above, so below; as below, so above." This maxim implies that the transcendent God beyond the physical universe and the immanent God within ourselves are one. Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter, the invisible and the visible worlds form a unity to which we are intimately linked. [4]

See Footnote For Details

He continued his explanation by quoting Sufi scholar Reshad Field.

…"‘As above, so below’ means that the two worlds are instantaneously seen to be one when we realize our essential unity with God…. The One and the many, time and eternity, are all One." [5]

The New Age Journal editor went on to state that old forms of religion no longer serve people, and that the term "as above, so below" describes the "emerging spirituality" that is quickly moving onto the world’s scene. He concluded his introduction to As Above, So Below by writing:

The breadth of this exploration suggests that we are living in an age of spiritual reinvention, a transitional age that leaves the safety and security of the known to seek out the new, the untested, the possible. 6

Moving from the library book sale to the Internet, I put "as above, so below" into the Google search engine to see what would come up. There were countless references. The very first reference listed by Google for "as above, so below" read:

This phrase comes from the beginning of The Emerald Tablet and embraces the entire system of traditional and modern magic which was inscribed upon the tablet in cryptic wording by Hermes Trismegistus. The significance of this phrase is that it is believed to hold the key to all mysteries. All systems of magic are claimed to function by this formula. "‘That which is above is the same as that which is below’…. The universe is the same as God, God is the same as man…." [7]

"As above, so below" NOT a Christian site!

"As above, so below"


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This phrase comes from the beginning of The Emerald Tablet and embraces the entire system of traditional and modern magic which was inscribed upon the tablet in cryptic wording by Hermes Trismegistus. The significance of this phrase is that it is believed to hold the key to all mysteries. All systems of magic are claimed to function by this formula. "'That which is above is the same as that which is below'...Macrocosmos is the same as microcosmos. The universe is the same as God, God is the same as man, man is the same as the cell, the cell is the same as the atom, the atom is the same as...and so on, ad infinitum."

This message theorizes that man is the counterpart of God on earth; as God is man's counterpart in heaven. Therefore, it is a statement of an ancient belief that man's actions on earth parallel the actions of God in heaven. This pivots on the belief that "all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation."

To the magician the magical act, that of causing a transformation in a thing or things without any physical contact, is accomplished by an imaginative act accompanied by the will that the wanted change will occur. The magical act and imaginative act becomes one and the same. The magician knows with certainty that for the change to occur he must will it to happen and firmly believe it will happen. Here it may be noted that magic and religion are akin: both require belief that a miracle will occur.

To bring about such a change the magician uses the conception of "dynamic interconnectedness to describe the physical world as the sort of thing that imagination and desire can effect. The magician's world is an independent whole, a web of which no strand is autonomous. Mind and body, galaxy and atom, sensation and stimulus, are intimately bound. Witchcraft strongly imbues the view that all things are independent and interrelated." These concepts pivot on the belief that all things come from the One Thing, or First Cause, and "Its power is integrating, if it be turned into earth."

The purpose of all rituals in ceremonial magic is to unite the microcosm with the macrocosm to join God, or gods when invoked, with the human consciousness. When such a supreme union is achieved the subject and object becomes one. This is because the magician feels that he is consciously in touch with all elements of the universe, therefore, he can control them. It may be said, the magician feels connected with the universe. This feeling intensifies the more the magician successfully practices his skills. Whenever he experiences a failure he knows that the ritual was not performed correctly.

When feeling unison with the universe the magician knows he has reached his Higher or True Self because he has attained mastery of himself and the universe. Thus he feels his "skillful work ascends from earth to heaven and descends to earth again, and receives the power of the superiors and of the inferiors." Therefore, he "hast the glory of the whole worldtherefore let all obscurity flee from thee." Now the miracles are possible.

Some magicians, including Aleister Crowley, claimed that when the magician reaches this ultimate peak of altered consciousness the miracles are no longer important, the extreme goal becomes the direct union with God. A.G.H.

Thoughts on Theosophy: As above, So Below* by G.R.S.Mead NOT a Christian site!

THE GNOSTIC SOCIETY LIBRARY

“As above, so below" -- a "great word,” a sacramental phrase, a saying of wisdom, an aphorism, a mystic formula, a fundamental law - or a two-edged sword of word-fence, that will probably do the wielder serious damage if he is not previously put through careful training in its handling?


Whether this famous “word” is of Hermetic origin or no, we will not stay formally to enquire. In essence it is probably as old as human thought itself. And as probably, the idea lying underneath it has been turned topsy-turvy more frequently than any other of the immortal company.


“As above, so below” doubtless enshrines some vast idea of analogical law, some basis of true reason, which would sum up the manifold appearances of things into one single verity; but the understanding of the nature of this mystery of manifoldness from the one - all one and one in all—is not to be attained by careless thinking, or by some lucky guess, or by the pastime of artificial correspondencing. Indeed, if the truth must out, in ninety-nine cases of a hundred, when one uses this phrase to clinch an argument, we find that we have begged the question from the start, ended where we began, and asserted the opposite of our logion. Instead of illumining, not only the subject we have in hand, but all subjects, by a grasp of the eternal verity concealed within our saying, we have reversed it into the ephemeral and false proposition: “As below, so above,” Deus, verily, inversus est demon; and there’s the devil to pay. But fortunately there is some compensation even in this in an illogical age; for, as all the mystic world knows, Demon is nothing else but deus inversus.


Yes, even along our most modern lines of thought, even in propositions and principles that are, with every day, coming more and more into favour in the domain of practical philosophizing, we find our ageless aphorism stood upon its head with scantiest ceremony.

The witch Madame Blavatsky explains the meaning:

Hermes: As above, so below Part 1 NOT a Christian site!

Here are a number of quotation from Blavatsky on this principle. It may be surprising how many such quotations there are and how forcefully she confirms her support for this principle.

“As above, so below”; harmony is the great law of nature. (IUi330)
Such are the questions often put to us, and they have to be considered from every aspect. To the first of the two queries the answer is: — We believe it because the first law in nature is uniformity in diversity, and the second — analogy. “As above, so below.” (SDii699)

“As above so below”; this apparent dualism is quite in keeping with all esoteric systems. —“Daemon est Deus inversus.” (BCW Vol 13)

Always argue on analogy and apply the old occult axiom “as above so below.” (Transactions of Blavatsky Lodge)