The Message

I’m more of an old-fashioned traditionalist when it comes to Bible translations. Not King James-old-fashioned, mind you. More like New International Version. Or, if I’m feeling especially mod, the New Living Translation. But The Message? I resisted it for a long time because it seemed too trendy, too newfangled and hip for me. I figured people like Shane Claiborne read The Message, radical Jesus people; cool people. But not live-in-Nebraska-have-two-kids-and-attend-PTO-meetings kind of people.

Finally, though, I bought my own copy because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I’m glad I did, and here’s why:

Initially I read yesterday’s lesson, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, from the New Living translation. And I skimmed right by these opening verses:

Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury.” (Luke 16:19).

After I read the whole parable, I opened The Message translation to see how the story read there, and I read these opening lines:

“There was once a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption.”

Do you see where I’m going with this?

In the first version, the verses didn’t feel like they applied to me. I’m not splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen. I don’t live each day in luxury. I’m picturing The Emperor’s New Clothes here, people, not a woman who lives in Nebraska and shops at Kohl’s.

So I move on.

But The Message version? The Message version makes me cringe. “Dressed in the latest fashions” strikes an uneasy chord, because, let me tell it to you straight: I do like fashion. I do like clothes. I do like to shop. In fact, several years ago, a colleague told me she thought I was the most fashionable person in the building. Not that I was the kindest or the smartest or the most gracious or even the most professional person at work, but the most fashionable. I wore that complement like a crown.

The description of the rich man in The Message doesn’t let me off the hook so easily because it describes me and one of my many flaws.

I haven’t been reading the Bible all that long. But already I’ve gotten complacent. The more familiar I am with the parables and the messages, the more inclined I am to skate by the truth, to overlook how each story applies directly to me, to neglect the fact that Jesus is talking to me, not to some “other” worse-off person.

I like reading more than one translation because it keeps me on my toes. It doesn’t allow me to get lazy or self-righteous. And sometimes, a different translation hits me where it hurts, which is exactly what I need.

What about you? Did you tend to read more than one translation or do you stick with your favorite?

: :

Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!

Click here to get posts in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

You may recall that we don’t have a good track record with family devotions. I’ve tried a number of them, and so far we’ve failed to make it a regular habit. At one point last year, fed up with my kids’ persistent mutiny against devotions, I actually gave away my own copy of Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling for Kids in a random blog drawing.

When Advent rolled around this year I decided to simplify the whole process by going straight to the source. I decided we would read some of the Gospel of Luke as our nightly dinnertime devotion.

“Mommy! Read more!” Rowan begged one night at the table, after I’d finished the story of Zachariah. “Are you serious?” I asked, closing my Bible and setting it next to my plate. “Yeah, yeah, I’m serious, read more,” he said. “It’s catchy, don’t you think?”

“Catchy” is certainly one way to think of the Bible.

Two weeks into Advent Noah asked if we could continue the dinnertime Bible reading even after Christmas. Again, I asked if he was joking. Turns out, he wasn’t, and so that’s the plan. I’ve wanted to try The Message translation for a while now, so I picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble last weekend, and this week we started from the beginning, with the light and darkness, the heavens and earth.

For the past three years, whenever I read about many of my fellow bloggers and their families, I saw a Norman Rockwell picture of perfection – the family gathered around the dinner table, heads bowed, Scripture in hands. Then I’d look at my kids, falling off their chairs, silverware clattering to the floor, giggling through grace, mutinying against every attempt to bring God to the table, and I’d inevitably assume I was doing something wrong. “Why? Why is this so hard? Why can’t my kids be polite and Godly?” I wondered. “What am I doing wrong that they are such spiritual barbarians?”

The answer, of course, is nothing. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I simply needed to persevere until it clicked; to keep trying different options until one fit. And to wait. Patiently.

Maybe it’s simply that they are older now, a little better able to concentrate and understand. Or maybe I should have cut right to the chase, bypassing the devotional books and going straight to the Bible. Or perhaps this, too, will turn out to be a fad. Maybe three weeks from now they’ll mutiny again.

I’m not telling you this story so I can pat myself on the back, or so you’ll look at our family the way I looked at others. Instead, I want you to see what’s real, so that you’ll know that it’s all okay, in every less-than-pretty variation. I want you know that boys tumble from chairs, and silverware clatters to the floor, and someone burps during the prayer, and thanks is given more often for Super Mario Bros. than for the soup.

Grace isn’t always pretty, at least at our house. But through it all, God is present. Even, or perhaps especially, when we fall off our chairs.

What about you? Do you read the Bible or evening devotions at dinnertime with your family? Do you ever feel like you’re raising spiritual barbarians?

With Ann Voskamp’s Walk with Him Wednesday series {because we are trying, again, to make a habit out of this…}

Click here to get posts in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Why I Read Different Bible Translations

When You’re Afraid You’re Raising Spiritual Barbarians

Footer