Finished

I finished Eugene Peterson's
book last night. The book
demanded me to read.
To think. To hear a man's
life story about his vocation.


I learned how he was asked to
"translate" the NT into The Message.
He has written a few of the
chapters in the NT in ordinary
language for his congregation.
Then after he retired from almost 30
years as pastor of the Presbyterian
Church in Maryland , he was asked
by someone at Nav Press who had
copies of those chapters. This guy
gave those copies to people so he
wanted Peterson to do the whole NT.

Eugene was going to
teach one class at a seminary
in Pittsburgh. Now he
had the time. He didn't really consider
it a translation but a way to under-
stand in the language of the
hearers. He wrote:

"When Paul of Tarsus wrote a letter, the people who received it understood it instantly, When the prophet Isaiah preached a sermon, I can't imagine that people went to the library to figure it out. That was the basic premise under which I worked. I began with the New Testament in the Greek --- a rough and jagged language, not so grammatically clean. I just typed out a page the way I thought it would have sounded to the Galatian"

Second son , Brad, is 25 today!
Heading out to celebrate tonight!
Have a good weekend.