(Amazing excerpt taken from the introduction of “The Message” Bible that I felt it truly profound and urgent to share)

“The Bible is not only written about us but to us. In these pages we become insiders to a conversation in which God uses words to form and bless us, to teach and guide us, to forgive and save us.

We aren’t use to this. We are use to reading books that explain things, or tell us what to do, or inspire or entertain us. But this is different. This is a world of revelation: God revealing to people just like us – men and women created in God’s image – how God works and what is going on in this world in which we find ourselves. At the same time that God reveals all this, God draws us in by invitation and command to participate in God’s working life. We gradually (or suddenly) realize that we are insiders in the most significant action of our time as God establishes his grand rule of love and justice on earth (as it is in heaven). “Revelation” means that we are reading something we couldn’t have guessed or figured out on our own. Revelation is what makes the bible unique.

And so just reading this Bible, The Message, and listening to what we read, is the first thing. There will be time enough for study later on. But first, it is important simply to read, leisurely and thoughtfully. We need to get a feel for the way these stories and songs, these prayers and conversations, these sermons and visions, invite us into this large, large world in which the invisible God is behind and involved in everything visible and illuminates what it means to live here – really live, not just get across the street. As we read, and the longer we read, we begin to “get it” – we are in conversation with God. We find ourselves listening and answering in matters that most concern us: who we are, where we came from, where we are going, what makes us tick, the texture of the world and the communities we live in, and – most of all – the incredible love of God among us, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Through reading the Bible, we see that there is far more to the world, more to us, more to what we see and more to what we don’t see – more to everything! – than we ever dreamed, and that this “more” has to do with God.

This is new for many of us, a different sort of book – a book that reads us even as we read it. We are used to picking up and reading books for what we can get out of them: information we can use, inspiration to energize us, instructions on how to do something or other, entertainment, to while away a rainy day, wisdom that will guide us into living better. These things can and do take place when reading the Bible, but the Bible is given to us in the first place simply to invite us to make ourselves at home in the world of God. God’s word and world, and become familiar with the way God speaks and the ways in which we answer him with our lives.

God doesn’t force any of this on us: God’s word is personal address, inviting, commanding, challenging, rebuking, judging, comforting, directing – but not forcing. Not coercing. We are given space and freedom to answer, to enter the conversation. For more than anything else the Bible invites our participation in the work and language of God.

We read in order to live our true selves, not just get information that we can use to raise our standard of living. Bible reading is a means of listening to and obeying God, not gathering religious data by which we can be our own gods.

You are going to hear stories in this Book that will take you out of your preoccupation with yourself and into the spacious freedom in which God is working the world’s salvation. You are going to come across words and sentences that stab you awake to a beauty and hope that will connect you with your real life. Be sure to answer.”

I AM MYSELF AMAZED AT THE RELEVANCE AND THE POWER OF SOMETHING I ALWAYS THOUGHT OF AS BEING AN OLD RELIC, UNABLE TO BE UNDERSTOOD, OLD-WORLD, HOLY BOOK THAT WOULD DO WHATEVER IT NEEDED TO DO JUST BY BEING IN MY OWNERSHIP… OR EVEN BETTER, KEEPING IT ON MY NIGHTSTAND AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD. LITTLE DID I KNOW THAT THERE ARE MANY TRANSLATIONS, AND THAT ALL I NEEDED TO DO WAS FIND ONE THAT I COULD UNDERSTAND. THERE IS ALSO A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEISURELY READING & STUDYING THE BIBLE. TO TRULY STUDY AND LEARN GOD’S WORD, I LOVE THE NKJV (NEW KING JAMES VERSION). FOR READING AND ENJOYING, I LOVE THE MESSAGE BIBLE. FOR BOTH, I PREFER THE NIV (NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSON). NOW THERE EVEN EXISTS PARALLEL BIBLES THAT HAVE MORE THAN ONE TRANSLATION SIDE BY SIDE TO BE ABLE TO STUDY & ENJOY. I NEVER THOUGHT THAT WOULD GET ME ALL EXCITED BUT IT DOES! SO NOW I’VE GONE FROM BEING TERRIFIED OF READING THE BIBLE TO SEARCHING THE ENDS OF THE EARTH FOR A PARALLEL BIBLE WITH NKJV, NIV, & THE MESSAGE… WHOWOULDATHUNKIT?