Quotes from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)

Eugene H. Peterson ·  2272 pages

Rating: (6.5K votes)


“You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.
(Matthew 5:14, The Message)”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“That's why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they're blue in the face and not get it.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)



“God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“Forget about deciding what’s right for each other. Here’s what you need to be concerned about: that you don’t get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is. I’m convinced—Jesus convinced me!—that everything as it is in itself is holy. We, of course, by the way we treat it or talk about it, can contaminate it.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“Jesus is the descent of God to our lives, just as they are, not the ascent of our lives to God, hoping he might approve when he sees how hard we try.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“An honest answer is like a warm hug.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)



“When God wanted to guarantee his promises, he gave his word, a rock-solid guarantee—God can’t break his word. And because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“And so we gain hope—not from the darkness of our suffering, not from pat answers in books, but from the God who sees our suffering and shares our pain.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)



“When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don’t quit.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.—2 Corinthians 4:16”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own. Romans 4:3”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)



“GOD proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from GOD. It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out through the hard times. 28-30 When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don’t ever count on it.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“Left to ourselves we turn God into an object, something we can deal with, some thing we can use to our benefit, whether that thing is a feeling or an idea or an image.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“When besieged, I’m calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I’m collected and cool.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)



“Every day I review the ways he works, I try not to miss a trick. I feel put back together, and I’m watching my step. GOD rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


“So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times! 17 Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants. 18-20 Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, quote from The Message Remix (Bible in Contemporary Language)


About the author

Eugene H. Peterson
Born place: in East Stanwood, WA, The United States
Born date November 6, 1932
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