I REMEMBER SOMEONE IN SCHOOL SAYING THAT THE ROLE OF THE poet is "to make the familiar new." That might explain why different Bible translations of familiar verses can sometimes jump right off the page—bringing fresh insight into beloved words that we've read a hundred times.
That happened to me a few years ago when I looked up two of my favorite verses, James 1:17–18, in The Message, a Bible interpretation by Eugene Peterson. The King James Version says: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures."
And the text for this month's cover feature, "Rivers of Light," comes from The Message's version: "Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures."
