My firstborn gave me a book as Christmas-gift, and I´ve been reading it every day ever since. It is a very good book, of course, it´s every year´s bestseller, it is the most printed book in the world, and the one translated into most languages! The title of the particular book he gave me is "The Message".

I have been studying the Scripture for thirty years now, and I have come across a lot of different translations. This one, however, makes the Bible feel all fresh and new again!

It is not a translation, its a paraphrase, and as such I´m not going to use it in my work. When I am preaching I find it most important to use as accurate translations as I can get my hands on. But for my personal bible reading this winter and spring this one is terrific!

Since I know most of the Bible well enough to know how a passage usually is translated, it is a thrill to read and discover how this man Peterson has understood and paraphrased it!

And sometimes his choice of words has a streak of genious!

As, for example, when he describes the spiritual development of one of the kings of Judah, after he married one of Ahab´s daughters: "He attended the sin school of Ahab, and finally graduated with a degree in doom..."

I could not but burst out laughing when I read it. Speak of hitting the mark...

But this brings me to a question, a question to both you and me!

Whose school are we attending?

What are we learning from the people we listen to, what are we taking in, and from what sources?

I wouldn´t like to graduate with a degree in doom!

I´d rather graduate with a degree in salvation!

But we will all graduate from the very school we are attending, therefore this is no idle question, it shouldn´t be put off, not by me, not by you.

What school are we attending right now, in our daily life, in school, work, our social life, on internet or elsewhere, in our church? That could be a question of life or death!