PS.
Full disclosure.
For me, the NIV has become a joke after it’s revision, and “The Message” has ALWAYS been a joke.
IMHO.
There is also the steady drumbeat, even among several evangelical sources, of disrepute of the KJV, saying that more modern discoveries dispute the interpretation methods available at that time.
It would think that God took all of this into account.
Depends on WHICH NIV you have and/or use.
The old (not that old) NIV is the most accurate I’ve found.
In a former church, the pastor, in explaining the KJV text often would say “ But in the Greek it means this...”. EVERY time the NIV had it correct.
I figured if you have to correct the meaning in the KJV all the time and the NIV already has that meaning, why aren’t I using NIV? So, I do.
Now I use biblegateway
https://www.biblegateway.com/
and Bible Hub
http://biblehub.com/
all the time.
And then there is always the Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over ***1600*** years ago.....
Move over King James (*407* years old).
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/
The Message helped bring my sister back to her faith in Christ.
“Oh I try to read the Bible but it is just too hard to read....”
“Oh thank your for that Bible! (The Message) I can actually read it and understand it - like Jesus is actually speaking to me!!”
“Well - its not really a Bible - but figured it might help you in your faith.”
She ended up in a Bible study (with real Bibles!) - but still used The Message a lot as she grew in faith. Lots of things worked together to have her renew her faith again - with The Message being one of them.
So amazing to see a person calling in the middle of the night and crying and sobbing and screaming about her fear of dying and how she’s going to hell because she has been so bad and that God can’t forgive her, to being on her death bed and not having ANY fear - “I know that I’m in God’s hands now.”