Marketing Messages

Nav Press's youth-and-young-adult imprint, Th1nk (is it think? th-one-k?), has released Eugene Peterson's The Message Bible (actually The Message Remix) in a lunchbox. I'm not sure why. The lunch box is not actually large enough to hold one's lunch, and seems to make the paperback Bible more cumbersome (especially if one were to toss it in a backpack or handbag).

The Message is a wonderful translation andor paraphrase of Scripture, but it has also become a cash cow for Nav Press and Th1nk. The Message actually pre-dates the Th1nk imprint, but when Nav Press launched its youth-and-young-adult label, a new version, The Message Remix, was published under Th1nk. As far as I can tell the only difference between the original version and the remix is that the original does not list verse numbers (only chapters), the remix does. As someone who must regularly cite The Message in my professional life, I prefer the remix; as a reader, I prefer the original.

Nav Press publishes over 30 variations of The Message and The Message Remix that vary primarily in packaging, not in content. The packaging ranges from simple, to fancy, to silly. I'm glad that Nav Press is having such success with Peterson's version of the Bible, but the lunchbox makes me worry that they are exploiting the Bible for profit. I shouldn't judge them; maybe there are people out there who won't read the Bible without a gimmick, but the lunchbox caught me off guard.