Eugene Peterson, author of The Message and pastor to pastors, dies at age 85
“I’ve loved being a pastor, almost every minute of it,” Peterson once told the Century.
Eugene Peterson, most prominent as author of The Message, a version of the Bible in contemporary language, died October 22 at age 85. He had been on hospice care with dementia and heart failure.
“It feels fitting that his death came on a Monday, the day of the week he always honored as a sabbath during his years as a pastor,” his family wrote in a statement. “Eugene has now entered into the fullness of the kingdom of God and has been embraced by eternal sabbath.”
A scholar of biblical Greek and Hebrew, Peterson was an assistant professor at a seminary when he decided to pursue a pastoral vocation. In 1962 he founded Christ Our King Presbyterian Church, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation in Bel Air, Maryland, leading it for three decades while also writing to encourage other pastors.
