A Mississippi pastor preached from the Bible for 96 hours, unofficially surpassing the Guinness World Record for individual marathon speaking.

Just because something sounds Christian doesn’t mean it necessarily is. Sometimes demonic forces masquerade as light and lurk unnoticed among believers.

On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick Burgess warns Christians against a “spiritual counterfeit” that has already taken root in many modern churches: the Passion Translation.

The Passion Translation is a modern English paraphrase of the Bible created by former missionary Brian Simmons starting around 2012, with completion plans set for 2029. It aims to convey the "fiery passion" and emotional heart of God through dynamic, readable, heart-level language.

Rick argues that it is a dangerous pitfall.

“The more we researched this labor of love by Brian Simmons, the more my spirit was grieved and the more concern I began to have,” he says. “Here on ‘Strange Encounters,’ we absolutely believe with zero hesitation that the Passion Translation of the Bible is not of God. You need to get it out of your house if it's in your house.”

His first qualm is that the Passion Translation calls itself a translation when it’s really a paraphrase. “It’s already being deceitful,” he warns.

His second issue is that “Brian Simmons has an egalitarian view of men and women in ministry and marriage,” meaning “he believes that men and women are interchangeable in the church and in marriage.”

Further, the Passion Translation, he argues, uses “hyper-charismatic” language that has “never been in Scripture.”

It was also not written by teams of scholars who can “check each other.” “Brian seems to be the sole translator here. He tries to act like there may be other people, but he never tells us who they are,” Rick says.

He accuses Simmons of being “deceitful” by using a later Syriac Bible version from 500 years after the Greek New Testament and falsely calling it the "original Aramaic," making the Passion Translation “pure speculation” rather than a real translation.

But Rick’s number one issue with the Passion Translation is that it was supposedly inspired by a divine encounter. In 2009, Simmons claims that Jesus appeared to him and personally commissioned him to create the Passion Translation, promising to help him unlock secrets of the Hebrew language and give him supernatural downloads of revelation for the project, which supposedly included visits from an angel.

“We're to believe that all those who translated the Bible into English correctly — none of them got it right? And some guy named Brian Simmons was deemed so valuable by God that Jesus went to visit him, touched his forehead, enlarged his brain so he could translate the Bible correctly for us?” Rick asks skeptically.

“He might have been visited by a supernatural being, but it wasn't Jesus and it wasn't an angel, and I have zero problem saying that and saying that boldly,” he declares.

What Simmons has done, Rick argues, is create a faulty version of Scripture that is appealing because it “makes people feel good.” But this is “incredibly dangerous” because “the Scriptures itself tells us never trust your feelings,” he says.

“This is why it's so dangerous.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

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