Great News! (If You Can Understand It)
“For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”. (Hebrews 4:12)
Imagine this: you are a seeker. You go to church and everyone is speaking German, but you don’t know that language. They read the Bible to you, telling you that God loves you so much that He has provided a way for you to live with Him forever, all because Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins, and you can have that eternal life if you will trust in Jesus. How much impact does that make on your life since you don’t understand the language? What would it be worth to you if you could hear that great news in a language you can understand?
The people are friendly, you sense that there is something valuable here and want to know more, so you make the effort to learn enough German to understand the basics. You ask Jesus to save you, and now you want to grow in your faith. You read Bible passages in German, but it’s difficult for you to understand. How much better would it be to have God‘s word in the language that you have been speaking all your life (your “Heart language”)?
What I just described is the situation that far too many people around the world face, and yet, there is hope! At the recent Wycliffe Associates Summit on Bible translation, I heard about great progress toward the goal that “Every person in the world should have a Bible!” In the past four years, their global team launched translation projects in 768 language groups, completed translation of the New Testament in 272 languages, and completed translation of the Old Testament in 18 languages. For the coming year, they have requests for help for 300 languages that still do not have God’s word in their heart language.
The translators face many challenges and hardships – poverty, sickness, remote locations that make access very difficult, hurricanes, hostile governments, drug epidemics and spiritual warfare, to name just a few. Yet their passion is Bible translation. I’m inspired by their dedication, as illustrated by the true story of one translator who translated all 66 chapters of Isaiah, and then his tablet froze and he lost all that work. He started over and completed it a second time, when the tablet froze again. He talked to his pastor, who encouraged him to see it as a great Bible study on the Book of Isaiah, and translate it again. He did, and this time was able to upload it to the cloud!
What is the result when communities get God’s word? It transforms them from poverty to provision (and sometimes plenty), from sloth to service, from neglect to nurture, and from crime to caring.
Until recently translation work for a single language took decades. Missionaries would go into a culture, learn the language, and begin a tedious process of translation, completing it some 20 to 30 years later. Wycliffe has now developed a church-owned translation process that greatly accelerates the progress. In fact, for 25 languages in the last two years, local translators started and completed translation of the New Testament within the same year!
Wycliffe Associates provides the training, the technology, and an open-license source text. (That way, copyright restrictions cannot prevent sharing with others. Local Christians who are native speakers of the target language do the translation and quality control work using a systematic 8-step process to ensure that the completed translation is accurate and sounds natural. (That avoids the awkwardness of the caption on a cartoon I saw years ago: “Do you not be happy with me as translator of books of you?”)
We saw videos of some of the celebrations when people received for the first time their very own copy of the Bible in their heart language. The joy and exhilaration they displayed was amazing!
Ephesians 3:20-21 was a favorite passage for my late wife Elaine. “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh within us, Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” What I heard at the Summit fits that description well.
If you would like to learn more about Church Owned Bible Translation, see bibletranslationtools.org. If you would like to join the team as a donor or volunteer, the website is wycliffeassociates.org.