It's not OK with me
that pastors and churches try to make disciples without having the Bible in a
language that gets under the skin and into the bones and muscles of their
people. They are like herdsmen who think they are giving their herds good
grass but are actually giving them indigestion and gas. Sometimes this happens within
our own culture, where we have several sub-cultures and different ways of
speaking about everyday things. If you want someone to think you are from
another planet, then don't learn to express the Gospel in new ways that are
relevant to the way people around you think and speak.
This also happens outside
of our culture, where the languages and cultures of the world without any
part of the Bible number about 2,000. If you want churchgoers in Africa
or Asia or anywhere to see Christ as an alien from another planet (maybe named
Israel) or someone else's culture (such as Western), if you want people to
think there is magic in Christianity and they need to be initiated into how to make
it work, then keep the Bible in a foreign language. That's also a great aid to syncretism and
sects.
But if they learn
English, or French, or Spanish, or Portuguese, or Chinese, or Russian etc in
school, they are already using those languages to study school subjects,
get a job, learn a trade or run a business.
Isn't that enough with the Bible too?
Enough for what? For learning about love and sin and sacrifice and forgiveness? For expressing trust and confidence and joy
and forgiveness and love and wholehearted commitment? Do we want disciples trained as though
knowing Jesus and following him were a matter of acquiring skills and habits
the same way they learn to become a carpenter? Such learning may lead to success and getting
ahead, but does it touch the whole person, created in the image of God?
Where does discipling
happen? In isolated parts of life that do not touch the thoughts and emotions? So
many are still waiting to know that their hungers, no matter how deep, are
already known and provided for by the Creator God of the universe, and that He
speaks the language of their thoughts and emotions.
Nancy Haynes is a missionary with Wycliffee bible Translotrs in Cameroon
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