Editor's Note: This is Part 2 of a series from Sr. Pastor Brian Hedges on the importance of translation in getting the gospel to the world. You can read Parts 1 and 2 together on the Living Faith Fellowship blog.
God will use some of us to preach his word and others to translate and inscribe his word. We can see this from the opening pages of Genesis. In Genesis 3, when Adam falls in the garden, we see Jesus walking in the cool of the day, seeking Adam. This is certainly not the first time Adam has seen the voice of the LORD walking in the garden in the cool of the day, but it is the first time Adam and Eve hid from him. As the LORD called unto Adam, “Where art thou?” the knowledge of good and evil revealed to Adam that he was in sin and shame was now is covering because he was willingly disobedient to God’s word.
Adam, Eve and Satan heard the words of God verbally, but we didn’t. How do we even know this monumental event occurred at the genesis of human history? Because God has preserved his word for us in written form, so we can behold them visually in the text of Genesis 3. The word of God inspired (spoken) and it was preserved (written). God spoke in the Garden and it was inspired, Moses wrote in the wilderness and it was inscripturated and preserved to be translated once more and preserved in the Authorized Version many generations after it was spoken. Not having an “original,” we have assurance that the written account in our authorized Version is no less perfect than the first copy penned by Moses thousands of years after Jesus spoke to Adam in the garden.
Jeremiah spoke God’s word to Baruch in Jeremiah 36, and it was divinely inscripturated for the benefit of the king yet as the king rejected God’s word so God added more revelation concerning the consequence (a picture of Israel rejecting Christ) and then told Jeremiah to toss the “original manuscript” in the Euphrates. Still today, we have the book of Jeremiah preserved in our English language because God not only saw fit to preserve it in Hebrew, but in due time English as well. That transmission didn’t occur without translation.
The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it. Psalms 68:11
God has given us his word, yet it will not get to approximately 4,650 people groups of the world who have no possibility of reading it because the Bible has not been translated into their language. Many of these people would be blessed with any translation, even what we could consider to be a “bad translation”. Compounding the difficulty, many of these peoples do not have an alphabet or, having an alphabet, the resources to bring a translation (even a bad translation) into fruition as there are no Christians actively working to translate the bible verbally or visually. We should be moved by faith to take his word, speak it and transmit it through the translation process to the souls of those whom God targets.
As we consider the need, let’s look at some more compelling statistics. If we wait for people to get hold of scripture that is already provided (even in a poor translation or paraphrase) that would leave 53 percent of the world without any gospel witness! While there is no doubt the most common language in the world is English, there is still a need to transmit God’s word verbally through preaching and teaching, and visually through translating God’s word to the many peoples, nations and tongues of the world. According to Statista, English is the native tongue of only 378 million of the world’s population. That falls behind Spanish at 442 million and Chinese at 1.3 billion.
Statistically, only 650 languages have a complete translation of God’s word. That does not speak to the quality or accuracy or completeness of the translation, it just refers to any whole translation of God’s word. Another 1,500 only have a portion or portions such as the New Testament translated in their language. That leaves 4,650 languages and dialects yet to read he word of God in their language. It is possible; however, they have heard it in another language or even their language or dialect through a translator.
Language vs. Literacy
As we consider the command of the Great commission regarding transmission, it’s important to consider the incredible strides of literacy regarding language. We in the west take literacy for granted, yet it was only a few decades ago that 50 percent of the world was illiterate. It wouldn’t have mattered if you translated the word of God in their heart language because they couldn’t have read it anyway!
Founder of Bibles for The Word, Rochunga Pudaite (1927-2015), was born in a tribe that before being reached by Welsh missionary Watkin Roberts in 1910, beheaded 500 tea plantation workers and some British soldiers in 1871. Watkin spent five days preaching truth from the gospel of John among the Hmar people and one of the tribal leaders, Rochunga’s father, received the gospel and committed his son, Rochunga would bring the Bible to their people.
The story is tremendous, as Rochunga did produce a new Testament in 1960 after seeking education in India, Great Britain and the United States. What is amazing is that he had to create an Hmar alphabet before he could even begin a translation work! I had the privilege of meeting Rochunga in 2010 at his ministry headquarters in Colorado, Springs.
His belief that the written word of God has the power in itself to do the work of evangelism among unreached and closed nations inspired Randy Foster and me to name the publishing ministry at our church “Word First Bible Publishing”. I mention this example and story because the translation work among the Hmar people not only brought a spiritual revival that started from the preaching of a Welsh missionary from the book of John, but it also brought a great educational movement and upward mobility to the Indo-Burmese population of that region.
You can go online and check the demographic information of the region impacted by the three generations from Watkin Roberts, his converts, then Rochunga and see a vast difference in education and economic blessing to the region. My point is literacy often follows -- or is a byproduct of -- light. We must first go with the gospel, and the Lord will bless his word among the hearts of the people and thereby the culture as it the word of God is received or rejected, revealed or hidden.
Technology and Transmission
In 1436, the first book off the printing press, was a Bible. The printing press allowed the canon of scripture to be fired off like a cannon in the kingdom of God, setting the kingdoms of this world on edge as literacy was about to upset the papacy. The invention of Gutenberg’s typeset printing press would forever change the war for the word in this world. After the invention of the Gutenberg press the volume of books produced rose from a few million to over one billion in just four centuries! You might think the dramatic increase in books was because of the incredible literacy rate. You would be right to assume that, but you would be wrong to assume the population of the world was becoming literate at the same rate as the west. It has only been in recent years that literacy has risen to over 80 percent of the world’s population.
Today, it is estimated that 86 percent of the world’s population is literate. If you think that is low, in 1962 when Brother Don Fraser was stirring Independent Baptists up about the need to be involved in Bible publication, only 61 percent of the world’s population was literate. Ten years prior it was estimated that 56 percent of the world’s population was literate.
Today, the U.S. ranks 17th in the world for literacy, with 99 percent of the population being literate. In 1960, many places around the world didn’t have populations who could read their language even if they had a Bible available in it. This is still the case among many of the unreached and least reached populations, but language and literacy are as advanced as perhaps they have ever been since the days of Nimrod.
Translation and Transmission From Gutenberg to Google
The Bible may have been the first thing off the printing press, but the first thing off a movie screen was not the Bible and the first thing transmitted across the Internet was not the Bible, though all those mediums have a great potential to deliver the gospel message and teach people the word of God. As important as Gutenberg was, Google and the technology of today is equal in transmission of the word of God verbally (preaching and teaching) and visually (written word of God).
The Antichrist will most certainly capture the hearts of many and deceive them with technology, but we must not relent in our use of technology to advance the gospel until the catching away of the church, for it is every bit as revolutionary to communicating God’s word as the Gutenberg press.
Theology Drives Our Methodology
Those who may still be reading have shown a great persistence and perhaps the perseverance necessary to be involved in translation. You should know that theology drives your methodology so take the time to go through the discipleship process in your local New Testament Church. Get all the Bible education you can to accentuate and complement your linguistics training.
It is important that if you are going to jump off the diving board into translation work, you need to have as good a grasp on the Bible as the art of linguistics for inevitably a formal method of translating which we prescribe will bring you to places of decision in determining direct equivalence in grammar and meaning that will leave your stomach in knots and your heart heavy in prayer over the proper transmission of God’s truth. Your discipleship process (all seven stages) will come to bear upon your work so make sure you make full proof of your ministry.
There are three general methods for approaching translation work:
- Formal method: This is a word-for-word translation bringing the sense from the preserved word and transmitting it into the target language. The King James gang used this method and showed their work as they revealed a word for word translation from the received text into the English language. The words in italics in the Authorized Version reveal the English words added to give the proper sense in English grammar.
- Dynamic equivalence method: This is a thought-for-thought translation. Instead of holding to a word for word translation the translators take the liberty to communicate the thought they feel is implied by the text.
- Free paraphrase method: This would be a transmission of general idea, with little regard to translation or communication of source text. This method would be summarized as redefining content “in your own words.”
A faith-based translation process would follow the pattern of the King James Translators, and is often accomplished by a team who helps check and work through difficult passages with the primary translator(s). In today’s world, it is very possible to be part of a translation team and never leave your local church or the continental United States. Technology allows people to collaborate all over the world.
Translation of God’s word is not for everyone in the body of Christ, but transmission is. It could be, however, that God is calling some among the Living Faith Fellowship who have a faith-based view of scripture to consider trusting God to equip you in the art of linguistics or an aspect of translation work that would lend itself to accomplishing the mission of God through transmission of literally translating the word of God into another language.
We must not be presumptuous. Translation work is not easy, and it is not met without spiritual resistance from the adversary. A Christian who considers being part of a translating ministry needs to count the cost, prepare their mind and heart and seek counsel from their pastor as the work is laborious and tedious as it is rewarding and eternal.
For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Luke 19:10
Like Adam in the garden, man is hiding in sin and shame awaiting the voice of God to penetrate the isolation of his wicked heart with words of life that will lead him to reconciliation through the sacrifice of Christ. Jesus has won the war, so we go forth and proclaim the victory both verbally and visually as we provide the word preached and the word preserved. We have little time to waste arguing too long about the veracity of the English Bible that has been delivered to us in the Authorized version when 400 years has proven it to be purified and true. There are many peoples left who are still awaiting to hear the gospel, see a tract, read a portion of scripture and someday, by God’s grace have a Bible in their native language. We must go because we know God was not only speaking the apostles in Matthew 28:18-20, but he was speaking to us who are his disciples today.