Dying of deliciousness...
You all should know me well enough by now to know that I am always looking for missions books to read. I will read just about anything that has do with Christian missions. If you were to take a look at my bookshelves you would see that I have a wide variety of books (mostly from my missions classes) covering various aspects of missions. I picked up 3 (yes, only 3. I know... shocker!) new books at the International Conference On Missions back in November. I have read 2 of them in the last month and really enjoyed both of them. One was on getting the church to be passionate about justice and facing the issues of injustice that are so prevalent in our world today whether we want to admit it or not. The other was about stories of Bible translation. When my friend Kyle Brown saw me pick that one up, he got really confused because I have never been one to talk about Bible translation. But it's a missions book, I was intrigued and I wasn't disappointed when I read it!
The MultiLingual God: Stories of Translation by Steve Fortosis was a great book about some of the stories of translation that most people would never guess at or even imagine. He talked about how the translators will have to wrestle with how to translate passages in ways that the people group they are translating for will understand. A lot of the stories had to do with how some cultures won't know what a boat is or what a lion is like. Or they will believe snakes to be good creatures or they won't believe that there is a God who is good and who cares for them personally. And those things will affect the way a certain verse is translated and understood. It was a fascinating book with tons and tons of examples and stories.
One of the greatest things that really made me stop and think was a story of translation with the Folopa people in Papua New Guinea. The missionary, a man by the name of Neil Anderson, was working to find a way to translate and explain why Jesus was crucified. He was looking for a word to use that would mean the same as the English word for ransom. As he was learning different words and talking over scenarios with his language helper, he settled on one and read the story. One of the elders of the village was listening and at first he couldn't believe that Jesus, a man, would have been used as a ransom. He then sat back, smiled and said, "We are dying of the deliciousness of this talk (page 78-79)." That stopped me right then and there.
Dying of the deliciousness of this talk... That phrase was used a few other times in the book. And each time it made me stop for a minute. What an amazing way to describe the joy one finds or experiences when hearing the Word of God for the first time. Or the renewed love for Scripture one gains when hearing the familiar stories in a new way or with a new understanding. But how often do those of us who have easy access to a Bible in our mother tongue respond in that way? How many of us cherish our Bibles so much that we are willing to let it literally fall to pieces because it so well worn? How many of us love to read Scripture so much that we are willing to copy it down by hand and memorize it just in case we find ourselves without a Bible nearby? How many of us are committed enough to our relationship with God and the journey of being His disciple that we actually think to take our Bibles to church with us on Sunday mornings? How many of us are dying of the deliciousness of this talk? This talk of Jesus and His sacrifice. This talk of God's love that cannot be bought or earned, but is freely given. This talk of how God wants us to be with Him forever.
There are roughly 6,909 languages spoken in the world today. And of those 6,909 only about 2,582 of them have full translations or just portions of the Bible translated (statistics come from Operation World, 7th edition, 2010). That leaves a lot of people without any access to the Bible. That leaves a lot of people without the ability to explore Scripture and read for themselves the greatest story in history. And yet, we in the US take advantage of having a Bible in English. We have at least one, if not two or three or even more (and yes, I am guilty of having too many Bibles sitting unused), sitting on the shelf gathering dust. We have it sitting on the table by the door in the hopes that we will remember to pick it up once a week when we leave for Sunday morning church. Why is it that those who learn to read the same stories and to love the same God as we do through the work of committed translators care for and appreciate their Bible more than we do? Is it the fact that we are a spoiled and pampered nation/church that takes for granted the fact that we are blessed to have a copy of the Scriptures? Is it because we don't really mean it when we say we want to be more committed disciples and know the Word? Is it because we don't think it's as important for us to read and study the Bible because we have easy access to a church, a preacher and a Sunday morning program that feeds us and we are satisfied with that even though we are supposed to be filling ourselves all week long and not just on Sundays? Why is that the people who speak the 2,581 languages (I took out English) that have full or partial translations cherish what they have more than we do?
Why are they dying of the deliciousness of this talk and we aren't? I don't understand...
The MultiLingual God: Stories of Translation by Steve Fortosis was a great book about some of the stories of translation that most people would never guess at or even imagine. He talked about how the translators will have to wrestle with how to translate passages in ways that the people group they are translating for will understand. A lot of the stories had to do with how some cultures won't know what a boat is or what a lion is like. Or they will believe snakes to be good creatures or they won't believe that there is a God who is good and who cares for them personally. And those things will affect the way a certain verse is translated and understood. It was a fascinating book with tons and tons of examples and stories.
One of the greatest things that really made me stop and think was a story of translation with the Folopa people in Papua New Guinea. The missionary, a man by the name of Neil Anderson, was working to find a way to translate and explain why Jesus was crucified. He was looking for a word to use that would mean the same as the English word for ransom. As he was learning different words and talking over scenarios with his language helper, he settled on one and read the story. One of the elders of the village was listening and at first he couldn't believe that Jesus, a man, would have been used as a ransom. He then sat back, smiled and said, "We are dying of the deliciousness of this talk (page 78-79)." That stopped me right then and there.
Dying of the deliciousness of this talk... That phrase was used a few other times in the book. And each time it made me stop for a minute. What an amazing way to describe the joy one finds or experiences when hearing the Word of God for the first time. Or the renewed love for Scripture one gains when hearing the familiar stories in a new way or with a new understanding. But how often do those of us who have easy access to a Bible in our mother tongue respond in that way? How many of us cherish our Bibles so much that we are willing to let it literally fall to pieces because it so well worn? How many of us love to read Scripture so much that we are willing to copy it down by hand and memorize it just in case we find ourselves without a Bible nearby? How many of us are committed enough to our relationship with God and the journey of being His disciple that we actually think to take our Bibles to church with us on Sunday mornings? How many of us are dying of the deliciousness of this talk? This talk of Jesus and His sacrifice. This talk of God's love that cannot be bought or earned, but is freely given. This talk of how God wants us to be with Him forever.
There are roughly 6,909 languages spoken in the world today. And of those 6,909 only about 2,582 of them have full translations or just portions of the Bible translated (statistics come from Operation World, 7th edition, 2010). That leaves a lot of people without any access to the Bible. That leaves a lot of people without the ability to explore Scripture and read for themselves the greatest story in history. And yet, we in the US take advantage of having a Bible in English. We have at least one, if not two or three or even more (and yes, I am guilty of having too many Bibles sitting unused), sitting on the shelf gathering dust. We have it sitting on the table by the door in the hopes that we will remember to pick it up once a week when we leave for Sunday morning church. Why is it that those who learn to read the same stories and to love the same God as we do through the work of committed translators care for and appreciate their Bible more than we do? Is it the fact that we are a spoiled and pampered nation/church that takes for granted the fact that we are blessed to have a copy of the Scriptures? Is it because we don't really mean it when we say we want to be more committed disciples and know the Word? Is it because we don't think it's as important for us to read and study the Bible because we have easy access to a church, a preacher and a Sunday morning program that feeds us and we are satisfied with that even though we are supposed to be filling ourselves all week long and not just on Sundays? Why is that the people who speak the 2,581 languages (I took out English) that have full or partial translations cherish what they have more than we do?
Why are they dying of the deliciousness of this talk and we aren't? I don't understand...
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