High in the Finisterre Mountains of Papua New Guinea, Luke Ketenu wrote a letter requesting a wokman ‘worker’ to come to his community, referring to a missionary who could translate God’s Word and teach his people.
Luke wrote his letter on May 28, 2004. He had written before, and he will no doubt continue writing.
Far too often people groups receive the gospel message but never the written Word. What happens to these believers who have no Scripture in their own language? Why is it so important to translate for these seemingly forgotten groups?
When a group of believers does not have God’s Word in their own language, three challenges emerge that could extinguish a young church.
Limited Preaching of the Gospel
Believers who lack the Scriptures in their own language struggle to preach and teach the gospel in a language that neither moves their hearts nor is as readily understandable as their first language.
Pastor Aarav shepherds a small congregation in India. He used to teach and preach from the Scriptures in the national language, Hindi. However, Hindi is neither his own language nor the language of his congregation. During this period, his ministry gradually became a lifeless routine. He even started to question his own relationship with the Lord.
Then Pastor Aarav was appointed to serve as a translator to help bring the Scriptures into his own people’s language. He took this responsibility seriously, praying earnestly for the Lord’s help. While he found translation challenging, he was often motivated by the plight of those who lived without the Scriptures.
With time, he found himself praying more. His passion for the Lord and the Word was growing. He enjoyed translating and studying the Bible so much that he lost track of time while in the Word.
Recently Pastor Aavar has become deeply concerned that he had never rightly understood many passages of Scripture. He had even preached erroneous interpretations of many passages. He was moved to pray for forgiveness and recommit himself to the faithful exposition of the Word.
“Now I deliver good and dynamic sermons,” he wrote. “It happened only by this translation experience. I give all the glory and honor to Jesus.”
With only a Bible in the national language, Pastor Aavar was hindered in his ministry to his own soul and flock. Now with the Scriptures in his own language, he grasps more deeply the meaning of passages and proclaims the gospel with more conviction.
Limited Understanding of the Gospel
The second struggle that churches without the Word in their own language face is a limited ability to grow in their understanding of the gospel.
When the gospel came to the Kekeme people of Cameroon, they recognized their need to be reconciled to their Creator and place their faith in Christ. The Kekeme were familiar with confessing sins and making amends for wrongs by offering sacrifices to their ancestral gods. They have an expression for appeasing such a wrong: law vohna ‘cooling of the heart.’
Although the first Kekeme believers used the expression law vohna in their churches in the context of forgiveness, the concept of law vohna differs significantly from biblical forgiveness. When Kekemes seek law vohna, they acknowledge their wrongdoing and offer a sacrifice, but neither remorse nor turning from wrong plays any role in this cooling of the heart.
Many Kekeme Christians now have an unbiblical view of forgiveness and repentance. They believe that in response to their confession, God will bear with their offense (similar to how their ancestral spirits and gods do) but will not release them from their wrongs. They erroneously believe that after confessing a wrongdoing, they are free to do the same thing again.
This traditional view of God’s forbearance of sin has taken a deep hold in the Kekeme church, as it has in the culture. Law vohna eventually became ‘forgiveness’ for most in the church. Few understand the biblical teaching of repentance and forgiveness.
With the beginning of Bible translation in the Kekeme language in the 1990’s, missionary translators began to grasp that most church-goers held a syncretistic view of forgiveness.
The missionaries and the Kekeme translators started using the expression mbi law tul suya ma fal ‘take one’s heart off of the bad’ to more accurately convey the concept of biblical repentance. They also utilized a more precise expression for forgiveness, sel nzuk ‘release someone.’
The Kekeme New Testament is now completed. With the Word in the Kekeme language, the people will be better equipped to grow in their understanding of the gospel and faith in Christ.
Without the work of translation, the faith of the Kekeme church would remain obscured by unbiblical concepts of forgiveness and repentance–and ultimately a skewed understanding of the gospel.
Limited Faith in the Gospel
The third struggle that churches without the Word in their language face is that their children may grow up in the church, but without any saving faith in Christ. With limited preaching and syncretistic views unchecked by the Scriptures, the next generation may not follow even the weak faith of their parents.
Yanti grew up in the church in Manado, Indonesia. She was accustomed to hearing the services in the national language, Bahasa Indonesian, not her own language, Manado Malay. She did not understand the gospel message, though she recognized that social prestige came with church leadership.
So, as she grew older, she decided to study theology. She noted, “I thought that if I went into theology school, that all my sins would be forgiven.”
Yanti studied in a theological school where she learned the Scriptures in the national language. She graduated and began serving in a church, but she had not submitted her life to Christ. Then one day, she heard the preaching of the gospel in her own language for the first time. She understood that everyone must surrender their lives to Christ, and she was moved in her heart. She knelt down and put her faith in Christ right there.
When the Scriptures are translated into the language of a people, the Holy Spirit brings conviction and salvation as they comprehend the good news about Jesus Christ. Young believers are equipped to read, preach, and teach the Scriptures (1 Timothy 4:13), leading to growth among the believers and a greater impact outside the church as new believers come to faith.
Without the Word in the local language, the faith of the people often stagnates, and eventually churches may die.
A Call to Translate the Word
It has been years since Luke Ketenu wrote from his small village in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. For him and fellow believers to grow in their faith, they need a Bible in their own language.
Luke and his small community are not alone. An estimated 1,680 languages still have no Scripture and no translation underway.
Though the number of languages and communities without the Scriptures is staggering, another number is greater still.
In the fifth chapter of Revelation, Jesus appears before the throne as the Lamb that was slain. By His death He has ransomed a people for God from every tribe, language, people, and nation (Revelation 5:9).
And for all eternity this multitude of the redeemed will declare that Jesus Christ is worthy of all honor and praise.
With our hearts moved by a love for our Savior and desire to glorify the Lamb who was slain, let us seek to build up His redeemed in the faith. And what greater service to our Lord than to spend our days translating His Word to equip His church to grow in their knowledge of Him!