International (MNN) — The church is multiplying around the world, but Bible access remains a huge bottleneck. One in five people are still waiting for a Bible in their own language, according to Wycliffe Translators. 

Dane with ministry unfoldingWord says, “The traditional Bible translation organizations for 150 years have done amazing work, but they can’t meet the demand.”

The strategy unfoldingWord uses is a church-centric Bible translation process, which empowers indigenous believers to be part of the translation process. 

Image courtesy of unfoldingWord

“We have a deep conviction that Bible translation really belongs to the church. It should be located in the church,” Dane says. 

Church-centric Bible translation increases local people’s investment in the end product. People also grow spiritually from getting involved with translation work. Dane says that it is less about producing a product and more about equipping the church to think exegetically and root itself in the Bible in their heart language.  

When local believers are not part of the translation process, there is a greater risk that people will not read and love the Bible, even when it is given to them in their own language.

Dane says, “But if the local people don’t own it, then they’re like, ‘Oh, thanks a lot. Here, let’s put that on a shelf. See you later.’ And it’s called a Bible without a village.” 

Barriers overcome

There are a number of barriers to Bible translation that a church-centric approach helps overcome. In the traditional approach, a PhD level Bible translation consultant needs to review the work, but the number of consultants is dwindling rapidly. Today, there are only around 250 consultants, by Dane’s estimate. But unfoldingWord has a tool called translationAcademy, accessible through the translationCore software suite. It addresses all the questions a consultant would be called upon to answer at a much faster rate. 

Another obstacle to translation is that most source-text Bibles have copyright licensing attached to them. To help churches overcome that, unfoldingWord worked with several partners, including Biblica and the Center for New Testament Textual Studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, to develop many vetted and certified open-license resources, such as a Greek New Testament. 

Jesus-followers created

Man working with translationCore. Image courtesy of unfoldingWord

When Bible translators invite members of the community to help, many hear the Gospel for the first time. Dane shares the story of a woman who heard her husband working on a Christian translation project and knocked on his door, insisting that he was getting words wrong.

“She gets involved in the translation and she gets saved,” Dane says. “She is gloriously saved. And she’s one of those people who is just a natural-born evangelist. Within a year, she had testified and shared the Gospel with over 600 people and led 70 of them to Christ.” 

Dane says he has heard many similar stories of people turning to Christ when they dig into the Bible for the first time through translation projects. 

“And it’s like, ‘This is the God I’ve been looking for my whole life. It’s not Buddhism, it’s not Animism, it’s not Islam. This is the God I’ve been looking for.’ And they come to Christ,” Dane says. 

Pray for the work of Bible translators around the world. Ask that God would bless the work of unfoldingWord and bring more people to faith in Christ through their involvement in Bible translation.

 

Image courtesy of unfoldingWord