The Revelation of Jesus Christ, Chapter 5:9 "....from every tribe and language and people and nation."

Yesterday I shared with you one of the songs from the movie, Prince of Egypt, ‘Through Heaven’s Eyes’. In listening to that song on You Tube I also noticed the soundtrack had been adapted to a wide array of languages. You can listen to many of these songs in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Italian, Finnish, Greek and it is my understanding that the Academy Award winning title cut from the movie, ‘When You Believe’ was released in 28 different languages. I listened to several translations and was impressed and thought about those going to their local theaters and hearing the music and being able to understand the lyrics in their own tongue. This got me to thinking about those who take the ultimate message of hope to the people groups all over the world in order to communicate the Gospel in the language spoken by the people. This is what I have oozing through one of the cracks of my mental plumbing on this Thursday, July 2, 2009.

One statistic I read said the Bible or portions of the Bible are now available in over 2,400 languages. That’s astounding to me. Think about the effort that has gone into accomplishing this. One of the groups most responsible for this achievement is the Wycliffe Bible Translation ministry. They report on their website that we are down to only 200 million people that do not have a Bible or major portion of the Bible in their own language. Wow! That’s still a huge number of folks, don’t you think? It is, but when you think about it, the number is rather small compared to the nearly seven billion people who breathe air on the planet. Some of these are no doubt the toughest to accomplish because I’ve read about tribes that have no written language, just verbal only. In that situation the translators have to develop a written language before they can produce a written translation. Amazing!

Several months ago we had a missionary visit our local fellowship that works in the Philippines. He was talking about their use of a very inexpensive solar powered self-contained device they could leave with a tribal group where they could listen to the New Testament in their own particular dialect. He said because of this device there had been reported hundreds of conversions, just from listening to the Gospel. Time for another: Wow! This reminds me of a missionary friend we once knew who was called to the mission field in Taiwan. He was not a great student and he struggled in language school. Yes, he could preach through an interpreter but his desire was to present the truth in the language of the people he had been called to minister to. He recounted his first time to preach in the Taiwanese language. He said he most likely used many wrong words and could at times see the puzzled look on the faces of the congregation. At the end he gave an invitation for any to come forward who desired to respond to the message of the Gospel and a very elderly lady came forth and gave her heart to Jesus. One more time: Wow! Pray for and support those who do such wonderful work on behalf of the kingdom! Amen. …..More later.