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Folks, it's not a Communication Issue!

We are used to talking about Bible translation in terms of communication. Missiologists talk often talk about 'bridges' used for sharing the good news, which is also a communication metaphor - we have something we want to communicate, but we need a bridge, a way of expressing it, some kind of packaging for it, so that it communicates correctly (or hides whats inside the package, if we interpret the metaphor literally). This is a misunderstanding for two reasons:
  1. It is a false assumption that we have 'correctly' understood the good news. Unfortunately we have only understood a representation of the good news for our own culture. It doesn't matter how we package it, this will be misunderstood or irrelevant to the receptor culture (the primary audience in question). For instance, those in the minority world often explain the good news in terms of our guilt before a just God who has to punish sin, and that He, in Christ, took that punishment on our behalf to make us right with Him. That is the good news for our culture, but doesn't make sense in the honour-shame or power-fear cultures we find in the majority world.
  2. The good news is inherently incarnate, that is it 'becomes flesh' in each culture as that culture wrestles with its message. This means that we don't need to package it, just learn how it is best expressed in that cultural context. For instance in an honour shame culture we need to talk about how God has all the honour, but we have brought shame on him by our behaviour, leading to a break down in relationship. Jesus, as God's perfect representative on earth (his 'Son', bringing all that is God to us in human form), reconciled us with God through is death and resurrection. For a power fear culture we need to talk about how Christ in his earthly ministry defeated the powers of evil (as did the prophets before him, to a lesser extent), and finally won ultimate victory of all evil in rising from the dead, proving that even Death cannot control him. 
This idea is important for any ministry - sharing the good news, Bible studies, producing videos and other media products. If we are sharing good news that is incarnate into the wrong culture, we're not only being culturally insensitive and inappropriate, we are just plain irrelevant in what we do. Those of us in Bible translation might respond by saying, 'Ah, but we are simply providing translated Scripture!' The trouble with that view is that translation involves interpretation, and the very terms we use in those translated Scriptures may carry cultural baggage from the minority world we have come from. Having local mother-tongue translates mitigates this point somewhat, but only if they are not being influenced by teaching from our part of the world, often passed on in seminaries and through Bible teaching in churches. 

China's 'Lucky Knot' Bridge
It is also means that what we need to stop talking about bridges and barriers to sharing the good news. We need to change our way of thinking (as Bob Dylan once sung), and get ourselves a different set of rules ideas. What a tangled web we weave...

Minority world: often called the developed world, or the West

Majority world: often called developing countries, or the two-thirds world
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Comments

  1. Unknown17 November 2017 at 05:12

    What's the answer, then, David? I've never liked packaging - it hides the real thing - but I've always liked bridges. Can I help create a bridge between two other parties? Can 'A' have a role in creating a bridge between 'B' and 'C'? I tried listening to Bob Dylan but I don't think he had the answer.

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