Scripture Engagement

So, I was just chatting with an arts specialist I know, and we were discussing how the arts help with Scripture engagement (SE). I told him that the arts help fly truth under the radar. He went a step further, saying, "Local arts speak directly into people's hearts." Now, that got me thinking. How often do we, in the Bible translation and SE world, talk about how hard it is to get the truth into people's hearts? There are all kinds of barriers: The message might not be contextualised enough, so it doesn't seem relevant or interesting They might not know enough background of the Bible to understand the message It might be in the wrong language (they might not know the prestige language very well) If it's in print, they might not be very literate Even if it's taught, it might not be taught in the right way -  orally , using oral-preference learner techniques of communication i.e. stories, memorisation, show me then let me do it myself (with input), then let ...

When discussing Wayne Dye's Eight Conditions of Scripture Engagement , it's common for people in the Bible translation world to say, 'That's one of those conditions we can't do anything about.' Unfortunately there are a couple of these: Condition 6: Spiritual Hunger Condition 7: Freedom to Commit to the Christian Faith Actually it's not true. Let's have a look at how these can be addressed by teams. Condition 6 can be addressed by looking at the felt needs of the community, and by contextualisation. Condition 7 can be addressed by contextualisation. So... Felt Needs Sometimes a community will have various struggles to do with finance or health or their collective self esteem. These can be addressed biblically, which means coming up with Kingdom goals or biblical values to replace those that are unhelpful. I heard of one community where they were continually hungry, because they could not produce enough rice to feed themselves. Developers came in and help...

Dear Magsatabat, One thing I didn't do, was to list the advantages and disadvantages of recording audio first (before the print version is released). The advantages are: It makes the books available in a very useful way. Various partners can use them for their ministry Changes will need to be made to the style of some sentences as you make the recordings. For instance, word order changes might need to be made. These can then be included in the print version, so they match. If you release the print version first you have zero flexibility for making changes while you are doing the audio recording Audio is arguably less threatening than print (less 'official'), so can be released without causing any problems It doesn't take much time to record e.g. Genesis, whereas the whole Old Testament will take months You might need permission for the OT before you start the recordings The disadvantages: You might not be able to use a professional actor (though you could, if you can us...

Many years ago I had some friends at university who were against Christmas. 'It's not in the Bible,' they argued. Well, possibly. The festival at least is not actually in the Bible. So how did we come to celebrate Christmas and Easter in the ways we do now? Part of the answer is that we continued some practices from our previous, pagan religion. Churches were built next to sacred trees. The winter festival was redeemed and became Christmas, along with the Christmas trees, which might have come later, but are definitely not in the Bible. Similarly the spring festival was redeemed and became Easter, though this actually coincides with the Jewish Passover festival when a lamb was sacrificed in remembrance of the redemption of the people Israel from Egypt, (John 19.14 cf . Exo 12ff). What my friends were against is the mixing of our previous paganism and our current Christianity into one, syncretistic modern day religion, with all of its feasts and fasts. I would argue that we ...

I just had some training on these four levels that businesses use to evaluate their priorities: Tier 1: Mission Critical Tier 2: Very Important and Strategic Tier 3: Meaningful but not Essential Tier 4: Lower Priority and Often Externally Initiated So, what, in the world of Bible translation (BT), is mission critical? Many would say, "Translating the Bible!" I would actually put that on level 2, very important and strategic. At the level of mission critical is Scripture engagement (SE). Meaningful but not essential would include certain computer programs we use, such as Paratext, which is essential to some but not, for example, if you are involved in oral storying or oral translation (HearThis, or Render are more useful). At level 4, lower priority, would be all the stuff we have to do to a) stay in the country where we are carrying out our ministry b) organisational requirements like archiving data (not the same as having an online backup of it). We need to have a discussion...

If you want to get useful answers you have to ask the right questions. Do you agree? Yes, of course you do. In the Bible translation world we often ask a very narrow question when planning for the next stage of work: 'What would you like to see translated next?' Now, if you simply want to translate, and that's it, that question is fine, but what if you want to see some kind of result from your translation work? What if, for instance, you want to see transformation occur? Then a more powerful question to ask the community and positive stakeholders in the project would be: 'What kingdom goals would you like to see reached?' These kingdom goals should meet felt needs of the community - they should solve problems that are apparent to most or all in the community. See below on how those can be met. If that's too abstract, then try, 'What kinds of things, in your extended family, do you tend to worry about?' This will help establish some felt needs, from which...