Scripture Engagement

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...

I often get asked, 'So, why don't you use Google translate? Or, worse, 'I suppose these days you just use Google translate (GT) to translate the Bible.' Here are several good reasons not to use GT: 1. Most minority languages are not on GT. The one we worked on only became available fairly recently, after the Bible was already translated. 2. GT uses a statistical method, relying on having lots of texts available in the language, and lots of translations of those texts into other languages. It then compares the two and guesses the translation. For minority languages, those don't yet exist in books, let alone online. 3. If you do use it it requires heavy checking and editing of the translation afterwards, which takes time, so you haven't gained anything. This is because it guesses the translation. Google does not, as far as I know employ real translators. The only way of improving the quality of Google translations is for many many people to click 'improve tra...

  Seven Myths About the Exile What are you looking forward to? The Jews were looking forward (and still look forward) to the coming of the Messiah. The word for Messiah in Greek is Christ : 1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David , the son of Abraham : 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, 4 Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab , Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth , Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife , 7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, 8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram t...

We are often told that salvation is past present and future. We have been saved (made righteous at the cross), we are being saved (our ongoing sanctification), we will be saved (to future glory). Likewise the kingdom of God is now and not yet. Now this is probably true across the whole of Scripture, but in any given book there tends to be an emphasis using one or the other for whatever idea you're looking at. Take salvation, for example. In the book of Hebrews salvation is a future event. The term is not used about our past or present state or life with God. Therefore to ask the question, 'Can we lose our salvation?' in the context of Hebrews 10:19-39 is to ask a poor question, as salvation is only future in Hebrews, therefore you can lose your salvation as you haven't had it yet! In Scripture as a whole, however, it seems the opposite is true. i.e. if you define salvation as the act of us being made righteous through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, then the answe...

Jayson Georges, in his book '3D Gospel' suggests there are three sets of dynamics in Scripture and also in worldviews that people use as a framework when interpreting Scripture, and especially when understanding the gospel: Innocence-guilt. This the one any Westerner will have grown up with. The big question is, 'How can sins be paid for?' I'll let John Piper explain the rest:  What is the Gospel?   Honour-shame. This is much less individualistic than the one above. The big question is, 'How can honour in the family be restored?' The family, in terms of Scripture, is the descendants of Jacob, and, by extension, the whole of humanity. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3.23). Gentiles were excluded from the covenant (Eph 2) but have now been included. The barrier between Jew and Gentile has been broken down. We are fellow citizens, with them. Jesus, as our older brother, has regained the honour he always deserved, and shares it with us,...

 I just put this chart together: (click on the picture to make it larger) It shows how interrelated all the disciplines in SIL (or any linguistics and translation organisation) are. This has several implications: We all rely on the research carried out at a high level by those working in a particular domain Most of us end up being jack of trades, master of none There's a huge danger of siloisation (which I talked about in an earlier blog) i.e. that we don't talk to each other enough I deliberately put translation under 'SE & Translation', and SE before Translation, as these days we think through the Scripture Engagement goals of a project before getting to far in planning its scope. The latter is actually inseparable from the former, as how a translation will be used, and in what format, and by whom (which audience), will very much influence how the translation project moves forward, including decisions about how to translate in a given verse of Scripture. Also note...

 A lot of people are talking about integral mission these days, whereas the idea of holistic mission seems to have fallen by the wayside. What's the difference? Holistic mission is mission to the whole person, taking into account their physical as well as spiritual needs. Evangelism is combined with social action. Unfortunately, this term has been used for some years now, and much mission that was labelled 'holistic' was mainly social action. Integral mission has more focus on communities and their felt needs. What issues of poverty and (lack of) justice are there? How can a given community begin to address these issues? What input do they need from outsiders as they do so? How can they define kingdom goals that will bring them out of their physical and spiritual poverty? Lausanne defines it here . The fact is that the neediest communities are often ones that lack the Bible, and lack a clear orthography (alphabet corresponding to the phonemic system of the language, and tha...