Access to God’s Word is limited in most languages, to say the least, and study resources are even harder to come by. Dane* with unfoldingWord says, “These people need contextualized resources developed by their own pastors and leaders in their own countries.”

Helping these believers is not as easy as handing them an English Bible commentary and asking the community to share.

Believers need to have resources in their heart language to truly understand the deep meanings communicated in the text. However, translating critical study aids into another language isn’t as straightforward or simple as it may appear.

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

For example, “If you wanted to take a Baker New Testament commentary and translate it into, say, Sudanese Arabic, you would have to have a copyright license and renew that copyright license every year,” Dane says.

“You can get those licenses if you have a lawyer to do the work for you, if you can afford it, and if you have time. These folks don’t have any of that stuff,” Dane continues.

“We’re providing [believers with] the means to do this [work] themselves.”

Yet even when church planters create study aids in their heart language with help from unfoldingWord, the aids aren’t always accepted. One young Gospel worker in South Asia found this out the hard way.

“They had done a nice translation. They had packaged it; I think it had a cross on the cover. His grandpa took one look at it and said, ‘That’s a foreign religion; I don’t want to have anything to do with that,’” Dane recalls.

“Because it looked like something from the West, Grandpa didn’t trust it.”

Everything changed when the worker explained his role in creating the resource. “As soon as grandpa understood, ‘Hey, this is in our language, and my grandson helped do this,’ the trust factor just went through the roof, and he was willing to listen and learn,” Dane says.

“When you bring something into a culture from the outside, they don’t necessarily trust it; they need to have a hand in [developing] that resource. We’re equipping local church networks in these hard-to-reach areas so that they can write their own commentaries and Bible translations.”

Here’s how you can help. “This summer, we have a generous donor who has provided a $100,000 matching grant, and we’re calling [it the] ‘Race for the Nations’ campaign. This will help fund Bible translation work in Chad, Benin, and Eurasia,” Dane says.

“If people wanted to be part of it, we would certainly welcome that and be grateful.”

*Name withheld for security purposes.

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Suzy Hazelwood/Pexels.

“We want to equip the Church with the ability to translate the Bible for themselves in every language. But we also want to equip the Church for spiritual formation and discipleship,” Dane* with unfoldingWord says.

“We’re not just handing out Bibles; we are developing Bible translators.”

Many of the Gospel workers and church planters that unfoldingWord works with to translate God’s Word are simultaneously serving as pastors or local church leaders. Unfortunately, most pastors working in frontline regions with significant Gospel gaps lack study aids such as Bible commentaries.

Dane saw the need first-hand when visiting church planting partners in Sudan.

“I was so heartbroken because they only had two or three 100-year-old general reference works [with which to train] young men and women coming out of Islam and coming to Christ in these huge refugee camps,” Dane says.

“The need is huge, and we cannot just hand them English resources because they’re all copyrighted.”

Copyright laws limit believers’ ability to develop new resources in their heart languages. So, unfoldingWord advocates for the Open License movement and releases tools under Creative Commons/Share Alike licenses.

“unfoldingWord’s content and training make Bible translation possible for the ordinary person. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in linguistics to do this. We can tell church-planting networks who want to translate the Bible for themselves, ‘You can start today, right now!’”
–unfoldingWord partner in Eurasia
(Photo, caption courtesy of unfoldingWord)

“You can get those (copyright) licenses if you have a lawyer to do that work for you [and] you can afford it, and if you have time. These folks don’t have any of that stuff, so we’re providing them the means to do this themselves,” Dane says.

With your help, unfoldingWord teaches church planters how to translate Scripture. More about that here. Believers learn additional skills along the way that help them develop Bible commentaries.

“We teach them basic exegesis as part of the translation training process. We teach them how to grasp the meaning of the words in context, and then we teach them how to discuss [among themselves] what the text means. Then, there’s personal reflection – that’s applying what the text commands to themselves,” Dane explains.

“Next, if you’re in ministry, you’re not just thinking about how the text applies to you personally, but how does it minister to your church community? Finally, how does this text work when it comes to missional outreach? How do you announce this text to the surrounding world?” he continues.

“Learning this approach gives them insight into the Word of God that they’ve never had before, and it enriches their teaching. They translate, let’s say, 1 Timothy 3 during the week, and then as they’re teaching it, and they’re able to dive deep into it.”

Pray for the funding and manpower needed to finish work on Bible commentary projects in minority languages. Pray these resources will help pastors shepherd their flocks.

*Name withheld for security purposes.

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.