|
WHY CAN'T GOD SPEAK MY LANGUAGE?
A young missionary, William Cameron Townsend, went to Guatemala in South America to share the Gospel of Christ with the Indians there. They belonged to several tribes, each tribe speaking its own language. The other missionaries used Spanish to communicate with them, as some of these tribals understood a little of this trade language. Townsend followed their example but was not able to progress far.
One day one of these tribals asked Townsend,
“If your God is so great, then why can't He speak my language?”
Challenged by this question Townsend began to study the Cakchiquel language in 1919. He finally completed the translation of the Cakchiquel New Testament in 1931. Three years later he began a training program to help other concerned young people acquire linguistic skills how to learn an unwritten language, how to put it into written form, and how to translate the Bible into such a language. Since then as the work of translating God's word into these languages has been taken up, light has begun to dawn for several hundred different tribes around the world.
It is reported that there are about 6000 languages spoken in the world today. The Bible is available in part or in whole in about 1800 languages. In India, New Testament has been translated in 62 languages, whole Bible is translated in 70 languages and in 128 languages the translation is in progress. Now it is urgent requirement to start the translation in 110 languages.
In most cases we have been trying to communicate the Gospel to the tribals in the regional language, the trade language. But are we doing the right thing in using a language they do not know well instead of the mother tongue for passing on to them the Christian message? The mother tongue is the language which speaks to the heart. If the people have the Bible in their mother tongue they may walk in the truth and get the eternal life by reading the Bible.
Three hundred years ago, the Bible was translated in Tamil language (South India) by Sir Ziegan Balg. But still there are 110 languages, for the urgency of the Bible to be translated in India.
“THE GREATEST MISSIONARY IS
THE BIBLE IN THE MOTHER TONGUE”
- William Cameron Townsend
Life Giving Word has been established to translate
THE BIBLE IN THE MOTHER TONGUE OF THE PEOPLE
WHO SPEAK SCRIPTLESS SPOKEN LANGUAGE.
One person’s commitment is needed to translate the Bible in one language. God is looking for men and women who will give themselves to this challenging task. You too could be that person!!!
|
