Different Roads
Can I, as a Westerner, ever fully comprehend how my faith, and the exercise of it, would be different if…
- I didn’t have a complete, written Bible in my language?
- If the only part of Scripture I had was a set of a dozen or so stories that had been translated?
- If I couldn’t read them—I had to listen to them—and possibly, had to hear them once and then remember them?
- If I couldn’t compare what was said in one part of Scripture to a different part of Scripture—if I couldn’t relate this story to a different story in the Bible?
It is a privilege to have the complete Scriptures—in fact, I not only have the Scriptures in my language, I have about a dozen different translation styles (KJV, NKJV, NIV, NLT, NASB, ESV, Message, on and on).
The Early Church didn’t have all these translations. They didn’t have a complete Bible. I’m not arguing that the lack of a complete Bible is a privilege. On the other hand, I am musing on what the plethora of Scriptural material does to my spiritual walk. How would my expectations of my spiritual walk, of church meetings, of what God expected of me, change if I didn’t have all of this?
Roundup
What happened to the unreached this week?
Each Friday I send a newsletter to over 2,400 mission activists, advocates, managers, field workers, and pastors - about what happened among the unreached, and what could happen next. Each issue comes with a curated list of nearly 100 links, and note why each is important. You can get on the list for free.