Bible translation and unreached languages

Your two primary markers in missions today are going to be the church and language. Church and language are two things that we can defend clearly from the scriptures. So, lane one in missions is going to be the training of national pastors, the recovery, if you will, of the global south. That's lane one in missions. Lane two are these excellent English-speaking churches in strategic cities around the world, as English continues to rise more and more, the language of business, the language of aviation, maritime industry, to see English-speaking churches, most often called international churches, and to see the impact that they can have. Then there's lane three, which is these languages or these churches in national languages, Urdu, Bahasa, Arabic, Mandarin, to see more of them. We should not call them an unreached language group, because there are churches among them.

The two markers: church and language, and the four lanes.

But then there's this fourth lane of missions, minority languages around the world, where there is no gospel, no church, and often no translation of the scripture. How do we get there? How do we go to those places and learn those languages for the sake of our kingdom there? So, the fourth lane of missions, there's a few articles on this on 9Marks, it's on Missionary, I believe, on Ligonier, if you want to Google that. But again, you're going to hear the language of unreached language groups, and that's what that's referring

The fourth lane: minority languages with no church.

What is the significance of a people who don't have the name Jesus Christ in their own language, which you don't have a lick of scripture, not even a single verse in their own tongue. Well, it's a sad plight for them, of course, and we wouldn't want our children to be among them.

Michael Morales on peoples without a single verse in their own tongue.

If you have your Bibles, turn to Colossians chapter 1 verse 24. As Chad said, my wife and I served over in the country of Papua New Guinea for 13 years among the Yembiyembi people. I'm going to just give a very brief overview of that so you have some frame of reference as I talk about certain things during this address tonight. We moved in among them in 2003. It took us two years to learn their language. They had no gospel whatsoever, and they had never been exposed to the person of Jesus Christ.

Thirteen years among the Yembiyembi.

It only requires an eye and a finger. It's called a book. And that book will speak to them for generations. The other aspect of missions to unreached language groups that centers on the word is Bible translation. There's a reason why the work done by Martin Luther, William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson had so many rippling effects. They were experts in the local language. If you want to see the translations that last. Look at the speakers of the language who translated that. There's this maxim in Bible translation. Again, I did the New Testament and the Pentateuch. There's this maxim. Your best speakers are your best translators.

Your best speakers are your best translators.

There's these tasks of 2035. We want to see all the languages. I do too, but I want the translations to be real translations. I want them to be high quality. The larger issue, though, is that there are a higher number of translations being done or already done and there are no churches to read them.

Translations without churches gather dust.

But if we are to see lasting churches, let's make sure we prioritize the written word and translations done in conjunction with church plants. Not in isolation from them. The word is paramount. It's by the word that men are saved. But if the word doesn't have a preacher, doesn't have a teacher, and there is no church there, what is it costing us and what is the benefit? We must have the word in their tongue along with the appetite for those who will read it. Number three, through rightly understood suffering. Through rightly understood suffering. When Nina and I moved into Yembiyembi, we were a novelty of novelties. I'm about a head and shoulders and maybe a torso higher than most Yembiyembis.

Prioritize the written word, done with church planting.

We need to see more churches shouldn't call them unreached language groups for fourth lane missions. It's all an attempt to keep our categories clear so that this doesn't get shunted off to less than two percent of the money in the men. When we have good categories, it protects us from going, "It's all missions.

Why “unreached languages” is a clearer category.

So you're talking about fourth lane like when you go to a minority language because you're going from here then you're going to go to the national language. I'm assuming you're talking about being a member of a church there and then you're talking about when you go to a unreached language group Allah Judson and you're learning the language there and you have a team there and whether or not you should covenant together as a team as a church there. Is that what you're talking

Brooks Buser on teams moving from a national to a minority language.