Lost in the translation

Nicole and I attended an information/fundraising banquet for Wycliffe Associates, the Bible translation missions agency whose goal is to have started translating the Bible in the remaining 2,000 languages that don't have any portion of Scripture translated into them by the year 2025.  First Baptist Church supports a Wycliffe Missions team, Dave and Joyce Briley, who have been working for almost 30 years in Papau to first learn, and then translate the Bible into, the language of the local people.  The extraordinary men and women who do this work are a rare breed, deserving of honor, that now thankfully are being assisted by technology to do the work faster than ever.  What once took a team a whole lifetime to accomplish, can now be done much faster.  The goal of having the Bible available in every language on Earth is indeed viable.
At the banquet, Jack Popjes, a translator who along with his wife spent about 30 years in the Amazon bringing God's Word to an isolated Indian tribe, spoke about the biggest hurdle he faced in the actual translation process (apart from other factors like health, governmental interference, isolation, etc.).  The people of the Amazon have no sheep.  The Bible contains a lot of sheep related metaphors that need to somehow be rendered understandable to the people.  When it came to translating in Matthew 9:36 Jesus' comment that the people of Israel were "like sheep without a shepherd", Jack was able to use a concept that they did understand, "like chicks without their mother hen".  The purpose of the metaphor remains the same, the Indians who knew about chickens but not sheep understood; problem solved.  However, when it came to John the Baptist's exclamation in John 1:29, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" Jack was stumped.  There didn't seem to be any local example that could explain the metaphor of God taking our punishment for us.  This problem persisted for ten years, other parts of the Bible were translated, the work continued, but this key concept of understanding WHY Jesus died remained beyond the grasp of the translation process.  Eventually, in God's providence, Jack returned to the tribe after a long absence (due to the government of Brazil) only to arrive in the middle of a cultural ceremony in which trouble making youths were being punished by a tribal elder.  In this ceremony, Jack witnessed for the first time, teen girls stepping forward to take the punishment for a boy with whom they had a special friend relationship.  Jack, his wife, his kids, all had these "friend" relationships in the tribal society, it was a something he was well aware of, but for the first time the connection between the Lamb of God and the tribal friend who can take your place struck Jack like thunder.  When he substituted this word for "Lamb of God" and told them the proclamation of John the Baptist, the whole tribe suddenly understood the Gospel in a whole new light.  God is good, he looks after his servants.

So, why do I tell this story that I heard from Jack?  One reason would be to encourage you to support the work of Bible translators, another would be to remind Christians here in America that even if we are all speaking English to each other, that there are people we interact with for whom our Bible-speak might as well be a foreign language.  If you've never been to Church before, the lingo we use on Sunday morning will be as incomprehensible as the techno-babble about computers, cars, or finances that so often befuddle those who don't understand it.  How is someone who doesn't even know who Jesus is, or what he did, supposed to know what we mean we we talk about justification?  The list of theological words that are difficult to grasp is long: propitiation, consubstantiation, transubstantiation, sanctification, providence, etc.  Not to mention the terms we use in ways that seem odd to those who don't understand them, like born-again and saved.  What can we do about it?  An easy enough answer is for pastors to teach and preach in a way that is mindful of those who may not understand the deep theological point you might want to make.  We need to be willing to return to the basics on a regular basis and we need to be unafraid to slow down and explain things.  What we really need is humility.  We know all we know about God because he reveled it to us.  We didn't climb a mountain to discover God, he came down from Heaven to pull us up out of the depths.  Jesus spoke about sheep, fishing, and farming to his audience because it was what they understood; we need to do the same.  "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world", what an amazing and wonderful truth, let's make sure we share it in a way that everyone can understand.

Out with the old, in with the new?

We're in the middle of a kitchen renovation at the church parsonage.  Ross Kilian (from MSM, he's our contractor on this job) and I tore out the old cabinets and the old ceiling tiles on Monday.  The newspapers from behind the wall were from 1968 (the sports page had an article on Pistol Pete Maravich, he was held to "only" 28 points the previous day).  One of the things that we were able to do is reuse the old cabinets, two pair of them above the washer and two above the dryer as well as the other ones out in the carport to store garden tools.  We live in a culture where yesterday's anything is designed to be thrown away and replaced by the next greatest thing, that in turn will be discarded when a new whatever it is comes out in six months.  Living in a home that was built in 1904 helps us to appreciate the craftsmanship and quality of the work that they did back in the day even as we update the kitchen.  Just because something is new, doesn't mean that it is better.  Yes, we need to embrace progress and we need to be willing to change, but not simply change for the sake of change.
The attitude that allows for change, but seeks to do so with wisdom is valuable for the Church.  There will always be some people who seek to change the Church, and there will always be some who try to keep it the same.  How are we to judge who is right and who is wrong, how can we be relevant without being relativistic?  Fortunately for the Church, we have a bedrock of solid ground to stand upon.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the same for you and I as it has been since the days of Peter, and it will be the same long after today's fads had faded into the obscurity of answers to trivia questions.  The Word of God is the same for you and I as it was in the days of Abraham, Moses, and Paul, and it will be the same long after today's expert has been replaced with tomorrow's.  Because we stand upon solid ground, we as a Church do not have to fear change, we don't have to fight progress because our goal and our mission have not changed during the past 2,000 years.  Out with the old, in with the new?  Maybe, let's talk about it, think about it, pray about it, and find out what the Word of God says about it.

Sermon Video: Peter and the Gentiles, Part 2 - Acts 10:30-48

Whether it is among family, at work, or in the justice system or government, favoritism or partiality can be a huge problem.  The question that Peter answers, as he speaks to a crowd in the home of the Gentile Cornelius, is whether or not such a charge can be made against God as it often is against man.  Peter declares to this crowd of people who are earnestly seeking God, but are outside of the Covenant of Abraham, that he is absolutely certain that "God does not show favoritism".  How can this be when God has a Chosen People, a holy nation that has received the blessings of the Covenant?  The answer, although radical to mind of the Jewish nation, is that God is willing to accept all people who "fear him and do what is right."  Peter then proceeds to explain to the people that Jesus Christ has made this relationship with God possible through his death and resurrection.
The results of Peter's message are immediate and dramatic.  The Holy Spirit comes upon those listening and confirms without a doubt that God is indeed amongst these Gentiles who demonstrated their faith by gathering to hear the word of God from Peter.  Peter, along with the Jewish Christians who traveled with him from Joppa, can now see that the same Spirit of God has been poured out upon all who believe in Jesus, regardless of their past, race, or gender.  Is there any favoritism with God, no, he gives grace to us all if only we will accept it.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

Sermon Video: Peter and the Gentiles, Part 1 - Acts 10:1-29

Have you ever wondered how wide or how deep God's mercy is?  Are there any sinners to vile to be saved?  Are there any sinners who fall outside of the scope of God's redemption?  In Acts, Luke answers the first question by showing the Saul of Tarsus could be redeemed even though his heart was full of murderous intent.  The second question is answered when God calls Peter to go to Caesarea and share the Gospel with a Roman centurion named Cornelius.
The choice of Cornelius was not one that Peter made himself; he was doing great work for God in Joppa when God sent him a perplexing dream about clean and unclean animals.  While Peter was trying to figure this vision out, wondering if God was being literal or metaphorical, messengers from Cornelius arrived to say that God had told Cornelius to send for Peter.  Wait a minute; God had spoken to a Roman soldier??  This is actually the third time in Luke's account (which includes his Gospel) that a Roman centurion has played a key role, the other two being the amazing faith of the centurion from Capernaum and the centurion's proclamation at the foot of the cross.  Now, God has once again found faith amongst the Gentiles by choosing this man, a man with a reputation of devotion to God and service for the poor, to be the recipient of Peter's first foray into sharing the Gospel outside of the Covenant people.
Cornelius sent for Peter without knowing what message he would bring, I'm not sure that Peter knew what he was going to say until he arrived at Cornelius' house.  The message that Peter had to share will be in part 2 of this message, but his conviction that he must share the Gospel with them was made perfectly clear when Peter entered Cornelius' house to discover a large crowd of friends and relatives that had all gathered to hear what this messenger from God had to say.
There can be no boundaries to the Gospel, there can be no man, woman, or child that is off the list of potential believers.  God's grace is deep enough, God's grace is wide enough to reach us all.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

Can we get past the past?

I was working on my sermon for this week, from Acts 10:1-29, where God is in the process of convincing Peter that Gentiles deserve to hear the Gospel too.  Peter, and the rest of the Jewish-Christians of the Early Church, had a blind spot in their thinking that made Jesus' prediction that the Gospel must go to the ends of the earth hard to digest.  These sincere believers were victims, some through their own prejudices, some through simply living in an era where this was the prevailing thought, of the inability to see that God was planning on massively expanding his outreach effort.  God was ready to move forward, his people needed to be shown the Truth so that they would follow.
Earlier in the day I was taking a look at the extra verses in Daniel that are part of the Bible of Catholics and Orthodox, but not Protestant, Christians.  This split goes all the way back to Martin Luther and is now so caught up in our theological differences (especially over Purgatory) that it seems likely that Protestants will never see the value of the Apocrypha with clear eyes.  Are these writings on par with CS Lewis, useful but not Scripture, or are they ancient writing from Godly men that were considered part of Scripture for centuries that we've thrown out for the wrong reasons?  How can a Protestant hope to answer that question without getting mired in the theology that the Catholic Church has built upon these texts?  In case you're wondering, the Catholic Church has the same, "we do this because the Protestant do that" problem as we do, just in reverse.  I don't have any problem seeing us all as part of the family of God, I've known enough siblings who act this way.
The same sort of observation could be made in many of the translation issues, cultural issues, and theological issues that often are so intertwined with our own thoughts and preferences that we have our minds made up long before we weigh the evidence, or we only weigh the evidence that conforms with what we're hoping for.  Do we all do this, is it just the guys in the church across the street, or is that a problem here too?
In the end, are we any different than Peter?  We may look back at silly ol' Peter and thank God that we're not like him, we don't have blinders on, but are we just kidding ourselves?  What message is God trying to get through to us, what plan is he itching to set in motion, if only we would hear him and obey?