Over the last 38 years in more than 100 countries, First Fruit has had a front row seat to witness how God is drawing people to Himself. It has been a thrilling privilege.
One of our largest areas of investment, and one of the most touching to be a part of, is helping make the Bible accessible to more people in their heart language.
The goal of bible translation is to make Scripture understandable to everyone in every language. In a previous post, for example, we shared about the importance of developing a modern translation in Farsi for the rapidly growing church in Iran. As the following infographic (provided by Wycliffe) illustrates, the remaining task is enormous:
Clearly, new methods have to be tried to accelerate the process of Scripture translation, such as utilizing indigenous translators and new technologies.
The Seed Company has taken on this challenge. Click on the photo below to watch the moving story of the New Testament being brought to the Gamo language (Ethiopia) for the first time after years of religious persecution:
Providing written text alone, however, is not enough because of the huge populations of predominantly illiterate, semi-literate and traditionally oral learning peoples. Scripture must also be made available through audio recordings, video and storytelling methods. In a previous post we highlighted the effectiveness of storytelling and oral methods in reaching historically resistant people groups with the gospel in the Tension Belt of Africa.
But what if you couldn’t hear God’s word?
DOOR understands the serious need of bringing God’s word and Christian fellowship to deaf communities worldwide. Founded in 1983, the ministry began, translating the Bible into sign languages so they can train Deaf to do evangelism and church planting.
Click on the image below to view a Topical Study Bible developed in deaf training centers in Kenya and India:
deafbiblesproject.com
Whether through literate means or oral, whether in audio, video or sign language, in more languages and more methods than ever before in human history, we each can bear witness to the fulfillment of God’s word, spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”