I’ve just today run across this article in Mission Network News. Christian Resources International notes that the average US household has 8 or 9 Bibles lying around their house, unused, while in developing countries English-speaking believers may have one Bible per congregation or nothing at all. So CRI suggests you “Bare your Bookshelf” and send the books to them to send in answer to requests overseas.
This might be a noble cause, but I really take issue with the headline: this is being a donor, not a missionary. To call this “being a missionary,” I think, cheapens the whole meaning of the word. Missionaries in particular must cross cultural and linguistic boundaries: you aren’t crossing any boundaries by sending a Bible in your language to someone who speaks English as a second language.
Further, it’s a basic missiological concept that the Bible is best received in one’s own heart language (which is the vision at the heart of, for example, Wycliffe, founded after the famous quote: “If your God is so great, why can’t he speak my language”).
I wonder about the idea that the “average Western household” has 8 or 9 Bibles sitting around. Really? Our house doesn’t have that many. I wonder if most houses do. But I wonder if it might not be better to urge people to forgo buying a new Bible and donate the money to a Bible society that will provide Bibles in local languages… or if you’re going to buy one, at least do a “matching gift,” donating an equal amount to a Bible society.
I appreciate the vision that CRI has to provide resources for those who have little, and who can use an English-language Bible. But at the bare minimum, let’s not puff people up by making them think they’re missionaries when they’re not. Let’s not encourage people to “take the easy way out.” If God’s calling you to be a donor, great. If he’s calling you to be a missionary, you have to do a somewhat more than this.
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OK, I take issue with this too because if anyone is going to send their unused bibles anywhere, I could sure use them! Open wide the doors of our own homes and use those bibles for discipleship and to enjoy. Paul told Timothy, “Devote yourselves to the public reading of scripture.” There is power in the spoken word.
I am grateful that the Bible is in english for my sake. I want to thank the author of the above article and want to meaningfully comment on it…If I had someone read the Bible in German to me or Russian and then teach me Russian so I could eventually understand it, that would be ok… but I think in English. I would forever be missing the deeper understanding and cultural concepts of the Word of God. This may seem trite until you take a passage and remove 20% of the words. (try this as a practical example. Normally, in a second language, we grasp about 80% of the meaning of language and its meaning when we are “fluent”. ) Then reread that passage in your first language without those words… How meaningful is the scripture now? Unless we express the Word in the context and language of the culture to which it is being shared, are we really truly sharing the scripture for their understanding?
I share with you briefly below how this would look with a very well known piece of scripture…
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life. (remove 20 of the more complex words or change their meaning slightly and you have… For God so _______ the world that he gave his only son that whoever _______ in him will not die, but have ________ life. Now the passage reflects what many in our country believe that if God loves the world, noone will die but everyone will have a way to heaven even if they don’t believe in Christ.
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