2020 Is the ‘Year of the Bible’: Harnessing Tech to Fulfill the Great Commission by Wendy Griffith for CBN News
Musicians and politicians are declaring 2020 the “year of the Bible“. It’s a year-long campaign to promote a global celebration of the Word of God.
Jesus said, preach the word to every tongue, tribe, and nation and then the end will come. Today, thanks to new technologies, what once seemed a nearly impossible task, is now happening at much greater speed, and that includes Bible translation.
Twenty or 30 years ago, Bible translators had to say goodbye to friends and family, sometimes for years at a time, to live overseas. Today, video chat, text messages, and the global network allow missionaries to serve from their homes in the US and connect to translation teams remotely.
Now is your chance to support Gospel News Network.
We love helping others and believe that’s one of the reasons we are chosen as Ambassadors of the Kingdom, to serve God’s children. We look to the Greatest Commandment as our Powering force.
Dr. John Chesnut of Wycliffe Bible Translators tells CBN News, “What used to take years and years to do – for example, a New Testament may have been 20 years, 30 years – now we can bring it along in about 6-8 years which is pretty incredible.”
Chesnut says today’s technology allows the indigenous people themselves to engage in the work, much more so than in the past.
“Many have training or we get to train with them, in order to use this technology. And so more and more, they are actually doing the work,” Chesnut says.
Chesnut says they’re also seeing smartphones replace print.
“And smartphones can go and take text and scriptures and videos places where print cannot, particularly in countries where it may be a safety or security issue for them to be caught with something that’s printed,” Chesnut says.
There are still many many people groups out there that don’t have the Bible in their own language.
Chesnut says, “You would think, 2019, the work would be getting close to being done, but there’s almost 7,000 languages around the world today and it’s estimated that about 2,100 do not have any form of scripture in their language that they understand, that they speak in their homes. It’s about 170 million people that we believe do not have any scripture yet in a language that really speaks to their heart.”
