300,000000 Need to Hear

The Bible is an amazing book; in it, God tells the story of how He has reached out to humanity down through the ages. We read about how He created us, and about how He became human and walked on the earth, dying and rising again to reconcile us to Himself and we read about how He will wind up all of history when Jesus returns in triumph. But the Bible is more than a story, it is also God’s way of speaking to us and drawing us to Himself. It is a story which speaks about the whole of humanity and which speaks to every man, woman and child on the planet. The Bible is the story that everyone needs.

But, there are over three hundred million people (that’s a three followed by eight zeros!) who can’t hear the story. Amazingly, there are over two thousand languages that don’t have a single verse of the Bible available. We at Wycliffe Bible Translators believe that God wants everyone on the earth to be able to understand His story and to hear his voice calling out to them. It is our vision, that together with partners worldwide, we will see a Bible translation project started in every language that needs one by the year 2025.

In Britain it is so easy for us to take our Bibles for granted; after all we have so many translations that it is sometimes hard to know which one to choose. But just think about the Vwanji people in Tanzania. The recently received their first book of the Bible, the Gospel of Mark. One pastor wrote: “As I read, they just sat there with open mouths. They said, ‘We always had these books in Swahili, but we never understood so well. It encourages us to read more.’”

Those of us who live God’s story, have an obligation to give God’s story!