“Teach me how to live, O LORD. Lead me along the right path” (Psalm 27:11, NLT).
Translating the Bible is just one step towards changed lives. As the translated Word becomes accessible, the broad work of engaging individuals and communities with newly completed Scripture begins.
All over the world, Scripture engagement teams are promoting the use of Scripture through activities and courses. Recently in Papua New Guinea, a course was held to introduce participants to the impact that Scripture can have in their daily lives when they spend time in God’s Word. Below are a few statements from participants of this course:
“Before, the Bible has always seemed hard to understand. But as we have read from the Tokples* Bible and worked through this course book, everything has been perfectly clear. Nothing has been hard to understand. Now I see why we need the Bible in our own language.” (*Tokples is a language community in Papua New Guinea.)
“These Bibles and this course are great gifts that God has given to us. Now it is up to us to make good use of them.”
“I have never thought about eternity as seriously as I am thinking now, after having attended this course. I don’t know whether I am ready to meet God or not. But I want to be.”
“As we have read different passages from the Bible about the character of a Christian, it seems to me that all of us here are complete failures. Our lives are very, very far away from what God says in his Word. But now, at least, we are clear about how we should be living, and we can pray to our heavenly Father and ask him to help us to live in a way that is more pleasing to him.”
“I am a pastor, but I have never received training like this before. What I have learned is going to help me in my preaching and pastoral work.”
“You have given us so much to think about. People are talking about God’s Word in their homes until late at night.”
“I feel absolutely sure that these Bibles and this course are going to bear good fruit and transform our community and make this a better place to live in the future.”
- Praise God for the impact Scripture Use courses and activities like this are having around the world.
- Pray that more and more people will participate in Scripture engagement activities and see their lives transformed by God’s Word in the language they understand best.
- Pray for Scripture Use teams as they look for fresh and creative ways to engage people with the Word of God.
[...] Why the surprise? Well, they did not expect to understand. Their experience of church was one of not understanding. This is not just true in Africa, In Papua New Guinea a speaker of the Tokples languages said of the new translation in that language: Before, the Bible has always seemed hard to understand. But as we have read from the Tokples Bible … everything has been perfectly clear. (Read more here) [...]