The Bible and Third-World Believers

In the early 1980s, my wife and I were challenged to learn how many people groups lacked the Bible in their own language. During missionary training, we both heard a few third-world brethren speak in chapel, and their confidence in and respect for the Word of God was impossible to miss. I remember the example of the man (and his family) who became missionaries and went on to preach the gospel to other cultural groups. During chapel, I was encouraged as I lost track of how many times he proclaimed, “the Bible says.” We pray that many of these people have since grasped the promise of the gospel.

Over the next forty years, we rejoiced with every completed Bible translation project, and we continue to pray for those working where the apostle Paul sought to go. Paul wrote of his desire, “To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man’s line of things made ready to our hand” (2 Corinthians 10:16).