The authority of the Bible

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Almost two years ago, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned some research that showed that Christians, when presented the choice between giving to a charity that fed the hungry or translated the Bible, they’d choose to feed the hungry. The implied message from the research was that it was better to keep someone alive than concern ourselves about their place in eternity.

I should throw a note in here that the choice isn’t really that stark. The work that Wycliffe does in language development contributes to all eight of the Millennium Development Goals. Very often the communities we work in/with are the poorest of the poor and the most marginalised – but more about that another time maybe.

A few months after that research was published, the Evangelical Alliance in the UK released some research that said that the under 25s were, “Less likely to strongly agree that the Bible has supreme authority in guiding their beliefs, views and behaviour.”

I grew up around people who would describe themselves as, ‘Bible believing Christians’, but while they were always willing to talk about the content of the Bible, they were never very good at responding to the challenges of science and culture that seemed to resign the Bible to a place on the bookshelf.

At about the time the research about declining belief in the Bible was published, I heard a message by a minister of a church in the United States, that gave reasons for why the Bible could be trusted. This spurred me on to my own research into the historical accuracy and authority of the Bible.

The result of this has been…

…For the last few months I’ve been speaking in churches about the authority of the Bible, trying to redress the results of the research and encourage Christians to have confidence in the text of the Bible. I’m not an expert in one area, just someone who has found answers to the questions I’ve had and have had the opportunity to share this with others. [Get in touch if you're in the UK and would like me to do this with your church community].

…My confidence has increased in the Bible. It is historically accurate. The events it records really happened. There is a reason for my faith.

The notes I’ve pulled together and the source of most of my research are now up on this blog. They are notes, and there’s always more digging that can be done. Feel free to follow the links to the Authority of the Bible page to see for yourself. I hope they are useful.

Your comments and questions would be welcome.

Global Connections: 2020 Vision

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What part do you think Christians in the UK will be playing in mission in 10 years? Just think, another 10 years and it’s going to be 2022! – maybe we will all be travelling in spaceships.

The Global Connections conference that I’ve just come back from was thinking about mission and the future, what it’s going to be like, how the church in the Global South is going to have way more impact on us in the West, what’s happened to our old models of mission, what part the Church in the UK is going to play.

I think I have been mostly impacted by the question of the role of the Church. Mission agencies simply don’t exist without the Church, but how do we connect and work together rather than in isolation?

So, the question I’m asking you:

  • How can mission agencies help your church with local and world mission?
  • How can your church get involved in God’s mission in the UK and overseas?

I’d be interested to hear your comments.

Reaching the unreachable

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Premier Christian Radio have started their Christmas campaign today. On their website they say,

This Christmas we’re using our National Digital Platform to reach the maximum number of people possible with a message of faith AND hope, the REAL Christmas message. Your gift today will not only support our National Christmas Starts With Christ Campaign .. but will help us keep broadcasting into 2012.

Considering I work for Wycliffe Bible Translators, it would be really easy to take a shot at PCR by pointing out that maybe those that are really unreached are the 300+ million people who live without a single word of Scripture in their own language. But, that isn’t quite right.

You see God loves us all equally, both listeners of PCR and remote communities without access to the Bible in their own language. Sometimes that’s hard to imagine, especially when we can all think of people that are hard to love – but God loves them too. And, he wants us all to know him and love him back. So God does things to get our attention:

  • Christian friends who occasionally bang on a bit about church and God and life and death
  • Church spires and bells
  • Christian radio stations
  • The view of the Oxfordshire countryside on the M40 just past junction 5 (going west)
  • People who love and care for others (in this country and overseas)
  • The force of nature
  • Comfort from a friend when your world’s falling apart

God is in it all, and if we take the time to look for him we will see him.

What does that have to do with PCR’s fundraising campaign?

Well, some people in the UK will find God through PCR and what they broadcast and it would be wrong of me to think that a small community living in isolation in the mountains of Papua New Guinea deserve God more than the people of Warrington, Widnes, Walton-on-Thames or Walthamstow. Really, we all need God, and we shouldn’t assume that we are all going to find him in the same place. PCR can reach people that Bible translators won’t.

So, if you’d like to give to support Premier Christian Radio, please go ahead. Their giving page can be found here.

But there are unreached in this world who can’t even hear about God in their own language. They may know he’s there through what they see around them, but they don’t have the means to get to know him because his words to them are still tied up in foreign languages. God loves them all the same.

If you’d like to give to Wycliffe Bible Translators you can do so online.

Speaking up for something

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Do you ever get those days, weeks, months, where the same thing keeps cropping up? You notice a theme in conversations, films, magazine articles, talks, etc, that seem to be poking at you… asking if you’re going to do anything about it.

I seem to be having one of those periods.

A few weeks ago, Eg, the magazine of the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity, turned up on my desk. They had devoted most of the magazine to remembering their founder and President, John Stott. The first article was a reflection written by LICC’s Director, Mark Greene.

In his article Mark writes…

I’d gone to see him down at his care home to share my impressions of the Third Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization. I told him about the things that encouraged me, and about the things that I had hoped might have happened, and didn’t, but still may…

By that time, John’s capacity to speak in paragraphs had become limited, but he didn’t need a paragraph. ‘It lacked a gadfly,’ he said. It was this that stopped me in my tracks. And he was right. Somehow, for all the good things that had occurred at the Congress,  for all the wisdom and praise present, it had lacked that sense of urgency, lacked someone so passionate about something, so impelled by the Spirit that they could not  be silent – someone with a message, a corrective that would help set the course ahead. ‘Well, it would have been pretty hard to get anywhere near the microphone,’ I said, perhaps a bit defensively. ‘In 1974, they didn’t ask for permission, they just grabbed it,’ he replied. Indeed, and in the theological ferment that followed, the evangelical movement changed forever.

Read full article here

I was also fortunate enough to spend some time at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, where similar themes appeared.

Seth Godin talked about leading tribes and Erwin McManus dropped the line, ‘It’s not that hard to bring people to God when you tell them a story they can find themselves in.’

You know, written down like this it doesn’t really look like they are all talking about the same thing. In fact, you could probably have been to all the things I’ve been to and read all the same material and come to a completely different conclusion. But, what I take from this is – if you’ve got something of value to say, if you’ve got something useful to contribute, then speak up and stop avoiding the subject.

Christians in Science – The Bible and modern science

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So here I am on a Saturday morning sitting at the back of a Christians in Science event in central London.

OK, it’s not a usual event for Wycliffe but it’s an interesting experience.

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Landed

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I love travel but there’s something nice about getting home.

Yesterday afternoon my flight from Nigeria touched down at London Heathrow and I returned to the milder climate and more sensible driving of the UK.

There were a couple of occasions over the last few days when I wondered if we were ever going to make it. The road from Jos to Abuja cuts through some beautiful countryside, but you daren’t take you eyes off the road for a second as the pot holes are big enough to ruin a wheel and trucks and cars coming in the other direction are quite prepared to face you down as they attempt to overtake or seek out smoother tarmac.

Our last night was spent in the Catholic guest house near to the airport. Not a luxury facility but still well equipped by Nigerian standards as well as being clean and affordable. The downside turned out to be a nearby church that had opted to hold an all night prayer and praise session with the volume turned up to 11. The quality of amplification didn’t make it possible to understand what the preacher was saying but his enthusiasm was unmistakeable.

Now I’m home with a couple of days to let my body and head recover before going back to work. It’s going to take that long to get over the physical impact of the last few weeks. Then it’s on with the job of writing up our experiences.

Thanks for the prayers about this trip. They were answered in so many ways.

Nigerian exploits – interviews, photographs, shaking hands and rough roads

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I’ve just taken a look at my little recording machine. Over the past five days I’ve recorded more than six hours of interviews and spoken to 25 or more people. That doesn’t include the video we recorded during the three days of business meetings, or the many hundreds of photographs that have either been snapped quickly or composed properly.

Not only that, we’ve met at least three village or tribal chiefs, countless district heads, translation chairmen, co-ordinators and project staff. We’ve been sung to by choirs, greeted in churches, and on Sunday we stood up in front of 4,500+ worshippers at the dedication of some offices for the Church of Christ in Nigeria and talked a bit about Bible translation. Quite an experience.

The hospitality here has been extraordinary. Certainly we’ve not gone hungry. There’s been everything from fish to goat and an almost endless supply of rice.

We’ve travelled through some of the most beautiful countryside on some of the world’s worst roads. A twenty kilometre journey that anywhere else would have taken no more than 15 minutes to complete took well over an hour.

Up here on the plateau the temperatures are moderate. At night it’s cool (15 – 20 degrees Celsius) and daytime temperatures up to the low 30s. But off the plateau it can be more extreme. Right now it’s cooler, being the end of the rainy season, but give it a couple of months and standing under a cold shower will be even more appealing.

I’m now trying to get my head around cataloguing material before travelling home. Making sure we have the names of all the people who appear in the pictures, checking that their names are spelt correctly that we know which language we were in at the time. I’ve taken good notes but it’s easier to check while we are here than it is to check by e-mail when we get home.

There’s also the challenge of making sure we have all the images and video that we need before heading home. Once out of the country it’s not so easy to fill in the gaps so it’s important that we do it all now. Too much is way better than not enough.

So for the next two days we will be working around the office. On Friday we get back on the road to Abuja, a 4.5hr journey, before overnighting in the Catholic guest house. On Saturday morning it will be an early start to get the morning flight back to London – I say morning flight, I mean only flight. All things going to plan I should be back in the UK on Saturday afternoon. Here’s hoping it’s still nice and warm!

Nigerian exploits – telling the Bible translation story

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It has been a cool day in Plateau State. Cloud cover kept most of the sun’s heat at bay, which was a good thing considering the amount of time I’ve spent outside in a jacket and shirt.

I’m currently travelling around Nigeria, visiting translation projects and meeting the people whose lives are being impacted by Bible translation. It’s a wonderful experience. Today we were able to join a nomadic community as they celebrated getting Scripture in their own language. It’s a huge thing for them as they have been faced with everything from verbal abuse to physical assault, even death, for their faith.

This is just day three of a two week trip. On day one, straight off the plane, we stopped at two projects to hear from the translators how work has been progressing. One stop included a visit to the tribal Chief, who happily greeted us and talked with great enthusiasm about Bible translation for his people. He then sent us on our way with a parcel of food for the journey.

Day two, Sunday, began with a visit to a large church that had been founded by SIM. We timed it for choir day where churches from around the city had sent their representatives to sing as part of the event. They were all wonderful, although, the highlight was when the entire congregation (800 strong) broke into a rendition of the Hallelujah chorus.

I have photos which will do a better job of telling the story, but maybe I’ll wait for a faster internet connection before uploading them.

Tomorrow sees the start of three days of business meetings. A chance for Bible translators from a whole host of organisations to get together and discuss working practices and what the future holds for them – and a great chance for me to learn more about Bible translation in Nigeria.

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Rugby World Cup – ‘wish I was there’

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Just over four years ago I was on the road to France. Off to Lens with a few friends to watch England play the USA in their opening game of the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

By some miracle I had managed to buy a pack of four tickets to every single England game up to the semi-final stages. The plan was to travel with friends who either a) liked rugby, or b) could speak French. Even better if they fitted the bill on both counts.

England v USA - Lens

The first game set the tone for the whole competition. England were rubbish and fortunate to run out 28 – 10 winners. The support was fantastic. Our little group of fans that had congregated (outside a pub) on a side street in Lens, ended up on the front page of the local newspaper the following day. No doubt with positive comments about our singing, traffic direction (apparently “les beep beep!” works if you want to encourage a French motorist to use their horn), scrummaging, line-out demonstrations… and all round good humour. The police on crowd control duty looked suitably bemused, shrugged their shoulders and then went off on a cigarette break.

Phil de Glanville with Tany, Claire and Sarah

Game two, against South Africa. Up in the cheap seats we walked in resplendent in our white England shirts, only to discover the block was full of about 300 Springbok fans. It would have been OK but for the scoreline. England 0, South Africa 36. By half-time my vocal support had dropped to barely a whisper as my head sunk into my hands. Some chap tapped me on the back and commented, “Don’t worry mate, you’ll get us next time”. Oh, if only!

Side note. At the time I was working at Southampton Solent University. On the day after the England v South Africa game we were holding a university open day. I had to be there, marketing the Business School was my job. So at 4:30am I was on my way to Charles de Gaulle airport to fly back to England. At 09:00 I walked through the doors of the University ready to start work. That’s dedication beyond the cause!

Game two done with, I was taking heart in the fact that if we didn’t make the quarter-finals, let along the semi’s, I’d get my money back on the tickets. Yet, our performances picked up. OK, not sublime rugby. But we were functional and showed experience if not much in the way of flair. Most important of all, we kept winning.

England v Samoa- Nantes

The pre and post game happenings remained…well…bizarre to say the least. We hitch-hiked part way to the England – Samoa game in Nantes. It was a last ditch attempt to make the stadium in time for kick off. The look on the face of Sarah’s dad was priceless as we started bundling into the back of a strangers car.

Then there was Eddie who joined us for England v Tonga in Paris. He lost his ticket 30 seconds after I put it in his hands. Very fortunate that there were only three of us going to that game.

The most unique feature of that trip was Eddie greeting two Cameroonian guys in the middle of Paris in their own language. Some small, white, English guy in the middle of Paris says hello to two Africans in their own language! Who says the world isn’t small!

Then came the victory over Australia in Marseilles. That was priceless. As was the train journey back to Nice where we were staying.

A couple of Australians were providing a running commentary, relayed by mobile phone, from the game in Cardiff where France were disposing of New Zealand. A unique situation if there was one. But this was then topped by the train guard giving his best rooster impersonation over the PA system in celebration of the French victory.

Kenny Rogers?

Finally, came the England win over France in Paris. A wonderful night. Topped by meeting the same group of guys outside of Stade de France that we met outside of the pub in Lens. It was just like meeting old friends. More line-out demonstrations, a rendition of the Gambler in honour of the England team and meeting a Kenny Rogers look-a-like (or was it really him? Judge for yourself in Kenny’s message to the team). Then we won. We beat France. We were in the final.

All good things come to an end. After the semi-final French supporters were selling their final tickets for 500+ Euro. Out of my reach I’m afraid. Plus another weekend of commuting to France, I couldn’t do it.

Memories from the tour

But those six weeks were wonderful. An amazing experience. Not just because of the rugby, but because of Tany, Sarah, Gordon, Claire and Eddie, who came with me to the games – and thanks to the many people we met. The guys from ‘up north’ who we met in Lens and again in Paris, the South African couple in Paris, the guy who turned up in his pyjamas, Phil de Glanville who joined us for a rendition of Jerusalem, Mark Regan who took the time to answer my questions about facing up to the Haka, Xavier and his restaurant… and so many others.

Here’s hoping that those who have made it to New Zealand have an equally awesome time. That England make another final. And that I can save enough for another pack of four tickets for the next World Cup in England in 2015.

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The plan has changed… that’s OK

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Yesterday really didn’t go according to plan.

When I rolled out of bed I had a vague idea of where I wanted the day to go, I knew what needed to be done and I had some good expectations of how I was going to get there.

By 09:05 everything had changed. The person expected to lead the Wycliffe Vision Morning was unable to attend and it was too late to un-invite the guests. I had to change focus from the work I expected to do to leading a meeting that, to be honest, I was dubious about going to in the first place (nothing about Vision morning, it’s a wonderful thing to be at, just the pressure of work was building). The work that I saw as important, editing the next edition of Words for Life, that needed my full attention, had to be put to one side as all my energy needed to be put into something completely different.

We can make our plans,

but the Lord determines our steps.

Proverbs 16:9

By 17:30 I was in a better place than I had planned to be when I was getting out of bed in the morning.

God had taken me, by a completely different route, to an even better place. I discovered, through the unplanned nature of the meeting, a story that’s going to make a great feature in the next magazine. I also got to worship God with others – when life’s too busy it’s great to have others around who can spur you on in worship.

I wouldn’t want a day like yesterday too often. But, it’s been a good reminder that:

  • God’s priorities aren’t always the same as our priorities
  • He doesn’t ignore the things that we see as important, he just may want to take us on a different journey
  • Being willing to serve can be a challenge but the rewards are quite special

Sorry if this post isn’t easy to follow. I think I was writing it as much for my own benefit as that of anyone else’s. That said, if it helps/challenges you that’s great.

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