God’s Word is a gift we must never take for granted. It opens the door for you and me to experience intimacy in a love relationship with God himself. This is possible, though, only because God has graciously preserved and passed along his Word over the course of history through people who have loved God and his children enough to translate his Word for us to read. For those of us who have the Bible in our language, have we ever stopped to think about the sacrifices people made in order to get God’s Word to us?
A Life-Changing Gift
It all started with the human authors of the Bible, all of whom were inspired by the Holy Spirit and many of whom paid a great price to record and spread God’s Word. Beyond these writers, every time someone has translated the original Scriptures into another language (again, often at great cost), they have provided an eternally life-changing gift to the people who speak that language, for the door has been opened for them to experience intimacy with God.
For example, around AD 400 a man named Jerome translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, making it available for more people to read and study. Almost a thousand years after Jerome’s Latin translation, a man named John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English. Wycliffe was accused of heresy and suffered persecution for his commitment to making the Bible available in the language of the “common people.”
The High Cost of Translating God’s Word
A little over a century later, William Tyndale improved on Wycliffe’s efforts by making an English translation not only from the Latin but also from the original Hebrew and Greek. Tyndale intended to translate the entire Bible, but he never finished the Old Testament. He was burned alive in 1536 for his translation work. His associate, John Rogers, finished the task that Tyndale had started on the Old Testament, after which Rogers was also burned alive.
When you and I look at a Bible in our language, we see the labors of people who sacrificed their lives to first write it down. At the center of it all, we see Jesus, who came as the Word of God in the flesh (John 1:14) and shed his blood for our salvation. Then we see those who followed him, including many who also shed their blood so that we might have God’s Word.
More Than a Coaster
I emphasize this history for two reasons. First and foremost, we must never underestimate the treasure we possess in the Word of God. It is a tragedy that in countries that have had Bibles for many years—and countless people with multiple copies in their possession—so many Christians neglect to open theirs, leaving them to gather dust on shelves or serve as coasters on coffee tables. This is not the purpose for which our brothers and sisters in Christ before us died, and it’s certainly not the reason for which Jesus gave his life.
Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the grave, you and I have an open invitation from God, whenever we want, to experience intimacy with him through his Word. Let’s shout, “Yes!” to that invitation every morning and evening, meditating on and memorizing God’s Word, applying it to our lives, praying according to it, and sharing it with others.
For Those Who Have Never Heard
There are over seven thousand languages in the world, but because the Bible has not been translated into many of these languages, millions upon millions of people are unable to read God’s Word. Multitudes of others have access to only parts of Scripture. This is a sobering reality, but here’s the good news: We have the opportunity in our generation to translate the Bible into every single one of these remaining languages.
Due to a variety of factors, including unique technological advancements and unprecedented cooperation and collaboration among Bible translation workers through an effort known as illumiNations, it is possible that almost every person on earth will have a copy of God’s Word in their own language within the next several decades.
Do you realize the time in which we are living? After two thousand years of Christian history, during which many people gave their lives for spreading God’s Word to different language groups, you and I could be the generation of God’s people to actually complete this task.
This is an excerpt from David Platt’s New Book, “How to Read the Bible”.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
