Why Is Bible Translation Important in Missions?

Why is Bible translation important in missions?

Bible translation is important because God superintended the writing of his word in the language of the peoples he gave it to. So first in Hebrew and Aramaic and then in Greek. And from that, the church has long believed that whenever we go to a people, we translate that written word into their language so they have the word in their own language. It's so important in the history of the church that it's in our confessions, like the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 1 paragraph 8. Same with Savoy Declaration and the London Baptist Confession. We're saying we necessarily must, we're commanded to translate the Bible into the vulgar language, the language of the people so they have it.

There is a lot of movement these days toward this thing called orality, or this idea that they don't really need the written word, that they just need to hear recording of it. However, that's handicapping the church. We understood this is, in the Protestant era anyway, that not only should we translate the Bible into their language, but also we should teach them to read, so that they're able to read the Bible in their language, so that they can grow in maturity in the history of their own church, not to just sit around and listen to recordings forever given to them by westerners who sort of put that recording together. But they're able to study that word and know that word and lead their own churches in that word.