A Global Plan for the Gospel in Every Language

Jeremy Reynalds : Sep 7, 2010
ASSIST News

"As a kid, I was always burdened by the idea of people living on this earth and not being able to hear firsthand about Jesus and His love for them."

(Temecula, CA)—As speakers of the English language, we don't have to think twice about the availability of materials that help point us toward God.

According to an article by Pastor Jon Olsen, whether it's the endless variety of Bibles we have, Internet resources or Christian books, information on almost everything related to our faith is easily accessible.

Olsen said according to the Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com), there are over 6,900 known languages spoken in the world. Many people, Olsen said, have been blessed to have the Bible translated into their language through ministries such as Wycliffe Bible Translators.

However, Olsen said, we have still faced many hurdles in terms of translating the Bible into some of the languages that represent "unreached" people groups (the leading authority on the world's unreached people groups is the Joshua Project www.joshuaproject.net).

Olsen said to successfully translate the Bible into a new language requires an expert team of translators who are fluent in the language of translation, and experts who can cross-check work for accuracy.

Olsen said he recently met with Roland Heck, USA mobilization director of Global Recordings Network (GRN USA) who shared with Olsen some of (the) new projects with which his ministry is involved.

Olsen said GRN is an innovative organization that produces audio and visual resources to make the Gospel accessible to every language.

One of their tools, Olsen said, is an audio player that can be taken into the remotest of locations and used immediately by people who are often hungry to hear more about the Lord. (Photo: The Saber MP3 player/GRN)

Olsen said on the GRN website are links to many of the audio files that are burned onto the audio players.

Olsen said, "As I clicked around their website with Roland, I was amazed by the number of languages their team had translated Bible stories into. This really is a pioneering-type ministry and one that is making significant headway in making God's Word available to everyone on the planet."

On one page, Olsen said, is a search engine that will pull up any one of hundreds of different languages. Another page provides users to search for languages by country.

Olsen said, "As a kid, I was always burdened by the idea of people living on this earth (the remote parts of Africa always came to mind, although there are many others parts of the world that are considered unreached) and not being able to hear firsthand about Jesus and His love for them."

Organizations like Global Recordings Network, Olsen said, help provide a tangible answer to that question.

For more information go to www.globalrecordings.net