Becoming a Bible Translator

You know, a lot of Christians think that evangelism is a memorized presentation of the gospel that seems kind of forced and unnatural and that uses a lot of terminology that the average person just doesn't grasp, doesn't understand. That's exactly what happened in that dramatic illustration. And probably Roger will have a better opportunity to witness to Lee and to win him to Christ in the informal atmosphere of a cookout at the house and as they begin to talk about life and make a friendship and begin to explore each other's beliefs. Probably that canned presentation with words that Lee could hardly understand is not going to be the way to reach him with the gospel. Well, I want to speak to you this morning on becoming a Bible translator. Don't get up and leave. I'm not talking about everybody joining up with Wycliffe Bible translators and going to some culture that has no written language and translating the Bible into that language. That's not what I'm talking about, although if God would call some of you to do that, that would be great. But that's not what we're talking about this morning. This morning I want to talk about how to make the message of the gospel clear, how to present the gospel to people with clarity in ways that they get it, in ways that they do understand, getting the Bible into the language of people that we speak today. Now I have a text that I want to draw from this morning that gives us this concept and this idea. It's in the book of Colossians chapter 4. So please open your Bibles to Colossians 4. We're not going to stay long on this verse, but I do want to use the idea that's found in this verse as the basis, the theme for this message today on becoming a Bible translator. Colossians chapter 4, Paul and some of his final words to the church at Colossi says this to them in verse 3. And pray for us to that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Now look at verse 4, pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Paul says, my prayer and what I want you to pray for me for is that I can present the gospel clearly. It's not enough to present it correctly. It's very important that we get the gospel down pad and present it correctly. But that's not enough. We need to present it clearly. It's not enough to present it sincerely, although that's important too. It's important for the communicator to have some passions, sincerity, and really believe what he's communicating about his faith or her faith. But that's not enough. It must also be presented with clarity. So Paul says, pray that I can present the gospel clearly as I should. That means using terminology that people understand. Speaking in ways that people can get it, they can grasp it, they can understand what we're talking about. Let me give you an example. Sometimes Jesus said in Luke 16, verse 8, that the children of this generation are often more wise in the way they do things than the children of light. And sometimes people in the business or corporate world, people who have maybe no idea of the gospel or wiser in the way they think about things than we are. For instance, the California prune growers association has decided to make a change in the way they market their product. Prunes have a bad name in the United States. They're just not really considered something that everybody would like to buy, although prunes are higher in antioxidants than any other fruit. And so they are good for your heart and other parts of your body, but nobody knows that. Nobody thinks therefore another region of the human anatomy to help with that. But prunes are actually just dried plums. That's all they are dried plums. In fact, 99% of all dried plums are produced and shipped out of California. And a few years ago, California petitioned the FDA to change the name from prunes to dried plums. After all, that's what they are. The way they got the name prunes is they used the Latin word for dried plums, which is prune them. So they got prunes. They're really dried plums. And so they say, why don't we call them what they are? Make sure that people understand we're talking about a fruit as a dried plum. And so I don't know if you noticed it in the grocery stores in 2001, all the dried plums that come from California have dried plums and small letters in Perun's and then in 2003, they dropped the word prunes altogether. They're just known as dried plums now. Why? Because the word prune did not communicate what the company wanted to communicate about the value of that piece of dried fruit. People didn't understand that this is not just for old folks with certain problems. This is a wonderful fruit that is good for a lot of things. And I think in that way, the people of this generation are wiser in their understanding of the culture than we sometimes are because we often use language that is confusing to people. They have no concept what we're talking about. Words that are very familiar with us to us that we've grown up with, if we've grown up in church, words that we know and use, just roll off the tip of our tongue so freely, our Christianies. We get frustrated with legalies, don't we? Have you ever read a legal document, although whereas, whereas, whereas in hithertos and therefores, and this party shall now be after here, after referred to as the third party of the second part action. It's just confusing. Legalies is confusing. Legalies is confusing to a lot of folks too, who don't know the Lord. And so what we need to do is become Bible translators, take good Bible words, translate them into words that people can understand. When I think that our message is a life and death message, it is an eternity deciding message. It is the most important message people will ever hear. We cannot muddle the message with words that people don't understand. And so we've got to become Bible translators, all of us. And it's really not as hard to do as it sounds. How do you do that? Well, let's look first of all at the need for clarity in Bible times. I want this message, even though I'm talking about a concept that is biblical. I want it to have a good biblical foundation. So I want us to look at a couple of passages of Scripture that emphasize the need for clarity in communicating the principles of God's Word and what's found in this book. There's an Old Testament example of clarity that was needed, and that Old Testament example was found in the book of Nia Maya. If you would please find Nia Maya in your Old Testament. If you can find the book of Psalms about in the middle of your Bible and start going backwards, you'll go through Job and then Esther and you'll come to Nia Maya. Nia Maya chapter 8. The setting here is starting the second half of the book of Nia Maya. First half of the book of Nia Maya. Nia Maya, great political leader. A guy who had a vision for what needed to be done in Jerusalem, leads a project to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem. You see the people of Israel had been in captivity for 70 years in a foreign land. When they come back, the city walls are all destroyed and they go almost 100 years, about 80 years with the city walls in disrepair. So the city has no protection, basically. So Nia Maya leads this project to rebuild the city walls. And then beginning in chapter 8, once that project is done, he begins another project and enlists the aid of Ezra, a scribe, a Bible student and Bible teacher to help do a second project. This one's going to be a spiritual one. It's going to be rebuilding the hearts of the people. In order to do that, they've got to get into the Word of God. And so people don't have copies of the Bible in their homes. The copies of the Word of God are kept in places like the temple or the tabernacle, places like that. And so with that understanding of what's taking place, let's begin reading in chapter 8 and verse 1. All the people assembled as one man in the square before the water gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded Israel. So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. In other words, anyone who's of the age to understand what's being read. Verse 3. He read it aloud from daybreak till noon. Well, I love that kind of church service. Dream on. From daybreak till noon, as he faced the square before the water gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand it, all the people listened to tentatively to the book of the law. Ezra the scribe stood in a high wooden platform built for the occasion beside him on his right stood some of the brothers. And on his left were some of the other brothers. It would take the rest of the service to pronounce their names. Verse 5. Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them and he opened it as he opened it. The people all stood up. Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people lifted their hands and responded. Amen. Amen. Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Now, let's let that sink in for a moment. That kind of reverence for the reading of the Word of God. Verse 7. The Levites and their named there instructed the people in the law while the people were standing there. Now, verse 8, what I really want us to focus on, verse 8. They read from the book of the law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read. You see that little expression making it clear, some translations, I think the New American Standard translation actually renders that translating it so that the people could understand. Now, whether or not they actually translated, there's a question about what language these people spoke, whether they spoke Hebrew or Aramaic. Either way, the language was probably somewhat removed from the language they were reading, the old Hebrew and the Bible written by Moses, the books of Moses. And so whether they had to translate it into Aramaic or actually just make it clear to explain the Hebrew, it was important for the people to understand what was being read. And so the scribe not only read the Bible, he not only told the biblical terms, he explained it. They explained what was being said in words that people could understand. This is one passage I think is a very important passage on why we should have up to date Bible translations, by the way, so that we get God's word in words that we speak, words that we understand. It's exactly what was important for Ezra, Nehemiah and is important for us today. That's the Old Testament example. Let's look at a New Testament example also in Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13 is a New Testament example. Jesus is speaking in parables. The Bible says, those are stories, common stories that people can understand using common everyday objects to illustrate spiritual truth. So he's speaking in parables and this parable is a well-known parable of the sower and the seed and the soils. Let's begin reading in verse 3 of Matthew 13. Then he told them many things in parables saying, a farmer went out to sow his seed as he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. It was spring up quickly because the soil was so shallow. But when the sun came up the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root. Verse 7, others fell, others seed fell among thorns which grew up and choked the plants. Still others seed fell on good soil where it produced a crop, 160 or 30 times what was sown. Now skip down to verse 18 where Jesus begins to explain the meaning of this story. Verse 18. And then to what the parable of the sower means. When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root he lasts only a short time when trouble or persecution comes because of the word he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it making it unfruitful. Verse 23. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop yielding 160 or 30 times what was sown. Now I'm not going to do a detailed exposition of this passage. We've done that in other places. I've preached a series on these seven parables of the kingdom. But for now I just want to draw one principle from this passage and that's this. All four of these kinds of soils which represent four kinds of human hearts and responses to the Bible message. All four of these hearts heard the word. In every case it is mentioned they heard. Only in the fourth is it mentioned they heard and understood. And it is only in that fourth case that those people are genuine believers who produce fruit, evidence in their lives that they are genuinely born again. They're genuinely saved. They're a transformation in their lives. Everybody in this story heard the word but only a few people understood it. And what Jesus is saying is for real salvation to occur, for radical transformation in a person's life to occur, it's more than just hearing the word we must also understand the word. Which means that we need to communicate it in ways that people understand, in ways that people can get it. So there was a need for clarity in Bible times. I believe there is an equal need for clarity in our time. I think for at least two groups of people there's a need for clarity in presenting the word of God and the gospel. Number one there's a need for the unchurched. Many unchurched, unreligious people who are not in church who have not grown up in church have no idea what we're talking about. When we use words that are very commonly found in the Bible and that we're used to it, we're accustomed to. But to them it's some kind of Christian ease. It's a code language. They don't understand the terms. They don't know the language. Let me give you some examples. The term born again. You know what the average unchurched person. I'm not just talking about unsafe people. The person who's not been in church through his or her life. Remember if you were with us last week we saw that as becoming increasingly the case in the culture in which we live. So the average unchurched unsafe person. When they hear the word born again, you know what they think? They think just somebody who's got a fresh start. You read very much at all in the literature of the day. I'm talking about news magazines, newspapers like USA Today and publications that give you a heartbeat for what's going on in the culture. If you read much of that you'll find that term used in a lot of ways. You'll find it used of companies that get a fresh burst of energy and do better in the stock market. They're born again. You find it about people's athletic careers that come back after an injury. They're born again. Their career is born again. That term born again is often used if somebody who just gets a fresh start. It's used of companies. It's used of people in general. Or increasingly in our culture the term born again has overtones of reincarnation. Because there are more and more people are into new age religions and Eastern religions. And so you talk to someone about being born again. You know what their first thought is? Born again. Yeah, okay. Are you born again? Are you in your first existence? You know, were you a cow? Were you a dog and you've come back now as a person? You know, that's the idea of being born again to a more and more people in our culture. So the idea of being born again often is confusing to people. Now I'm headed somewhere with this. Don't turn me off yet. These are good Bible words. But let me show you where I'm headed. Let's go with another. Christian, the word Christian. We ask people if you're a Christian or Christian there is Christian there. You know, the average person does not understand what that word means. The average unsaved, unchurched person believes that a Christian is a morally good person or a person who attends church or a person who has some kind of religion or even worse yet because of the press. Many people believe that a Christian is part of this radical right movement, you know, a political movement. And that's the connotation that many people have when they hear the word Christian. So maybe we need to explain that translate that term into language people understand. Here's another one. Accept Christ as your personal savior. That's a term that we often use and that many people use of trusting Christ but people don't understand that terminology. For one thing, the word accept in our culture today means to be tolerant. It does not mean to receive or take in something. It means to be tolerant. If you are an accepting person, it means you accept all views as equal. You're tolerant of everybody's opinion and what you believe is your prerogative, what I believe is mine. It's kind of that pluralism thing that goes on today. That's what accepting means. People don't understand what you mean when you talk about accepting Christ. And then the word savior is very seldom ever used anymore in our culture. It's a good Bible term but the average unchurched person has no idea what it means. And the word saved, the average unchurched person has no concept what that means. Now those of us who are believers and we understand a little bit about our Bibles, we know what the word saved means. It's a good Bible word but the average unchurched person has no clue what that word means. Case in point. I'm not going to show you a video clip from this but at the end of the recent movie Titanic Rose is recounting the story of how she had met Jack and fallen in love while they were coming across on the ship and at the very end of the movie she says this, he saved me and every way a person can be saved. Now you know what she's talking about? She's talking about, you know, he kind of got me out of a bad situation where I was about to get married to someone else and he showed me what real love was all about. Now that's what the culture thinks of when they think of the word saved. Or as one bumper sticker puts it, Jesus saves but, and it lists a particular investment company invests. Now we may wince a little bit at the sacrilege of that but when most people think of the term save or save they're thinking financially putting money aside getting teeny bit of interest if you invest in another fund you may get more and that's the purpose of that bumper sticker, Jesus saves but this company invests. Now maybe the word saved needs to be translated in a way that people can understand and not misunderstand. What about receiving Christ? Receiving Christ, that's a good Bible term. It's found in John chapter 1 verses 11 and 12 talking about receiving Christ as many as received him to them gave the power to become the sons of God. That's a good Bible term but the average unsaved person doesn't understand that because we no longer receive people. That used to be a common way of talking about welcoming a guest in you know or at a doctor's office. You know he will receive you now. You don't use that terminology anymore in that way and so people don't often understand what that's all about. The whole idea of sin we saw last week people who do not believe in absolute right and wrong. People who don't believe in absolute truth who think that what's right for me is right for me, what's right for you is right for you. Don't have a concept of sin as an across the board violation of God's holy standards. Then understand that concept. So maybe we need to translate that term and I'll talk about how to do that in a few moments. Believing in Christ. That's a good Bible term. John 3, 16 uses that term. Believing Christ but to the average unchurched person it carries no weight. They don't understand what that means. They think one of two things. They think either believe in Christ like you believe in the law of gravity. Yeah, it's a fact. I believe that. Or believing in Christ like you would believe in a historical person like I believe in George Washington. I believe in Napoleon. I believe they existed there in history. You believe in Christ? Yeah, I believe in Christ. He existed. He was a real person in real time. I think I'll give him that much. The average person doesn't understand what it means to believe in Christ from a biblical perspective which really is committing your whole hope of an eternal destiny in heaven with him, committing your whole life to him, resting everything your hopes on him. People don't have the idea that that's believing in Jesus. They don't understand that. So what do we do? Translate these words. Many of our words that we so easily use, repentance, justification, atonement, all those, we may understand what those words mean. The average unchurched, unsafe person has no clue. It's Christian-East of them. It's a code language. They don't understand what that's talking about. Now I know what some of you are thinking at this point. John, are you asking me to give up biblical words and biblical ideas and concepts and redefine the gospel? No. That is not what I'm asking. Not what I'm saying we need to do. In fact, those are great biblical words. And I believe that people who come to know Christ and our followers of Christ need to be taught what those words mean and what the Bible means by atonement, and justification, and propitiation, and reconciliation, all those good Bible words. And for the unchurched, unsafe person who does not have an understanding of the Word of God or any background in the Bible, you might as well be speaking Latin to them. They have no concept, no idea. So what we need to do is take the good Bible words and concepts and translate them into the language that people use today and understand. That's what we expect of every missionary, isn't it? We expect missionaries to understand the culture they're living in, adjust to it, communicate the gospel in a way that those people can understand. I don't know how many of you have seen the film, the documentary we showed it here at the Sunday night back in February. I think beyond the gates of Splendor, the 50-year anniversary of the killing of the five missionaries in Ecuador by the Acha Indians. The real remarkable part of that story is that not what happened when the five missionaries were killed. That was a tragedy in some ways, although God turned it around and used it for good. But the real remarkable part of that story is the two women who went back into the Acha culture after their husbands had died and took the gospel to those people. And one many of them to Christ and the whole culture and society was transformed by the gospel. The interesting episode that happened is the Acha people or the Warrorny, as they're called, they call themselves, they did not have a word for forgiveness. They don't understand the concept of forgiveness. In their culture, if somebody does you wrong, you spear in the death. They didn't understand the concept of forgiveness. So Rachel Saint was trying to get across the idea of what forgiveness is all about. Finally, she hit on a concept that she heard the Acha's talking about one time, and that is the concept of washing of the heart. And that's the word she used to translate the biblical concept of forgiveness, and they got it. They understood it. They knew what it was like to wash something that was dirty and make it clean. And so she was able to communicate the concept that your hearts are dirty. There's evil, there's wickedness inside, but God wants to wash your hearts and take the uncleanness away. And the concept of washing your heart became the concept of forgiveness and communicated to the Acha's, the biblical concept of what it means to have our sin forgiven. Now we expect missionaries to do that, but we don't think we need to do it. We do need to do that in our culture. We need to understand where people are and communicate the gospel, translating the gospel into words that people can get it. They can understand it because remember if they don't understand it, there's no heart transformation. There's no real salvation. We don't have any hope of winning anybody to Christ if they don't understand what we're talking about. So there's a need for the unchurchs. Let me just say this very quickly and I'll move on. I'd love to preach here about a half hour, but I can't. I believe there's a corresponding need among many in the church. Because where in among the unchurchs there's ignorance of biblical concepts in the church, there's immunity to many biblical words and concepts. There are lots of folks who've grown up in good Bible believing churches like this, all their lives, been in church, all their lives. They've heard the terminology, they know the language, they know all the right answers, they can quote you the Bible verses, but never have they ever really been born again. Now I don't read hearts. I don't know hearts. Only God knows hearts. I've trouble enough figuring mine out. But I do know this. I do believe that according to what the Bible says, there are people in good Bible believing churches who know the language, but whose hearts have never been transformed, have never been saved, they've never really been born again, they've never really been changed, dramatically transformed by the gospel to be new people in Christ. They know the language, but they don't know the Savior. So I think there's an immunity that's been built up. You know, you hear the language enough, it's like getting an antibody for so long, it builds up your system, your immune system so that it will fight against disease. Some of us have become so immune to the gospel, we hear the same words. We sit through church service, after church service, we hear appeals to receive Christ, to trust Christ, to become a Christian, and we say that's for other people. I've been there, done that. And there's been really no life transformation. There's never really been a time in your life when your life turned around because you put your faith in Jesus Christ and rested every hope you have of being in heaven on Him and repented of your sin, turned away from your sin and turned around and gave your life completely to Jesus Christ. You've never done that. You've heard the language all your life and you may have come forward as a child, signed a card, but you've never been saved. I think there's a lot of people in Bible-believing churches that are immune and they hear the same language and so maybe we need to present it in a fresh way and language that people can grasp it and say, wait a second, is that what it means to be saved? That's never happened to me. So there's a need for clarity in our time. So how do we do it? What's the way to clarity? So the example of Jesus is very instructive. You know, Jesus very seldom used religious language, the terminology of the religions of His day or religion of His day Judaism, very seldom did He do that. Read how Jesus presented a relationship with God in the gospels and you'll be stunned if you've never really thought about this. The only time you ever really used religious language, the language that people used in Judaism or even in the Old Testament was when He was talking with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was an Old Testament scholar in John 3. Jesus used Old Testament language that Nicodemus should have been familiar with. In fact, Jesus said, you mean you're a teacher in Israel? You don't understand this. You talked about being born again, having a radical transformation of your whole life from the inside out, spiritual transformation. Nicodemus should have known about that. That was clear in Exodus, or Ezekiel 36, talking about the New Covenant. It was clear in Jeremiah 31, talking about the cleansing of the heart. He should have known that, but He didn't. Jesus used those kind of terms with that guy, but when He was in the next chapter with the woman at the well who, as far as we know, had very little, if any background in the Bible in the Old Testament, she was a Samaritan, probably didn't have the Old Testament. In fact, they didn't even believe all the books of Moses. So when He was talking with her, how did He present a relationship with God, someone who's thirsty, can drink water that they'll never thirst again? That's how He presented it. In terms, He could understand. And that's why Jesus talks about a relationship with God in many different word pictures that people grasped and they understood. He talked about it like a vine and branches. In John 15, that's how He expressed His relationship with His people. He talked about a relationship with God like a wheat field that's ripe for harvest. Okay, it's one way He described it. He described it as a little child. He said, come to me as a little child. If you're going to be in the kingdom of God, you've got to come to me as a little child. Communicate in the concept that here's one who's helpless to do some things on His own. He was spoke, Greek word is a little baby, a little infant. Helpless to do things on their own. So you've got to have it done for you. That's where you've got to come to Christ, you see. So He used those kinds of terms that people could grasp. Sometimes He talked about a relationship with God as being a choice between two roads, a narrow one and a broad one. Sometimes He talked about it as a strained sheep was being found. Our wayward son came home or there was an invitation to a banquet and some came and some didn't. So Jesus was constantly using the language of His day to communicate what it meant to get into the kingdom of God, to have a personal relationship with God. So following that example, maybe we need to re-translate some words. Let me just give you some words that need translating, I believe, in our culture. I think we need to explain and translate the word sin. Given the fact that we live in a culture that has very little concept of moral absolutes, maybe we need to explain sin in ways that people understand. And a good way to explain it would be to say, sin really is running your own life. That's what sin is, it's running your own life. You say that seems to water down sin. No, no, not really. When you think about it, it's a concept that people understand. People understand the concept of running my own life because the average unsaved person says, it's my life, I'll do the way I want to do it. I'll live it the way I want to live it. I'll have it my way, Burger King. I'll do it the way I want to do it. So nobody's going to tell me how to live. I'll live my own life the way I want to live. People understand that concept. You talk to them about running their own life. You say, is that a real biblical concept? It sure is. I think running your own life captures the idea of rebellion against God and resistance to His standards in the word, which is really a biblical definition of sin. Study the Hebrew and Greek words for sin if you're really into that kind of thing. When you find they talk about resisting the standards of God, rebelling against the standards of God, running your own life is a good way to describe it. In fact, that's exactly the way Isaiah describes it. In Isaiah 53-6, look at this verse, we all like sheep of Ghanastray. Each of us has turned what? To His own way. That's the essence of what it means to be apart from God. And then the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. The reason we needed to be saved and have our iniquity, our sin laid on Jesus Christ is because we all decided to go our own way. We decided to run our own life apart from God. So maybe a good description of sin that people can understand is running your own life, trying to call your own shots, do your own thing in life. The word saved, maybe a better word or at least a word that would translate it into language people can understand is the word rescued. Now people understand that. They may not understand the concept of saved because that word is used in so many different ways, but they understand what it means to be rescued. They saw it on 9-11. They saw people giving their lives to go into a place where people were helpless and could not save themselves. It couldn't get out from under a crushed building. And there were some people who were dying in there and someone gave His life to go in to rescue that person. Okay, they understand that concept. They understand when they see an earthquake in Indonesia or India, people trapped under rubble are helpless to do anything to rescue themselves and they need someone to come in and rescue them. So a good way to translate the word saved, good biblical concept, but people don't understand it. A good way to translate it today is to use the word rescued. Jesus Christ came to rescue us from a hopeless, helpless situation. We could not rescue ourselves. We were trapped in sin. Nothing we could do to extricate ourselves and get to heaven on our own. He rescued us. He came in and gave His own life to rescue us. Now people will understand that. And so that's how Jesus says the Savior. He's the one that rescued us from a hopeless situation by laying His life on the line, literally giving His life so that we could be rescued from the grasp of sin. What about the word believe? Believe in Christ? When people misunderstand that, maybe they need to understand that what we're really talking about is committing ourselves, our whole lives, our eternal safety, our hope of being in heaven someday, in total trust to the one who came to rescue us. That's what biblical faith is. It's not just believing that Jesus is a person or believing in God as many people think faith is. It's committing your whole life to Him and every hope you have of being in heaven someday in total trust on that person. Now when someone's rescued from a collapsed building or an earthquake or something like that, they're carried out, aren't they? They don't walk out on their own. They can't do anything to rescue themselves. They are totally dependent on someone else to pick them up and rescue them. And that's what salvation really is. Why don't we explain it in terms people can understand? So the next time you're witnessing, talk about Christ came to rescue you from a hopeless situation. Did you see that earthquake in Indonesia? You see those people who are trapped in those buildings? Explain it in ways that people can understand, translate the gospel like Jesus did using events of the time where things that are around us to explain what's happening. And I could go on, but I don't have the time. Receive Christ, born again, repent, all of those concepts can be translated into language that we use today that people can understand. I'm simply saying this, in a world that knows less and less about God and his book, in a world that understands less and less the biblical terms we use, good biblical terms that we as Christians need to know and understand. But in a world that understands those terms less and less, we must become Bible translators. We must like Jesus be able to take the gospel message in the concepts of sin and faith and repentance and salvation and explain them in ways that people can understand them and grasp them. It's not as hard as it seems, just do a little thinking about what's happening today and the things that people relate to and use those to explain the gospel. Like Jesus put the message out there clearly, like Ezra, Nehemiah, explain it so that people can understand it so that the non-religious, unchurched person can understand so that they not only hear like the first three people in Jesus' story, but they understand, they get it, they grasp the concept and they can give their hearts fully to the message they're hearing, understanding it, committing their lives fully to Christ. It's the best news they'll ever hear. Let's not muddle it with words they can't understand. Would you pray with me, please? Father, help us to be good communicators of your word. Help us to explain clearly and translate your word for people who don't understand the concepts we've grown up with and been familiar with. Help us Lord to be good translators of your message and present, as Paul said, the gospel clearly as we should. In Jesus' name, amen.