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Transcript

Resourcing the Global Church · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome everyone, Welcome to reformed thinking.
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Yes, welcome. We are.
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We are so thrilled to have you sitting at the table with us
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today. Let me start by posing a
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question to you, one that sits at the very core of our theology
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and our global actions. Christ shed his blood to redeem
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a people, not a printing press. He died to save sinners, not to
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establish publishing houses. The biblical mandate is simply
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to go and make disciples. So why is the act of publishing
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books, translating texts, and distributing literature
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considered a critical, mandate driven aspect of global missions
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right? Why do we spend millions of
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dollars in countless hours producing physical and digital
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reading materials? That is the specific question we
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are bringing to you today. We are pulling our insights from
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an incredibly detailed set of sources, primarily excerpts from
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the book Biblical Missions, Principles, Priorities, and
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Practices, with a specific focus on the chapters dedicated to
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resourcing the global church. Yeah, the authors, including men
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like Mark Tatlock, Rick Kress and others, present a massive
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case that literature is not an optional accessory to the Great
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Commission. And that is the mission of our
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deep dive today. We want to investigate with you
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how provided writing written biblically sound resources
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functions as a necessary mechanism of the Great
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Commission itself. We're going to look at the
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striking real world hurdles faced by believers and
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translators in places like China, Kazakhstan, Latin America
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and Malawi. The goal is for you to see the
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theological translation of publishing are not secondary
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hobbies for missionaries, they're essential strategies for
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ensuring that the Church is fed with the solid food of the Word.
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We're looking at a massive endeavor to equip the global
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Saints to worship God in spirit and in truth, and doing so
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requires staggering amounts of rigorous, faithful labor to
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overcome physical, linguistic and cultural barriers.
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OK, let's unpack this by starting with the biblical
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mandate and the historical precedent for publishing.
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But before we look at the history, let me play devil's
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advocate for a second. Go for it.
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If the Apostle Paul says in Romans that faith comes by here
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and hearing by the word of Christ, why are we so obsessed
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with reading in places with high illiteracy rates?
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Couldn't we just fund more radio broadcasts or, you know, send
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audio files on solar powered MP3 players?
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Why deal with the massive headache of paper, ink,
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translation software and import tariffs?
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Well, that is a highly relevant question, and it actually brings
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us right to the argument Rick Kress makes in our source
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material. Kress notes that from beginning
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to end, the Bible calls mankind to behold and worship God as
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life, giver, Lord, and King. The primary tool God is
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graciously given to reveal His Son is Scripture itself.
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God's Word is a preeminent resource, while audio is a
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fantastic supplemental tool. The written word has a
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permanence and an objective reality that audio simply lacks.
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When you were dealing with complex theological arguments,
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the human mind needs to be able to pause, reread, cross
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reference and study. Audio goes in one ear and out
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the other, but text allows for rigorous meditation.
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Cress outlines 3 aspects of our mission that require this level
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of text based engagement. Right.
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He categorizes this brilliantly. He argues that declaring
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Christ's praises to the lost is evangelism.
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Declaring those same praises to the Church is edification, and
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declaring them directly to God is exaltation, evangelism,
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edification, and exaltation. All three of those actions
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require the believer to actually possess the resource that
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reveals Christ. You cannot evangelize
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accurately, edify effectively, or exalt God properly if you do
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not know who He is, and you only know who He is through the
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objective written Word. Which is why the text must be
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available. When we look back at the
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biblical precedence for what we might call publishing, we see
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God Himself initiating the process.
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Moses receiving the 10 commandments was in a very real,
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tangible sense, God's own first printing.
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Oh absolutely. God did not simply whisper the
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moral law into Moses ear and ask him to play a game of telephone
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with 2,000,000 Israelites. God physically inscribed the law
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onto tablets of stone. He codified it in a hard copy
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format. He even authorized a second
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printing after Moses broke the first set.
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God is the original publisher of Divine Truth.
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I love that perspective. The sheer physicality of those
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stone tablets proves that God values recorded, unalterable
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texts, and we see this continuous pattern of written
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resources being utilized throughout redemptive history.
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Take the Old Testament example of Ezra and the Levites in
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Nehemiah chapter 8. The historical context here is
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critical. The remnant of Israel has just
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returned from 70 years of Babylonian captivity.
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The walls of Jerusalem are finally being rebuilt, but the
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spiritual state of the people is an absolute disaster.
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Right, because they lost the language.
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Exactly. Many of them have forgotten
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their native Hebrew tongue because they grew up speaking
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Aramaic in Babylon. So what did the leaders do?
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Ezra the scribe brings out the physical book of the Law of
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Moses. He stands on a large wooden
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platform and reads it aloud from early morning until midday.
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But he does not stop there. The Levites actually translate
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the Hebrew into the common Aramaic right there on the spot,
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and they give the sense of it so that people can understand the
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reading. They provided live exposition
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and translation, and the result was immediate and staggering.
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People wept over their sin, they repented, and they experienced
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great joy in the Lord celebrating the Feast of Booths
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for the first time since the days of Joshua.
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People needed the word read, translated, and explained.
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That is essentially the entire model for global missions right
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there, Nehemiah. It requires the text, the
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translation and the. Teaching and we see another
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incredible illustration of this in the New Testament with the
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Ethiopian eunuch. In Acts chapter 8.
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You have a high-ranking government official traveling
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back to Africa. He is sitting in his chariot,
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reading from a published text, an Isaiah scroll.
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A very rare item. Yes, incredibly rare.
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Let's pause and think about what it meant to own an Isaiah scroll
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in the 1st century. This was not a cheap paperback
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you pick up at an airport kiosk. A hand copied scroll of that
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size would have cost an astronomical amount of money.
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It was a massive luxury item. So he has the capital and he
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possesses the written word. But when Philip approaches the
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chariot and asks if he understands what he is reading,
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the eunuch replies. How can I unless someone guides
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me? He had the text, but he
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desperately lacked the hermeneutical key.
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For those who might not be familiar with that term,
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hermeneutics is simply the method or the rules we use to
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interpret a text. The eunuch was reading Isaiah
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53, a passage about a sheep being led to the slaughter, but
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he did not know if the prophet was talking about himself or
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someone else. Right, he was totally lost.
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He needed Philip to provide the Orthodox commentary.
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Philip explained that the suffering servant was Jesus
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Christ. Through the combination of the
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written text and the faithful, accurate explanation of that
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text, the eunuch comes to saving faith.
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He goes back to Ethiopia, presumably bringing both the
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expensive scroll and the theological framework Philip
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provided, acting as a missionary to his own people.
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And we cannot forget Paul's request.
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In Second Timothy 4.13, Paul is sitting in the Mammotyne prison
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in Rome. It is cold, it is damp, and he
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knows his execution is imminent. He says he has fought the good
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fight. He has finished the race, yes.
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Yet when he writes his final letter to Timothy, he asks him
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to bring the winter cloak he left at Troas.
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But more specifically, he says, bring the scrolls, especially
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the parchments. Even while facing the absolute
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end of his earthly life, a man who had seen the risen Christ
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with his own eyes prioritized written theological resources.
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He wanted his books. He wanted to spend his final
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days either studying the Word or writing down more truth for the
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benefit of the church. This brings us directly to a
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core conviction we hold through Reformed theology, particularly
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as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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Chapter 1. Paragraph one of the Confession
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teaches the absolute necessity and sufficiency of Scripture.
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It states that God was pleased to commit His revelation wholly
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unto writing, making the Holy Scriptures most necessary, since
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the former ways of God revealing His will unto His people have
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ceased. If the written word is the
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supreme and final authority, and if this is the ordinary means of
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grace through which the Holy Spirit operates to save and
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sanctify, then producing, translating, and distributing
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that word is not a luxury. Absolutely not.
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It is a fundamental requirement of Christian obedience.
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The Spirit uses the truth to quicken the dead heart, and that
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truth is bound up in the text. Here's where it gets really
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interesting, though. Because we hold to the absolute
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sufficiency of Scripture, it completely dictates the kind of
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resources we publish and translate.
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The sources point out that any resource we produce must share
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those exact same convictions about the Bible, divine
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inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility.
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If a book does not hold a high view of Scripture, it has no
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business being translated for the global church.
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We are not just trying to fill libraries.
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We are engaged in a massive theological battlefield.
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That is a highly critical distinction.
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We have a dual mandate when it comes to publishing.
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First, we publish to promote the truth.
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This involves creating and translating lexicons,
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dictionaries, exegetical commentaries, and systematic
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theologies that help pastors rightly divide the word.
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But the second part of the mandate is publishing to refute
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error. Apologetics is a necessary
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function of the church. The authors of our source
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material systematically address the categories of corruption
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that the apostles warned about, specifically looking at
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Colossians 2 and Jude four, and how literature must be deployed
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to combat these specific errors on the ground today.
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Let us unpack those 4 categories of corruption because they are
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wildly prevalent around the world right now.
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The first category Paul warns about is traditionalism and
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ceremonialism In Colossians. Paul tells the believers not to
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let anyone judge them regarding food, drink or festivals,
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pointing out that these are just shadows, but the substance
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belongs to Christ. Today this error manifests in
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traditions that add human requirements to the finished
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work of Christ. Our sources identify this within
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Catholic and Orthodox traditions as well as groups like 7th Day
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Adventism. The Church desperately needs
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resources to clearly articulate justification by faith alone to
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counter these works based or tradition heavy systems.
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The second category of corruption is mysticism and
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emotionalism. Paul warns against people who
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delight in the worship of angels, go into detail about
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visions they have seen and are puffed up by their fleshly
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minds. That is huge today.
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It is a staggering issue globally today.
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Primarily manifesting as the prosperity gospel, this movement
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has swept across continents promising health, wealth, and
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direct extra biblical revelation from God.
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It replaces the objective truth of Scripture with subjective
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feelings and emotional manipulation.
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We absolutely must produce resources that refute the
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specific error, teaching believers how to interpret their
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circumstances through the lens of God's sovereignty, rather
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than demanding earthly witches from Him like He is a cosmic
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vending machine. The third category is legalism.
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Paul condemns religions built on the rules of men.
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Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.
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He says these things have the appearance of wisdom but hold 0
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value against fleshly indulgence.
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You cannot legislate holiness through strict asceticism or man
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made boundaries. This error is promoted by pseudo
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Christian groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses and
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Mormonism, but our sources also point out that it exists heavily
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within hyper fundamentalism. We need to publish works that
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defend Christian liberty and the true nature of sanctification.
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For those listening who might wonder what that means
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practically, sanctification is the ongoing daily process of
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being made holy. It is an inside out work of the
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Holy Spirit changing your desires, not an outside in
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adherence to an arbitrary list of rules.
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And the fourth category, which is incredibly destructive, is
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libertinism. The book of Jude warns about
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ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into sensuality
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and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
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This is the idea that because grace is free, we can live
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however we want. Total lack of restraint.
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Yes, a complete lack of moral restraint, and our sources point
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out a very uncomfortable reality.
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This particular error is heavily exported by American
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evangelicalism because of an unbiblical distortion of free
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grace. Many have fallen prey to this
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error due to the sheer affluence of American publishing houses.
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This cheap grace theology is marketed, packaged and shipped
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all over the world. This raises an important
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question for you to consider. How much damage is being done to
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the global church by the unchecked exportation of
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affluent centric, flawed American theology?
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We have the resources. We have the massive printing
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presses, but if we are exporting resources that turn grace into a
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license for sensuality, or resources that promote a soft
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therapeutic moralism instead of the robust cross bearing gospel
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of Christ, we're actually harming the global church.
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Yes, we are exporting spiritual junk food and calling it a
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feast. Spot on.
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It requires us to adopt A highly discerning, curated approach to
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what we publish and translate our source text sites.
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Ecclesiastes 12.1113, where the wise preacher cautions that the
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making of many books is endless and much devotion to books is
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wearying to the flesh. So true.
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There is a biblical caution against simply creating content
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for the sake of content. We do not need to translate
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every single book that hits the bestseller list in the United
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States. We need to be rigorously
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selective, ensuring that we are providing the global church with
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materials that drive them to fear God and keep His
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commandments. Having the right theology is
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only the first step. Knowing how to deliver it to a
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specific culture, assessing what they actually need on the ground
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is the next massive hurdle. You cannot just pick a random
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English book, run it through a translation team, and assume it
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will be useful in rural Peru or urban Beijing, right?
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As Mark Catlock points out in the text, doing so is poor
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stewardship of God's resources. Needs must be assessed
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practically, theologically and nationally.
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Catlock breaks down Christian education into 3 distinctrums
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which helps translators understand what type of
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literature is needed at what stage of church development.
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The 1st is informal learning. This is church based lay level
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training. The resources needed here are
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highly practical. A church member needs solid,
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accessible books on topics like marriage, family, parenting, and
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basic discipleship. They do not need A5 volume
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systematic theology just yet. They need to know how to live a
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godly life in their home and in their local marketplace.
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The second spectrum is formal learning.
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This is classroom based training.
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Pastors and church leaders are being equipped, and this
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requires heavy academic resources.
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Translators need to produce textbooks, original language
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tools, and rigorous exegetical commentaries in the local
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language. Yes, that is a massive
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undertaking. And here is a critical, often
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overlooked detail. Many regional seminaries have to
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meet strict local accreditation standards set by their
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governments. If a seminary in Bogota or
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Nairobi does not have academic textbooks printed in their own
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language, they lose their accreditation.
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Their doors get shut, or they force their students to try and
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learn from English resources that largely sit unused on
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library shelves because the language barrier is just too
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high. And the third spectrum is
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advanced learning. This involves graduate level
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research aimed at shaping future denomination leaders and
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seminary faculty. This requires translating highly
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specialized resources like academic journals, obscure
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reference works, and massive theological dissertations.
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Wow, extremely niche stuff. Very niche.
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The audience for these books is extremely small, maybe only a
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few 100 people in an entire country, but the impact is
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massive. These are the men who will shape
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the theological integrity of entire movements within their
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nations. You have to fund and translate
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these advanced works, even if there is absolutely no profit
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margin. And selling them because the
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spiritual health of the national church depends entirely on
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having properly trained leaders. Mark Borsuk provides some
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striking insights on this from his extensive work in mainland
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China. He talks about the theological
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gap that exists between English speaking pastors and Chinese
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pastors. An English speaking pastor has a
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nearly unlimited number of biblical resources at his
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disposal. If he decides he wants to preach
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verse by verse through the book of Romans, he has hundreds of
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commentaries, lexicons, and historical background checks to
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consult. A Chinese pastor has
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comparatively very few Borsuk notes that this severe lack of
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resources has led to a culture where many Chinese pastors avoid
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expository preaching entirely. Expository preaching is simply
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taking a passage of Scripture, explaining exactly what it means
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in its original context, and applying it to today.
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Instead, they rely on topical preaching.
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They read a single verse, launch into a motivational speech, and
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never reference the text again. Why?
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Because they simply lack the tools to prepare a rigorous
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exposition, and they fear losing their audience's attention if
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they try to go deep without adequate preparation.
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That is a heartbreaking reality. It demonstrates clearly how a
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lack of resources directly impacts the worship and feeding
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of the local congregation. If the pastor cannot study the
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text, the sheep are starved of the full counsel of God.
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Borisuk also shares a fascinating cultural anecdote
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about assessing practical needs in China.
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There is a prevalent unbiblical mindset among some pastors who
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believe that if they dedicate all their time and energy to
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shepherding the church, God will automatically step in and
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shepherd their families in return.
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That is a wild assumption. It really is.
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It is a sort of spiritual transaction they have
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constructed in their minds. Right.
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And because of that assumption, they completely neglect their
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own marriages and their children.
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They do not even ask missionaries for resources on
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marriage and parenting because they do not think they need
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them. This proves that you cannot
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simply rely on what people ask for.
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Experienced missionaries have to assess the cultural blind spots
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and proactively provide resources that correct those
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unbiblical mindsets. You have to translate books on
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biblical marriage and push them into the hands of these pastors
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so they realize their absolute first ministry is to their own
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household. So what does this all mean for
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the actual people doing the translating?
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The source text by Walter Heaton gets into the nuts and bolts of
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this process, and it reveals a level of difficulty that most of
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us in the English speaking world never even consider.
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Good translators are incredibly rare.
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You can easily find someone who is bilingual, but finding
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someone who understands the cultural nuance of a language
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and possesses the necessary theological precision is like
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finding a needle in a haystack. Heaton suggests a very specific
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strategy for prioritizing what to translate first.
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For the general church members, he recommends evangelistic and
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apologetic books, as well as practical books on family and
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finances. But for the church leaders, you
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must give them systematic theologies, church history, and
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exegetical commentaries. And he uses an analogy that I
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think absolutely nails the dynamic.
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What's fascinating here is Heaton's analogy of the bicycle
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and the wrenches. He says that many people own
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bicycles, but very few people own a professional set of
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wrenches. When a bicycle breaks down, the
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owner looks for someone who has the specialized tools to fix it.
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That is a great picture. In the context of the church,
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the members are the bicycles. They break down the experience,
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sin, interpersonal conflict and theological confusion.
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The commentaries, the systematic theologies, the books on
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hermeneutics, those are the wrenches.
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The pastor needs to possess those heavy technical tools so
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he can fix the broken elements within his congregation.
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Those tools might not sell well. They might sit on the pastor's
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shelf most of the time. But when a crisis hits, the
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pastor absolutely must have them ready to deploy.
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But manufacturing those wrenches in a new language is fraught
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with danger. The vetting process for
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translators has to be incredibly rigorous.
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You cannot just hand a theology book to a secular commercial
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translation agency and hope for the best.
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No, absolutely not. Heaton recommends creating
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secialized test ackets to screen otential translators.
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You give them a acket with varying levels of difficulty.
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First, a couple of pages from a popular Christian living book
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that tests their ability to translate conversational
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concepts and accessible stories. Next you step it up.
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You give them a couple of pages from a 17th century Puritan
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treatise. Oh, that is a massive step up.
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It is that tests their ability to handle dense, historically
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weighty and structurally complex theological arguments that run
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on for paragraphs at a time. And finally, you give them the
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hardest test. You give them a couple of pages
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from a highly technical exegetical commentary that
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includes grammatical jargon, extensive footnotes, and
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original Greek and Hebrew fonts. If they could successfully
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translate that without losing the academic rigor or messing up
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the original languages, then you might have a qualified
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translator. That is quite the gauntlet.
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Furthermore, Heaton insists that while you might use a secular
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translator for an initial rough draft to save time, the
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proofreaders and the final editors must be Christians of
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the highest moral character who share the specific theological
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convictions of the publisher. And unbelievers simply will not
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care enough to find the precise theological word to convey
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complex truths. If they are translating a book
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about substitutionary atonement, the reality that Christ took our
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specific personal punishment on the cross, or the hypostatic
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union, the mind bending truth that Jesus is 100% God and 100%
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man simultaneously, and they use a sloppy word, they could
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accidentally birth a brand new heresy in that language.
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To give you a real world picture of how desperate the situation
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gets, let me share a story from the sources.
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Talget Dosayev shares his experience working in
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Kazakhstan. He talks about attending a
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pastoral conference 20 years ago.
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The main speaker was fired up, passionately calling all the
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pastors in the room to go home and read good books on theology
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and pastoral ministry to sharpen their minds.
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And a pastor from a small town stood up in the middle of the
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conference and replied that he could only read one small book
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that entire year. Why?
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Because it was the only Christian book that was newly
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available in the Kazak language. Just let that sink in for a
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moment. One small book for an entire
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year of ministry preparation. That level of theological
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starvation is hard for us in the West to even comprehend.
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And also have points out that when you're dealing with a
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language like Kazakh, finding the right words to convey
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biblical truth is a monumental task.
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He shares a shocking example of a translation error that went
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completely undetected for years in Kazakh.
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The translation team discovered that for almost 2 decades, the
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term that had been used for counseling actually carried the
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cultural meaning of surviving. Wait 20 years.
22:30
So if a pastor looked up a resource on how to counsel a
22:33
grieving widow, the book was literally giving him
22:35
instructions on how to survive her.
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That is a theological disaster. It absolutely is.
22:40
When a book or a manual was instructing pastors on how to
22:43
provide biblical counseling, the readers were interpreting it as
22:46
instructions on simply enduring or surviving the congregation.
22:50
It completely altered the meaning of pastoral care in that
22:53
region for an entire generation. This connects directly to the
22:57
necessity of precise theological terminology, which is a hallmark
23:01
of Reformed thinking. We believe that words matter
23:04
immensely because God revealed himself in specific words.
23:08
Dosayev explains that to properly translate a theological
23:11
concept into Kazak, a translator cannot just look at an English
23:15
book, open a dictionary, and guess the Kazakh equivalent.
23:18
No, they cannot. They have to trace the concept
23:20
backwards. They go from Kazakh to Russian
23:22
to English to Latin, all the way back to the original Greek or
23:25
Hebrew to ensure complete biblical fidelity.
23:28
They are tracing the genealogy of a single doctrine through
23:31
five different languages, just to make sure they do not
23:34
accidentally teach falsehood. It is a painstaking, exhausting
23:38
process that takes years. And while translators in Central
23:41
Asia are battling with language rarity and a lack of established
23:44
theological vocabulary, publishers in other parts of the
23:47
world are fighting entirely different battles.
23:50
They're trying to overcome massive cultural and physical
23:53
hurdles just to get the books into people's hands.
23:56
Josue Pineda Dale provides a report on the Spanish speaking
23:59
church in Latin America that is incredibly eye opening.
24:02
The numbers in Latin America are staggering.
24:05
Protestantism has seen explosive growth over the last century,
24:08
growing from around 50,000 believers to an estimated 50 to
24:12
150 million people. It is a massive continent wide
24:16
harvest. Yes, tremendous growth.
24:18
But Dale points out a severe crisis.
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There is an average 9% complete illiteracy rate across Latin
24:24
American and Caribbean countries, which equates to
24:26
roughly 38 million people who cannot read a single word.
24:31
On top of that, there is a pervasive non reading culture
24:33
among those who actually can read.
24:36
They simply do not have the cultural habit of picking up a
24:38
book to learn. They prefer oral communication
24:41
or video. And the publishers face
24:43
practical hurdles that discourage reading even further.
24:47
When theological books are printed locally, they're often
24:50
printed on very poor quality paper with cheap binding, and
24:54
they're riddled with typos and grammatical mistakes.
24:57
This deters readers. Absolutely.
24:59
If the physical product feels cheap and difficult to engage
25:02
with, a non reading culture will simply ignore it.
25:06
They're also massive distribution delays if a high
25:09
quality book is published in the United States or Mexico.
25:12
Getting it down to southern countries like Argentina
25:14
involves dealing with exorbitant import tariffs, complex
25:17
distribution chains and heavy government bureaucracy.
25:20
It can take months, sometimes years, for a vital theological
25:23
resource to reach a pastor in South America.
25:26
It's wild to think about the physical environment working
25:29
against the spread of the gospel, but let's talk about
25:31
what happens when a book finally makes it through customs, but
25:34
the translation itself destroys the theology.
25:37
The sources bring up the mistranslation of John Piper's
25:39
book Finally Alive. The entire premise of the book
25:42
is about the doctrine of regeneration, what it actually
25:45
means to be born again by the sovereign working of the Holy
25:47
Spirit. Right.
25:49
But when it was translated into Spanish, the title was rendered
25:52
as Mas Vivo Canuca, which translates back to More Live
25:56
Than Ever. That is a catastrophic
25:58
theological error. It violates the core Reformed
26:02
understanding of Ephesians 2.1, which steeds explicitly that we
26:06
were spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins.
26:09
We were not just sick, we were not sluggish.
26:11
We were stone cold dead. Yes, spiritually lifeless.
26:15
To title a book on regeneration, More Alive than Ever implies
26:19
that the natural unsaved man possesses some level of
26:23
spiritual life before conversion, and God just comes
26:26
along and boosts it. It subtly undermines the
26:29
doctrine of total depravity and sovereign grace.
26:31
Think about how that changes the gospel for someone sitting in a
26:34
church in Buenos Aires. If they think they are just sick
26:37
and need a spiritual boost to be more alive, they treat Jesus
26:40
like a vitamin supplement. You take your vitamins to feel a
26:42
little better. But if they know they're
26:44
spiritually dead, they treat Jesus like a defibrillator.
26:47
It is the difference between moral self help and actual
26:50
salvation. And it all hinged on a single
26:53
translated phrase on the cover of a book.
26:56
This proves that you cannot just hand these projects over to
26:59
someone who knows 2 languages. They must intimately understand
27:03
the theology they're handling. It is a phenomenal
27:06
responsibility, but sometimes the theology is translated
27:09
perfectly, the book gets printed, and it still gets
27:12
ruined by the environment itself.
27:14
Which brings us to what happened to Newton Chillinglo's church in
27:17
Malawi, shifting our focus to the physical hurdles faced by
27:20
the church in Africa. Chillinglo shares a fascinating
27:23
story. His church in Malawi wanted to
27:25
resource their congregation with solid reform teaching, but the
27:29
people had absolutely no access to theological books.
27:32
They were too expensive and unavailable, so the church
27:35
started a lending library with just 20 to 30 books.
27:38
To make sure the books were actually being read and not just
27:40
sitting on a night stand, they required the church members to
27:43
give an oral or written report on the book to a church leader
27:46
before they were allowed to check out another one.
27:49
This ensured that the congregation was actually
27:51
comprehending the material. It is a brilliant strategy for
27:54
discipleship in a culture where books are scarce.
27:57
It forces engagement, but the physical environment of Malawi
28:00
presented an unexpected challenge that shut the whole
28:03
thing down. Malawi is an incredibly dusty
28:06
country and the extreme dust was literally ruining the pages in
28:09
the bindings of the books. They could not maintain the
28:12
physical integrity of the library.
28:15
Furthermore, the church needed to tear down the library room to
28:18
expand their sanctuary for their rapidly growing congregation.
28:21
So they had to pivot their entire strategy.
28:23
They pivoted from a free lending library to a bookstore.
28:26
They started selling the books at modest subsidized prices to
28:30
generate enough income to buy more titles and keep the
28:32
inventory fresh. But the strategic reason for
28:35
this pivot is what really stands out.
28:37
By running a bookstore, they are able to provide a robust
28:40
alternative to the secular bookstores in their city.
28:43
Those secular stores were heavily promoting prosperity
28:46
gospel authors. We talked about this earlier.
28:49
These predatory authors are very aggressive in pushing their
28:51
material into Africa, promising massive wealth and perfect
28:54
health if you just send them money.
28:56
The local church's bookstore became a physical fortress of
28:59
truth, offering sound conservative evangelical
29:02
doctrines to combat the wolves who were trying to sell a false
29:05
gospel to vulnerable believers. If we connect this to the bigger
29:08
picture, we see that resourcing the global church is not a quick
29:12
fix. It is a meticulous, decades long
29:15
process of loving God with our minds.
29:18
It requires believers to labor in total obscurity, poring over
29:21
ancient lexicons, fighting through government red tape, and
29:24
raising funds, all to ensure that a pastor in a remote
29:27
village has the exact wrench he needs to understand the
29:30
scriptures and fetus flock. It is the ordinary means of
29:34
grace applied globally. We were taking the eternal truth
29:37
of God's Word and painstakingly housing it in the vocabulary and
29:40
grammar of every tribe and tongue on earth.
29:43
Before we wrap up, here is a wild variable the sources didn't
29:46
even touch on, but one we absolutely need to think about
29:49
as we look to the future Artificial intelligence.
29:52
We hear about AI translation engines like Google Translate
29:55
and DPL all the time. Right now they're mostly used to
29:58
translate a menu on vacation. But looking forward, what
30:02
happens if artificial intelligence becomes the primary
30:04
translator of complex theological works?
30:08
Will the lack of a human regenerated soul, a soul that
30:11
has actually felt the crushing weight of sin, experience the
30:14
terror of God's holy law, and rejoiced in the grace of Christ,
30:17
results in a sterile, slightly off center theology?
30:21
Can a cold machine accurately convey the warmth of pastoral
30:24
care or the majesty of divine sovereignty?
30:26
Or, in the sovereign plan of God, will AI be a providential
30:30
tool that accelerates the Great Commission breaking down
30:33
language barriers in a matter of seconds rather than decades?
30:36
It is a fascinating frontier for you to consider.
30:38
The medium may change, the technology may advance, but the
30:42
mandate remains constant. We must equip the Saints with
30:45
the truth. Thank you for sitting down with
30:47
us for this deep dive on Reformed thinking.
30:49
We encourage you to pick up a theologically sound book today,
30:53
read it with immense gratitude, and offer a prayer of thanks to
30:56
God for the invisible army of translators, proofreaders, and
30:59
publishers who labor tirelessly so you could hold the truth in
31:02
your hands. Grace and peace to you all.