- Stephen & Madison Dillard
- Nov 16, 2019
- 2 min read
One of our favorite holidays is Thanksgiving. It challenges us to reflect on the things we are grateful for, generating a thankfulness that overrides discontentment.
We are grateful for the cozy, fall weather. We are grateful for opportunities to reconnect with distant friends and family. We are grateful for sausage balls.
More importantly, we are grateful for the chance to read Scripture in our own language, at any time.
We are grateful for the opportunity to use our skills to further Bible translation. It is impossible to imagine how different our own lives would be if we had no access to a Bible.
What are some things you are grateful for? We'd love to hear them!
Community
Most people would agree that Thanksgiving is not meant to be a solo act. It’s a communal activity. It’s a chance to work together, using our diverse gifts, to create a beautiful experience of fellowship and thanks.
For example, Not everyone can bake a delicious pie. Not everyone can cook, for that matter. (Some of us try really hard to follow directions.) There are others who craft dishes with artistic creativity.
There are cooks and cleaners, baby watchers and hiding parents, talkers and game players, those who take the picture and those who are in it. But when everyone chips in, our family’s Thanksgiving runs more smoothly.
When we gather around the table, no matter our ability to cut a turkey, everyone gets to participate in the meal. No one is excluded. Everyone benefits from the work of others.
Bible translation requires a similar mentality of community. It is more efficient, effective, and accurate when diverse people use their gifts to chip in to the mission of reaching the Bible-less.
Whether translators or administrators, language consultants or software engineers, financial partners or prayer partners, people individually serve to achieve the communal goal.
It is people doing the things they’re actually good at, by the Holy Spirit’s help, to spread the fame of Jesus as Bibles are translated into new languages. It is the Church working together to carry out the mission of God.
