A few years ago, at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, the International Mission Board (IMB) gave Southern Baptists the opportunity to help provide Bibles for people groups across the globe—particularly, for people groups who don’t have access to Scripture in their heart languages.
To mark the occasion, Southern Baptists who participated in this effort could highlight a verse from Scripture displayed in the IMB’s booth. My wife and I highlighted Revelation 5:6, which exalts Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain, who by His death redeemed people “from every tribe and language and people and nation.” We prayed, and still pray, that God’s Word will soon be available to people in every language.
Having heard this, you may be able to understand how stunned I was when, late last month, I read this passage from British linguist David Crystal, writing about the pending death of thousands of languages across the globe:
Benjamin Hawkins, editor of The Pathway
“There is nothing unusual about a single language dying,” Crystal wrote. “Communities have come and gone throughout history, and with them their language. Hittite, for example, died out when its civilization disappeared in Old Testament times. But what is happening today is extraordinary, judged by the standards of the past. It is language extinction on a massive scale. Of the 6,000 or so languages in the world about half are going to die out in the course of the present century: 3,000 languages, in 1,200 months. That means, on average, there is a language dying out somewhere in the world every two weeks or so.”
It’s hard to fathom what the full missionary implications of this impending “language extinction” are. At the very least, it highlights the urgency of sharing the gospel and making Scripture available among thousands of language groups across the globe.
According to Wycliffe Bible Translators, which is seeking “to have a translation program in progress in every language still needing one by the year 2025,” 1,067 remaining languages lack Bible translation projects.
Thankfully, because of the generous support of Southern Baptist churches through the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the IMB is pursuing Bible translation and Bible distribution projects across the globe.
For example, one team of IMB missionaries have labored for several years to finish the first written translation of the entire Bible for a people group in a remote, mountainous region in Central Asia. Earlier this year, they reported that their New Testament translation is bearing fruit in the region, and they are pressing on to complete a translation of the Old Testament. (Read more here.)
Meanwhile, according to a 2022 IMB news report, other missionaries – working with national partners – translated oral Bible story sets into “23 languages among many of the least-served people groups of South Asia.” At the time, they were also already working to translate the complete New Testament into 16 of these 23 languages. (Read more here.)
“We’re working on seeing every tribe, every language be able to have an understandable and appropriate presentation of the gospel in their language,” said one of the missionaries working on these translation projects. “This is such a huge need in this area of South Asia where you have so many harder-to-reach languages in harder-to-reach areas. …
“God’s Word,” this missionary added, “is so effective, especially when they hear it in the language that speaks to their heart.”
Missouri Baptists: Let’s pray, give and go so that people groups around the world can hear or read Scripture in their own languages and experience the transformative power of the gospel.
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In early August, dozens of IMB Missionary Kids (MKs) from around the globe gathered at Encounter Cove (formerly, Windermere Baptist Conference Center) in central Missouri. The 61 MKs came from missionary families working in seven of the IMB’s Affinity Groups.
The IMB and Missouri WMU partnered together to host these MKs for a week-long “re-entry retreat” as they leave the mission field to attend college in the United States. Missouri Baptist churches and ministries provided $65,000 for the retreat.
Please pray for these new college students as they adjust to their new lives in the United States, and pray for their families who continue to serve on the mission field.