Languages and the Bible

God has spoken to us through His Word, and His Word is perspicuous. The Westminster Confession describes perspicuity in this way: “...those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” Perspicuity doesn't mean that we will understand every verse in the Scriptures. But the Bible is revelation: It is God is making His truth known. So clarity is good. We of all people should seek to be clear. God uses words to communicate with us. And Christ is called the Word in John 1:1. How then should we think of language, and of languages?



Confusion is Bad

At the tower of Babel, God confused the people's language. Their inability to communicate equaled an inability to accomplish what they had purposed in their heart to do. To our modern ears, the word diversity is only positive. But the creation of the diversity of languages was God's judgment on those building the city who said, “Let us make a name for ourselves.” Anyone who has tried to get out of a French airport without a working knowledge of the French language knows how sweet the ability to communicate really is.

In I Corinthians 14, Paul also tells us that the purpose of language is to communicate truth, and language without meaning is not serving its purpose. There is much dispute over what the Biblical gift of tongues looked like in the New Testament church. But Paul's conclusion in v. 15 to his argument throughout I Corinthians 14 is clear: Pray with the Spirit, and also pray with the understanding. If one speaks, and if their words are not able to be understood, Paul says they are like an instrument that doesn't make a distinction in sound (v. 7-9). If one speaks, and the hearer doesn't know the language, they are foreigners to each other (and the implication is clearly, that is bad). If one speaks in a foreign tongue without an interpretation, the understanding is unfruitful. It shouldn't surprise us then that the God who has spoken through prophets, the God who uses verbal revelation, the God who gifts pastors and teachers also tells us that we ought to use our words to edify the understanding. Our God is not the author of confusion (v.33).



In what way are tongues a sign to unbelievers, as it says in I Corinthians 14:22? God used foreign tongues as a sign of judgment on His people. God pronounced this judgment in Isaiah 28 to those “...who would not hear...,” saying that “...with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to His people (v. 11).” And this was done “That they might go and fall backward, and be broken and snared and caught.” This is a reference to foreign captivity to come, under which Judah was judged for forsaking the Lord (Isaiah 1:4), and was immersed in a foreign tongue. We should not desire to have words without significance spoken, or tongues spoken without interpretation. Because understanding is good.

It is in this way that the gift of tongues given at Pentecost is an undoing of a curse. Jews, Arabs, those from Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Libya, all heard the works of God spoken of in their own language and were amazed. God is removing confusion and ignorance.



Bible Translation

This undergirds the value and the need for Bible translation. Those of us who support Bible translators from our comfortable homes have the easy part. Barbara Thomas, the author of Through the Outhouse Floor, together with her husband, spent five years studying French and linguistics in Brussels in preparation for Bible translation in Zaire (now D. R. Congo). Her book greatly conveys the clash of cultures and the dangers faced by missionaries involved in Bible translation, and what many are willing to endure in order to put the truth of God into the hands of people they didn't even know.



Once in Zaire, her family lived with the Komo people, a people who were without any written language. She writes that a four year old child in the U.S. has had more exposure to written words than a 40 to 50 year old Komo woman. The nine year old girls in their literacy class had never before held a pencil. The Komo people had Bibles in Swahili, but the Swahili they knew was different from the high Swahili in their Bibles. Thomas writes, “...instead of using the more incomprehensible Bible, people corrected or encouraged us by using their hymnals. Yet even then, they could only guess at the meaning of some of the words.”

Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of Voice the Martyrs, was imprisoned and tortured for fourteen years in Romania for his work preaching to the Russian and Romanian people and distributing Bibles and Christian literature. After his release, he was overjoyed to receive Bibles and Christian materials from American and British Christians who risked their lives to give him and others the Word of God. Wurmbrand writes, “The value of the Bibles smuggled in by these means cannot be understood by an American or an English Christian who 'swims' in Bibles.”



"It is the chart and compass..." O Word of God Incarnate

We can take part in this mission. There are missionaries in need of prayer, financial support, and resources. Learning a foreign language might be one way in which God will use us for His purposes. Teaching our children a foreign language might open up opportunities for them to spread the gospel. Voice of the Martyrs still sends Bibles into countries where people are requesting Bibles, yet obtaining a Bible is dangerous or against the law. When a speaker from Voice of the Martyrs recently spoke at my church, he showed a video clip of a room of people waiting where Bibles were being delivered. When the boxes were opened, they jumped around and cried with happiness. And there are more people waiting. There is much work to be done. And much to pray for.

teaching our children the gospel

Those of us who know Christ, are we teaching our children to know Him? Those of us who have had our sins laid to Christ's account and His life of obedience has been credited to us in return, do our children understand that great exchange? Unfortunately, it is all too possible to go to church on Sundays, open the Bible to read favorite passages, and to still not be clear on what the gospel announcement is. And it is equally possible for our children to hear the Bible read, go to the same church building we do, without being clearly taught, what must I do to be saved?



It is true that no parent can make a child believe the propositions of saving faith. But it would be easy for us to let that become an excuse for our lack of effort at times to teach those propositions. While we can't make our children believers, we can make sure that our children comprehend the message of the gospel. We can make sure they comprehend these truths at a young age. No one can assent to ideas which they don't understand. We pray, we hope, we fret, but how often do we neglect the one thing which God promises will not return void, His Word (Isaiah 55:11)? Souls are made new by the Word and the Spirit. Our children will not know Christ if they don't hear from the Scriptures, and specifically about imputation.



One Problem: Our Lack of Clarity

Ask Christians what one must do to be saved, and some will say, “Ask Jesus into your heart.” Yet when Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3 what one must do to enter the kingdom of God, He spoke differently: He said that we must be born again. And He went on to explain what that means. The problem with telling a child that they must invite Jesus into their heart, is that without addition explanation, it has about as much meaning as saying, “You must put God on your head.” It is metaphorical language, and it requires a non-metaphorical explanation. Does inviting Jesus into your heart mean to ask for God's guidance? Does it mean to have a warm feeling towards the person of Christ? Does it mean to desire to live like He did? Or does it mean to believe that He lived a perfect life in your place and died to pay the penalty you deserved? Simply telling a child to invite Jesus into their heart, without explanation, leaves out the reality of sin, its penalty, and the true way out.



“...all things that pertain to life and godliness [are given] through the knowledge of Him...”

This is what 2 Peter 1:3 tells us. So the question is, what must a young person know and believe in order to receive eternal life? The answer is the same as what an adult must believe.

Because of our sin, we are enemies of God. And it's not just adults who are sinners. All those who have Adam as their representative are like Adam. Small children sin too. Even the cutest ones.



Sin deserves punishment. Personally, I was raised knowing that I sinned and that everyone sinned. But I was also taught that my sins were no big deal, they weren't as bad as those people over there, that I really didn't have anything to worry about. Ask your child, what will become of whose who die without Christ as their representative? And teach them the Biblical answer.

Salvation does not come through our adherence to God's law. And we are so prone to think that it does. It is enlightening to ask your little ones, will someone go to heaven because they go to church every Sunday? Do people go to heaven because they read their Bible every day? Ask them if someone who lies can go to heaven. What about someone who killed Christians, like the apostle Paul? How they answer shows whether or not they understand imputation. It obviously isn't needed that they know the word imputation. But like us, our children can be confused about the relationship of works to the gospel.

So what is the gospel? What does Paul mean by the message of the cross, which is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18)? The Sunday school answer is, “Jesus died on the cross for my sins.” But even in this expression, there is room for misunderstanding. Many who can recite that Jesus died on the cross have missed the significance of why. Death on the cross is not the same thing as the atonement. Two other people were crucified at Calvary with Christ. But only one provided atonement. Jesus died in the place of others. His death actually paid the punishment earned by sinners. Jesus' death on the cross was not just as a display of love to a watching world. He was paying a debt for His people, a debt that must be paid for redemption to be accomplished. His people are legally declared not guilty on this basis.

He was a substitute. There is a reason why God's people in the old testament were repeatedly given the picture of a substitute in the sacrificial system, an innocent slain for the guilty. Teaching our children about those old testament types helps make the language of a substitute make sense. Ask your child, why did Christ need to die?

Some people think that these kinds of questions are too difficult for a preschooler to understand. And most likely, a young child will not grasp all of this the first time it is presented. But I personally have known very young children who do comprehend these concepts. Some children answer consistently with the answer, no, someone who lies cannot go to heaven. Some young children consistently say, yes, if you go to church every Sunday you will go to heaven. And some little ones have consistently said, in Christ alone I stand.



I love using a catechism to teach my little ones. Question 37 in the Children's Prove It catechism asks, How does Christ redeem His people? The answer given is, “He kept the whole law for His people and suffered the punishment their sins deserved.” The simplified version I'm teaching my two and a half year old is, “He obeyed the law and died on the cross.” I will add more information when she has that down. At this point, she just says, “obeyed,” (pause) “law.” Memorizing our catechism answers does not cause belief, but it does give us a common language, and in that way, it paves the way for more explanation and discussion. There are so many opportunities to teach, as we sit in our house, as we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up (Deuteronomy 6:7). The outcome is determined by the Lord. And yet He has also determined the means. And God graciously at times allows us to be those means.

of like faith

I was pretty sure that ten years from now, I would be looking back on the fact that I didn't start a single blog (I did try to start a blog in French once, but no one looked at it, so it doesn't count). I know there are so many creative and edifying blogs out there, and they all have the ability to keep us from the things we woke up vowing to get done.



I can't seem to find the time to check any of the interesting blogs I discover, no matter how much I like the blog. But here I am starting a blog. So here's why:


I love to talk theology. At my church, it is normal for many of us to hang out for an hour or more after the Sunday service or Wednesday night Bible study has ended, and talk. We get into great conversations. Sometimes there are different theological conversations in different clusters of people. But frequently, the guys are huddled in a theological discussion, and I'm having fun with the ladies in more general conversations (lately involving learning French and Russian). As enjoyable and encouraging as that is, I think us ladies sometimes miss out on that theological sharpening. So I decided that a blog would be an avenue to great dialogue among friends. “...To those who have obtained like precious faith...,” Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:1. I am thankful to know so many ladies at this time in my life with that like precious faith. Ladies who like to talk theology too. So I hope this is fun.