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.