Intercultural Gospeling and a Literal Translation of Scripture

The method seemed to be oral instruction, and this method is still quite popular.
I can understand your apprehension. I think though, that kindness is not enough to convert skeptics. I have to prove things to be likely in order to believe.

I agree. The more I study it, the more clear it becomes that I will never be able to fully immerse myself in the original audience and how the text was meant to be taken. The Message is more than a word for word translation.

Yes, but God gave us culture on top of that. No human alive is a blank slate that anything can be written on him or her.

Why have you been studying these things?
Do you plan on devoting your life to the mission field, or are these purely academic questions?

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Culture!? OK, I live in Spain. I am not RCC so most Spanish who believe such think I am a pagan...……….this is culture.

Furthermore, all the cultures of the earth, all the amassed scientific knowledge of this age , everything will be gone in the fire next time, and according to our faith nothing will reamin except the eternal.

I wonder what culture, our Father would be to you? I look forward to His perfecting us all and we all live in etrnal perfection. That is not a product of culture, that is a product of faith.

If they don't understand the bible words, God said He would make the rocks cry out with His message.
We ARE taught by the Holy Spirit, WITH scripture...........the Spirit does not teach on His own but always in harmony with the Father and the Son.

If anyone is hearing "voices" they need to get HELP.

Can you give me some example of this? Im interested to know

This is what the delusional dynamic equivalence proponents believe. But it is totally false.

1. All human beings are sinners.

2. All need to be saved.

3. Christ is the Savior of the world.

4. Therefore God commands all men everywhere to obey the Gospel -- repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

I know there are SOME idioms that cannot be translated word for word.

But MOST of the Bible can definately be easily translated to every language on the planet. I speak multiple languages and 99% of the texts I got no problem translating off the top of my head. Very simple, really.

Dog is a dog in spanish and in english.

I definately favor the formal equivelance translations (Notice i didnt say word for word, such a thing does NOT exist) over the dynamic equivelance ones.
Problem with the latter is, they have the ability to just make it up as they go along to make it "easier to understand".

As one Pastor said: I find it amazing that Americans who speak english as their native language cant figure out simple thees and thous. People with university and college education. Unbelievable.

I agree. The Holy Spirit will interpret scripture for us. Sometime what is said in scripture may be for another time or another people. It is dangerous for us to read a certain passage then force ourselves to draw a conclusion. We can't help but go wrong doing that.

Scripture has to fit together into a picture of what God is doing with His creation. It's like a big puzzle. When something finally fits, then we can define it. There is nothing wrong to confess we don't have all knowledge. Never will, this side of glory.

As far as my own meager studies have takenme, I have seen how the Hebrew is translated quite well, including idiomatic terms and phrases.

For instance one idiomatic reference is when a person's nostrils flare…….it means becoming angryi, but it is translated as becoming angry.

I study these things because I am a theology major in university. I began attending in hopes of being able to light the world on fire for God.

It makes little difference in this topic where you live. I have friends in Iran, Romania, England, Canada, the United States, and so forth.
I am uncertain on this topic, as who we are is strongly based in our culture. I cannot agree nor disagree with you until I have evidence for both.
I think that God will be according to each culture, as the apostles demonstrated in their ministry.

The main thing about culture is: Mine is right, yours is wrong. Mine is perfectly normal, yours is weird.

Thats the bottom line.

The Apostles were all jews, but their hebrew culture was largely impacted by greek/hellenistic vibes by the 1st century. There is even a thing called "hellenistic judaism" at the time. Which the Apostles obviously werent part of, but just saying, it was a common thing among jews at large during that time.

Perhaps, just perhaps, there are scholars at your university who have a lack of experience in practical ministry.

In your opening post, you describe the dilemma of giving the gospel to people who are not well educated enough to comprehend scholarly works.
This is not a genuine dilemma.

Scholarly works have a very important place, but those who are trained in practical ministry have had no trouble, for millennia, in explaining doctrinal truths to less educated people. There is no dilemma here.

I am far from the best example of an evangelist, and even I have led people to Christ, in 3rd world countries, with no more appeal to "scholarly works" than my ability to draw in the dirt with a stick.

God Bless
Max

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You took the words right outta my mouth Max . I wanted to type this but refrained since I didnt want to discourage anyone from pursuing a theology degree.

But from my experience, the regular joe has the best tools for evangelizing already at his disposal. And that is, KEEP IT SIMPLE.

This is one of my pet peeves of the "what is the gospel" videos on youtube, if some unsaved person looks them up and listens to someone like John Piper, guaranteed they will be confused, he uses much "theology slang" that the average joe wont get.

One thing I would also say: Peter was a fisherman, he wasnt a highly educated man. God used him greatly.
BUT: Lets not forget, degrees and education has their place, PAUL on the other hand was a very educated man and knowledgeable in judaism, which helped him greatly, and the Lord used him greatly!

What is this supposed to be?

Mmm, yes. Such as those illiterate. I'm not saying they couldn't become literate and then learn to study, but everything is tainted from culture. One of the lecturers has spent considerable time in South Asia. Some of the required reading was books by Scott McKnight and David Liverpool.
I don't believe that scholarly works are necessary to lead others to Christ.

I think translating scripture on one hand and explaining the gospel to people so they understand are two different things.
Not everyone is going to get it its even hidden to those who are lost.
For example Paul was at a greek forum and pointed to an inscription that said 'to an unknown God' he then used this as a starting point to explain the gospel to this audience of greeks and philosophers.

This is not to say when he was quoting scripture that he changed what it meant. But he would explain it, that is why we have expository preaching. The greeks at the time did have a translation the septugint and many people would read that translation, but it didnt mean the original hebrew was changed or the story changed to make it set in a greek world. Moses did not suddenly become like this emporor and prophets philosophers consulting the oracles of Delphi.

Most times when we read the Bible in translation we can know what it means and thank God there are word for word translations so we get the direct words, and even idioms literally translated for us because the Bible has many word pictures...not someone putting their own cultural ideas on top of it.

Emergent Church, Postmodernism & Deconstruction

Maybe you're reading too many proponents of the emergent church movement, and you should consider reading some of it's detractors.

There are other views on how things should be done.
I think the deconstructionist views of postmodernism have crept too insidiously into the church.

I would recommend giving equal consideration to those with views opposing the emergent church.

If you don't consider some other views, I'm afraid you're going to be neutralized in the mire of deconstructionism.
Think about your own opening post.
Your teachers have you convinced it's virtually impossible to teach people in other cultures, or teach them with current translations... and yet people have been doing those very things perfectly well for a long, long time.
It's a bit nonsensical.

I recommend you devote some serious time, thought, and study, to other views.

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