Feature Articles

Billions of people in the world are bilingual and even multilingual. It is not unusual for people in India or Africa to speak four or five languages. Why should it be so difficult for missionaries to learn a new language or two? Perhaps we are going at language learning in the wrong way. The normal procedure for our missionaries is Bible college, deputation, and then a language school on their chosen field. There is a vitally important step that is usually overlooked: pre-field linguistic training such as has been available for Baptist missionaries at BBTI for nearly fifty years. Some have greatly benefited from it, however, the vast majority have either not known of its existence or chosen not to take advantage of it.

The ground is level at the foot of the cross, meaning that all are welcomed and received equally when they come to God through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus made a full and final atonement for the sins of Adam and all his descendants. Not only does God desire that all would arrive at the cross (1 Timothy 2:4), He commands it (Acts 17:30). The ground is indeed level at the foot of the cross, but the road leading there is not. For some there are seemingly insurmountable obstacles along the way.

To the place I heard the Gospel for the first time, I drove one mile on a paved road. I passed no checkpoints, and no armed guards asked where I was going. I walked into the building in broad daylight. It was not an underground church service. I feared no retaliation from a religious system. No family member opposed my going or persecuted me afterward. I heard the message in my language without it going through an interpreter. If I did not know better, I might think God loves me more than most people in the world. For me, the road to the cross was smooth and easy. I wish it were for everyone.

Understanding of a people’s culture is vital. If the missionary does not know the culture, he is likely to deliver a confused message. The following article by a BBTI graduate, whose identity we must conceal, demonstrates this fact. Understanding of a people’s culture is vital. If the missionary does not know the culture, he is likely to deliver a confused message.

In the process of language learning, we have heard several folktales and children’s stories and have learned much about the people’s cultural mindset and worldview. We have seen at least three common themes.

Firstly, people are collectivists, NOT individualists. In America, we have been rooted in humanism to the point that “I define me.” In other words, I get to decide what I think is right and wrong. In general, westerners want to stand out of the crowd, be their own person, and have their own opinions. It does not work that way here. A person’s goal in a collectivist society is to progress the community; all are equal, and everyone is happy. Nobody has more than anyone else, we are all one big family, and what is mine is yours. This could explain why communism, to a certain point, makes sense here culturally. It is when the people discover that the dictators are above everyone else, have more, and are bossing people around that things begin to change. Which brings us to the next point…

This title comes from an article by Paul Fleming. It makes us laugh but should make us cry. In practice, a lot of men are saying, “Send my sister.” Fleming goes on to write:

We men! We are the stronger sex; it has always been so! We send our gifts to mission fields, to which the women go. While up the steepest jungle paths, a woman bravely treads, We men, who are the stronger sex, do pray beside our beds. When women leave to go abroad, the heathen souls to reach, We men, who are the stronger sex, do stay at home to preach. While women, in some far-off shack, do brave the flies and heat, We men, who are the stronger sex, in cool and comfort eat. Fatigued and weary, needing rest, the women battle on. We men, who are the stronger sex, do write to cheer them on! O valiant men! Come let us sleep and rest our weary heads. We shall not be the stronger sex if we neglect our beds!

When a man decides to go to the mission field, his wife may have little to say about it. But for sure, his children have no voice or vote—they go. It is not a problem for young children; they simply go where mama and daddy go. Children seven or nine years old may be concerned that they cannot take all their toys, but it is probably not a disturbing event. However, for preteens or teens it is an altogether different story. They are facing a big struggle. Being teenagers is hard enough in a place where they know the language and culture perfectly. In a strange new place where they cannot speak the language and have no idea how to act, it can be traumatic and terrifying.

“And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:59-60).

No one who teaches this passage believes that this man’s father was at the morgue or even on hospice. The father was probably old and would perhaps die within a few years. If the young man left home, he would lose his inheritance. He did not refuse to follow Jesus; he just said it would have to be later. He said, “Let me do what I want to do first, what I think is best for me.” Jesus was concerned about the multitudes scattered as lost sheep without the knowledge of the kingdom of God, and He wanted the young man to help reach them. But, it did not fit the young man’s plans and aspirations.

King Solomon said,“of making many books there is no end.” There are millions of books, both true and ficticious, covering every possible subject. Imagine how many things we read in a day besides books, newspapers, or magazines. We read instructions (sooner or later), road signs, billboards, medicine bottles, letters, signs for businesses, house numbers, labels on food or drink containers, T-shirts, tattoos, bumper stickers, the Yellow Pages, text messages, and so on. However, this is only possible if ours is a written language, and if we are literate. Many in our world do not have this skill that most of us take for granted. Where would we be in this world without the skill of literacy? Can you imagine a GI overseas asking his buddy to read him the love letter he just received from his gal back home? Illiteracy can be dangerous. When someone cannot read the sign that says “Wrong Way” and enters the freeway going the opposite direction of traffic flow, or when an illiterate mother gives her child the wrong medicine because she cannot read the label, lives are endangered. We owe a great debt to those who patiently taught us to read!

A young Christian, whom we will call Bill, was beginning to learn about the work of missions. He was intrigued by the missionaries that visited his church, and it concerned him that many in the world have little or no chance of hearing the Gospel and that most of the preachers were staying in the United States. A missionary on his way to Honduras had shown slides and preached in Bill’s church. As he left that day, Bill said the nice things that people say to missionaries. The missionary replied, “Thank you. Maybe you will come to Honduras and help us.” Not knowing how to respond to this challenge, Bill repeated something he had once heard, “God has not called me to be a missionary.”

“The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Psalm 119:130). The apostle Paul tells us that God’s Word is not bound. “Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound” (2 Timothy 2:9). The writer of Hebrews expands on this: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword” (Heb. 4:12a). We know this to be true because we see it in the Bible, we read about it in history, and we have experienced it in our own lives.

The story is told of an unsaved anthropologist who warned a jungle chief, “There are some people called missionaries, and they have a book called the Bible. Don’t allow them to come to your village! They will destroy your culture.” The chief smiled and said, “You are too late. They have already been here. And it is very good for you that they came, otherwise I would have already killed and eaten you!”

Many of God’s people lament the moral decline in America and are petitioning the God of Heaven to send revival to our land; no one would deny that we desperately need it! Some admit that revival is theoretically possible, but are skeptical that it will ever come. They say we have gone too far away from God. But surely, America has not gone farther downhill than Nineveh. Our perverted society is only a step behind Sodom, but Sodom would have repented if Jesus would have performed His mighty works there as He did at Capernaum (Matthew 11:23).

What results are we praying for? What will revival look like or accomplish if it comes to our country? We hope revival will yield spiritual benefits. We hope it will bring an increased church attendance, separation of church members from the world, more prayer, more love for the Bible, more souls saved in our churches and in our community, better offerings, more churches planted in America to replace those that have gone liberal or died, and more young people training for and entering the ministry. (At a large Christian college, the last graduating class of nine hundred eighty students contained only eight or nine mission majors. I have been on that campus twice and found these fine young people preparing to stay in the United States and be good, upstanding Christian nurses, businessmen, engineers, policemen, lawyers, doctors, teachers, graphic designers, computer scientists, and so forth. Few, however, are planning to be ministers in general, and fewer still intend to be missionaries and take the Gospel to where it has never been.)

The story is told of the farmer who didn’t plant corn for fear of blight, he didn’t plant beans for fear of drought, and he failed to plant wheat for fear that a fire might burn his crop just before harvest. He told a friend, “No, this year I’m playing it safe!” A BBTI graduate in the world’s most populous country just wrote, “Pray for more laborers; we sure do need them.” Missionaries never say, “Don’t send any more missionaries; we have more than we need.” And the heathen, in their own way, are pleading, “Come over and help us!” Meanwhile, many, realizing the seriousness of missionary service, are playing it safe and staying home.

“There is no price too high to pay for proper preparation.” This is the conclusion of veteran missionary Jon De Rusha, Asian Field Administrator with Baptist Missions to Forgotten Peoples. He goes on to say, “We first arrived in the Niger in 1971. We, along with two other families, were there to reach the Taureg people of the Sahara. To our knowledge, the Gospel had never been preached to these people. At first, we did not know they even had a script of their language, Tamachek. Later, we learned there was a script but very few of the Tauregs could read it. We went with a minimum of French language study, no linguistics, no proficiency in Hebrew or Greek, no understanding of translation principles, etc. At that juncture in the history of Independent Baptist missions, I am not sure how much awareness existed among us as to what preparations were necessary to accomplish the objective. Once we were there, we realized quite pertinently just how unprepared we were.”