Today’s devotion is based off of week 4 of Unlikely Heroes: A Translator (WATCH HERE)
After eight weeks of traveling in Europe, we landed in Detroit, Michigan from the long flight over the Atlantic. As I walked off the plane and into the airport gate, I noticed something I had not noticed before. I could read the signs. I could understand the people. Everything was in English, the language I know and understand!
On a daily basis, we take this for granted. However for the majority of eight weeks in Europe we tried to piece together a little Greek in Athens, or Italian in Rome, or German in Berlin, or Norwegian in Norway, or French in Paris. We had a book of common phrases to get us to the train, the bathroom, or grocery store. But carrying on a meaningful conversation with someone was difficult at best and impossible at worst.
How much would we have gained if we could speak in all of those languages and be able to understand all those languages!
Being able to operate in a country and culture that matches your language is a blessing which seems like normal to us. But when we step out of that context into a foreign country and language we get to appreciate what it means to not have the ability to understand.
At Pentecost, the people who came to Jerusalem must have felt like us traveling in Europe. They maybe could find their place to stay, or something to eat, or where the bathroom was, but they were visitors in a place that didn’t speak their language.
Until they heard the disciples.
Acts 2:5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”
The excitement wasn’t just to understand where the baggage claim was and what was being served on the menu, the excitement was to hear the disciples proclaim the amazing truths of God in their native language! We don’t know what all the disciples proclaimed, but if it was close to what Peter said, the key thing they learned that day was that God’s Spirit was being sent to convict their heart of sin and turn them to the answer to sin, their Savior Jesus Christ.
They didn’t have to guess. They didn’t miss anything. They had it in their own language!
This is what the Lutheran Bible Translators are doing…bringing the wonders of God to people in their own language. Dr. Pfluger related a number of instances of the joy that people had when they heard the Word of God for the first time in their language. Finally it was not only understood, but they were able to hear about Jesus for the first time in their native language. Give thanks for the Word of God in your language…consider supporting this mission work to bring the wonders of God to people who do not yet have a Bible in their language!
Apply: Take time to listen to this week’s message (Link is at the beginning of the devotion.) Go to https://lbt.org/missionary/dr-chris-and-janine-pluger/ to read more about the Pfulgers and give a gift as the Lord moves you to do so.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for the gift of having your word in a language I can understand. AMEN