Abstract
Kαι ιδου οχλος πολυζ, αν αριθμησαι αυτσν συδεις εδυνατο, εκ παντος εθνους και φυλων και λαων και (Revelation 7:9) So we are told, in the original Greek, about the crowd assembled before the throne of God; they come from every language group. Christians have a peculiar relationship to languages. We believe that God revealed himself mostly in two languages, but apart from scholars, we do not require, as Muslims do, the people of the book to master the original language of the book. We seem to assume that the message is translatable (at least as far as the King James Version!). Then is it possible to apply that same assumption to the world of missions: a world in which when a Korean, a Chinese, and a German sit down for tea, they chat in English? If Paul could use the common language of his day, do missionaries really have to spend about a quarter of their first term trying to get a handle on some obscure tongue? Surprisingly, I answer, maybe not.
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