Lost in Translation

When staying in a country that has eleven official languages, it often happens that you will find yourself in company where you can’t understand what is being said. It’s a pretty frustrating experience. It doesn’t take long to convince yourself that the people are gossiping about you (which is probably almost never the case).

I believe that people who are not engaged in a faith community often feel the same when they are around followers of Christ. We tend to speak a language that is pretty incomprehensible to people outside of our Christian circle.

In a country with eleven official languages; a country where some people live a first world lifestyle and many others are well and truly living the third world life, a country with a staggering amount of cultures and sub-cultures; if you don’t have the ability to understand different people, you will very soon be stuck on an island of isolation. Also, if we don’t cultivate the ability to translate our faith in such a way that different people will be able to comprehend, we are losing out on ample opportunities to share the gospel in authentic ways.

Jesus was a master translator. He would often use parables, imbedded in a specific cultural context that was familiar to the hearers, so that the Gospel could be grasped. What we often do nowadays, is to repeat the same parables that Jesus told; often with disregard for the social context in which the parables were told. New paradigms often require new parables. To expect that the language that we are used to as followers of Christ will be understood by people who are not familiar with the language that we often use, is to expect way too much.

Jesus had the ability to use familiar things, so that people would come to understand what was unfamiliar to them. We often try to explain what is familiar to us, in ways that are unfamiliar for other people. If we are serious about the mission of God, we will use less time to speak the language that we are comfortable with, and spend more time learning the languages that are not familiar to us. Before we use words like ‘the lost’, we should consider that many people are lost in translation. As important as learning unfamiliar languages are to followers of Christ, learning to translate our faith language is equally important.

Jesus said that we should shake the dust from our feet when people are not interested to receive the gospel. Before you shake the dust from your feet, ask yourself: have I been a faithful servant of the gospel? Have I done enough to make the gospel comprehensible and contagious?

We are born with an inherent ability to create, and the ability to acquire new knowledge. The Spirit enables us to use these things, so that others will come to know Christ.